Sudan coup: Protestors face tear gas and bullets

On Saturday, five protesters were killed in protests in Sudan, according to witnesses and medical, when massive crowds braved gunfire and tear gas in the capital Khartoum and other cities to march against a military takeover.

The protests came two days after army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan unveiled a new executive council that excludes the civilian coalition with which the military has been sharing authority since 2019, strengthening resistance to the October 25 coup among pro-democracy parties.

Security officers attempted to disperse protestors as soon as they began to gather in the early afternoon, indicating that authorities may be ratcheting up efforts to quell a campaign of planned protests and civil disobedience. According to witnesses, they shot tear gas and pushed demonstrators into side streets in order to keep them from reaching primary meeting areas.

Previously, security forces waited until later in the day to intervene.

‘People were startled that they launched tear gas so early,’ one protester in Omdurman, across the Nile from central Khartoum, claimed, adding that demonstrators retreated, barricaded roadways and then reassembled.

The majority of protestors dispersed on their own around sundown, while tear gas and shooting were said to have persisted until around 8 at night in Khartoum North when security forces arrested protesters and removed their barricades, witnesses reported

According to the witnesses, the number of people in Khartoum exceeded tens of thousands, with significant groups in neighbouring towns pushing the total to hundreds of thousands.

‘The revolutionaries have nothing but peace in their hearts and are calling for democracy and the restoration of civilian authority that Burhan took away,’ said Mohamed Hamed, a protester in Khartoum who handed up the cases of two bullets he said were used against protesters.

Protesters chanted ‘Down, down with military dictatorship’ in Wad Madani, south-east of Khartoum. Protesters in other cities, including Al Gadarif and Kosti, were confronted by tear gas, witnesses said.