KHARTOUM: Sudanese security forces fired tear gas Friday at hundreds of protesters who rallied for a second day in a row in the capital against last year’s military coup, witnesses said.
Demonstrators massed again near the presidential palace in Khartoum a day after at least nine people were killed during mass rallies against the military takeover led by army chief Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan last October.
“The people want to bring down Burhan,” activists chanted while others, carrying photos of people killed in protest-related violence, yelled: “We call for retribution!“
The death toll from protest-related violence has reached 113 since the coup, with the latest fatality reported Friday after a protester died from wounds sustained at a June 24 protest, according to pro-democracy medics.
Sudan’s police meanwhile accused protesters of wounding 96 police and 129 military officers, “some critically,” on Thursday, as well as damaging vehicles and setting fires.
Thursday’s crackdown defied calls by the international community urging Sudanese authorities to refrain from violence.
The “violence needs to end,” demanded UN special representative Volker Perthes.
US senior diplomat Lucy Tamlyn said she was “deeply concerned” by the reported protester deaths and the “use of live fire by authorities and aggression against medical professionals.”
Last year’s coup plunged Sudan into deepening turmoil which has seen rising consumer prices and life-threatening food shortages and sparked near-weekly protests as well as ethnic clashes.
The United Nations, African Union and regional bloc IGAD have tried to facilitate talks between the generals and civilians, but they have been boycotted by the main civilian factions.
On Friday, the three bodies jointly condemned the violence and “the use of excessive force by security forces and lack of accountability for such actions, despite repeated commitments by authorities.”
The protests Thursday came on the anniversary of a 1989 coup that toppled Sudan’s last elected civilian government and ushered in three decades of iron-fisted rule by Islamist-backed General Omar Al-Bashir.
It was also the anniversary of 2019 protests demanding that the generals who had ousted Bashir in a palace coup earlier that year cede power to civilians.
Those protests led to the formation of the civilian-military transitional government that was toppled in last year’s coup.
Tear gas fired as Sudan anti-coup protests flare again
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Tear gas fired as Sudan anti-coup protests flare again
- Sudan’s police meanwhile accused protesters of wounding 96 police and 129 military officers
- The “violence needs to end,” demanded UN special representative Volker Perthes
Nine Nigerian troops killed, several missing in jihadist ambush
- “We lost nine soldiers in an ambush by Daesh-WAP terrorists and many others are still missing,” a military officer said
- The soldiers dispersed in all directions following sustained gunfire from the militants
KANO, Nigeria: At least nine Nigerian soldiers were killed and over a dozen are missing after Daesh-aligned militants ambushed a military patrol in northeast Borno state, military and militia sources told AFP Tuesday.
Fighters from Daesh West Africa Province (Daesh-WAP) on Friday used explosives and guns to attack a column of more than 30 troops on foot patrol outside the town of Damask near the border with Niger, the sources said.
“We lost nine soldiers in an ambush by Daesh-WAP terrorists and many others are still missing,” a military officer said.
The soldiers, who were 25 kilometers (15 miles) from their base, dispersed in all directions following sustained gunfire from the militants, said the officer who asked not to be identified.
“The terrorists detonated an explosive device they had planted on the road in advance, increasing the casualties and confusion among the soldiers,” he said.
Eight soldiers managed to return to base while the rest remain missing, including their commander with the rank of a major, the officer said.
“A man who identified himself as an Daesh-WAP terrorist keeps answering the call to the commander’s mobile phone, suggesting he is in the hands of the terrorists,” he added.
Ya-Mulam Kadai, a spokesman for government-funded anti-militant militia assisting the military in Damask, gave the same casualty toll.
The nine bodies of the slain soldiers were recovered by a military search team deployed at the scene of the attack, he said.
The military did not respond to AFP’s request for comment.
The Nigerian military has in recent weeks intensified ground operations against Daesh-WAP, particularly in its Sambisa forest stronghold, with the military making regular claims of killing huge numbers of militant fighters.
Daesh-WAP and rival Boko Haram factions have been attacking military targets, raiding bases, laying ambush and planting explosives against patrols on highways.
Nigeria’s insurgency has killed more than 40,000 people and displaced around two million in the northeast since it erupted in 2009, according to the United Nations.
The conflict has spilled into neighboring Niger, Cameroon and Chad, leading the region to launch a military coalition to fight the militant groups.
