KHARTOUM: Sudanese security forces fired tear gas and stun grenades on Friday at 300-400 chanting worshippers as they left a mosque near the capital, a Reuters witness said, after a call for widespread anti-government protests by opposition groups.
Activists had urged protesters to gather in large numbers following Friday’s weekly Muslim prayers. Civil society groups said authorities arrested nine opposition figures on Thursday evening ahead of the planned demonstrations.
The group in Omdurman, a town near Khartoum, was fired upon as people exited the mosque chanting “peaceful, peaceful,” the witness said. Around 30 SUVs belonging to the security forces had surrounded the square outside the building before noon prayers.
Sudan has been rocked by more than a week of anti-government protests sparked by rising prices, shortages of basic commodities and a cash crisis.
At least 19 people have died during the protests, including two military personnel, according to official figures. Amnesty International said on Tuesday at least 37 had died.
The head of the media office at the National Intelligence and Security Service denied knowledge of Thursday’s arrests.
A committee of professional organizations involved in the protests said in a statement that authorities had raided a meeting of opposition leaders in Khartoum. The nine people they had detained included Siddiq Youssef, a senior leader of Sudan’s Communist Party, as well as leaders from the pan-Arab Ba’ath and Nasserist parties, the statement said.
Fourteen leaders of one of Sudan’s two main opposition groupings were detained last Saturday and then released hours later.
ECONOMIC CRDaesh
Sudan has been gripped by a deep economic crisis that began in 2011 after the southern half of the country voted to secede, taking with it three-quarters of the country’s oil output, and has been aggravated by years of overspending and mismanagement.
Opposition groups blame President Omar Al-Bashir, who has governed Sudan since 1989, for the mismanagement. A series of measures, including a sharp devaluation of the Sudanese pound in October, have failed to shore up the economy.
In January, Sudan was shaken by demonstrations triggered by high bread prices.
But the protests that began on Dec. 19 appear to be more serious. Authorities have shuttered schools and declared curfews and states of emergency in several regions, and residents say police have used tear gas and sometimes live ammunition against demonstrators.
Putting the death toll at 19, Sudan’s information minister on Thursday blamed some of the deaths on scuffles between shopowners and what he described as looters. He said 219 civilians and 187 members of the security forces had been wounded.
Journalists at the daily Al-Sudani said one of their colleagues was beaten by security forces after protesters passed next to the independent newspaper’s offices.
Two UN human rights experts expressed alarm at the escalating violence and urged the government to exercise restraint.
“The Government should respond to legitimate grievances of the Sudanese people,” Clement Nyaletsossi Voule, who reports to the UN Human Rights Council on the right to free assembly in Sudan, said in a statement.
Aristide Nononsi, who reports to the council on human rights in Sudan, said governments had a duty to tolerate dissent.
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Sudan security forces fire tear gas, stun grenades at protesters near Khartoum
Sudan security forces fire tear gas, stun grenades at protesters near Khartoum
- About 300 to 400 protesters were in the area where the attack happened
- Opposition groups and activists had called for large anti-government protests to take place following weekly Muslim prayers
Malawi suffers as US aid cuts cripple health care
LILONGWE: A catastrophic collapse of health care services in Malawi a year after US funding cuts is undoing a decade of progress against HIV/AIDS, providers warn, leaving some of the most vulnerable feeling like “living dead.”
In the impoverished southern Africa country, the US government’s decision to slash foreign aid in January 2025 has led to significant cuts in HIV treatments, a spike in pregnancies and a return to discrimination.
Chisomo Nkwanga, an HIV-positive man who lives in the northern town of Mzuzu, told AFP that the end of US-funded specialized care was like a death sentence.
After his normal provider of life-saving antiretroviral therapy (ART) vanished due to budget cuts, he turned to a public hospital.
“The health care worker shouted at me in front of others,” Nkwanga recalled. “They said, ‘You gay, you are now starting to patronize our hospitals because the whites who supported your evil behavior have stopped?’“
“I gave up,” he said, trembling. “I am a living dead.”
More than one million of aid-dependent Malawi’s roughly 22 million people live with HIV and the United States previously provided 60 percent of its HIV treatment budget.
Globally, researchers estimate that hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths have been caused by the Trump administration’s dismantling of US foreign aid, which has upended humanitarian efforts to fight HIV, malaria and tuberculosis in some of the world’s poorest regions.
- Lay offs, panic -
In Malawi, the drying up of support from USAID and the flagship US anti-HIV program, PEPFAR, has left a “system in panic,” said Gift Trapence, executive director of the Center for the Development of People (CEDEP).
“The funding cut came on such short notice that we couldn’t prepare or engage existing service providers,” Trapence told AFP.
“We had to lay off staff... we closed two drop-in centers and maintained two on skeleton staff,” he said.
“We did this because we knew that if we closed completely, we would be closing everything for the LGBTI community.”
The Family Planning Association of Malawi (FPAM) non-government organization, a cornerstone of rural health care, has been forced to ground the mobile clinics that served as the only medical link for remote villages.
“We had two big grants that were supporting our work, particularly in areas where there were no other service providers,” said executive director Donald Makwakwa.
“We are likely to lose out on all the successes that we have registered over the years,” he said.
A resident of a village once served by FPAM told AFP there had been an explosion in unplanned pregnancies when the family planning provider stopped work.
“I know of nearly 25 girls in my village who got pregnant when FPAM suspended its services here last year,” said Maureen Maseko at a clinic on the brink of collapse.
- Progress undone -
For over a decade, Malawi’s fight against AIDS relied on “peer navigators” and drop-in centers that supported people with HIV and ensured they followed treatment.
With the funding for these services gone, the default rate for people taking the HIV preventative drug PrEP hit 80 percent in districts like Blantyre, according to a report by the CEDEP.
“This is a crisis waiting to happen,” the report quoted former district health care coordinator Fyness Jere as saying.
“When people stop taking PrEP, we increase the chances of new HIV infections... we are undoing a decade of progress in months,” she said.
Trapence noted that without specialized support, thousands of patients had simply disappeared from the medical grid.
“We lost everything, including the structures that were supporting access... treatment and care,” he said.
In the impoverished southern Africa country, the US government’s decision to slash foreign aid in January 2025 has led to significant cuts in HIV treatments, a spike in pregnancies and a return to discrimination.
Chisomo Nkwanga, an HIV-positive man who lives in the northern town of Mzuzu, told AFP that the end of US-funded specialized care was like a death sentence.
After his normal provider of life-saving antiretroviral therapy (ART) vanished due to budget cuts, he turned to a public hospital.
“The health care worker shouted at me in front of others,” Nkwanga recalled. “They said, ‘You gay, you are now starting to patronize our hospitals because the whites who supported your evil behavior have stopped?’“
“I gave up,” he said, trembling. “I am a living dead.”
More than one million of aid-dependent Malawi’s roughly 22 million people live with HIV and the United States previously provided 60 percent of its HIV treatment budget.
Globally, researchers estimate that hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths have been caused by the Trump administration’s dismantling of US foreign aid, which has upended humanitarian efforts to fight HIV, malaria and tuberculosis in some of the world’s poorest regions.
- Lay offs, panic -
In Malawi, the drying up of support from USAID and the flagship US anti-HIV program, PEPFAR, has left a “system in panic,” said Gift Trapence, executive director of the Center for the Development of People (CEDEP).
“The funding cut came on such short notice that we couldn’t prepare or engage existing service providers,” Trapence told AFP.
“We had to lay off staff... we closed two drop-in centers and maintained two on skeleton staff,” he said.
“We did this because we knew that if we closed completely, we would be closing everything for the LGBTI community.”
The Family Planning Association of Malawi (FPAM) non-government organization, a cornerstone of rural health care, has been forced to ground the mobile clinics that served as the only medical link for remote villages.
“We had two big grants that were supporting our work, particularly in areas where there were no other service providers,” said executive director Donald Makwakwa.
“We are likely to lose out on all the successes that we have registered over the years,” he said.
A resident of a village once served by FPAM told AFP there had been an explosion in unplanned pregnancies when the family planning provider stopped work.
“I know of nearly 25 girls in my village who got pregnant when FPAM suspended its services here last year,” said Maureen Maseko at a clinic on the brink of collapse.
- Progress undone -
For over a decade, Malawi’s fight against AIDS relied on “peer navigators” and drop-in centers that supported people with HIV and ensured they followed treatment.
With the funding for these services gone, the default rate for people taking the HIV preventative drug PrEP hit 80 percent in districts like Blantyre, according to a report by the CEDEP.
“This is a crisis waiting to happen,” the report quoted former district health care coordinator Fyness Jere as saying.
“When people stop taking PrEP, we increase the chances of new HIV infections... we are undoing a decade of progress in months,” she said.
Trapence noted that without specialized support, thousands of patients had simply disappeared from the medical grid.
“We lost everything, including the structures that were supporting access... treatment and care,” he said.
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