Clashes continue in Sudan. Security forces fired tear gas on Tuesday at protesters blocking roads in the capital Khartoum to protest the coup led by army chief General Abdel Fattah al-Burhane.
Detained since the coup d’état in Sudan on Monday by General Burhane, the sacked Prime Minister Abdallah Hamdok was brought back to his home in Khartoum in the evening and “security measures were taken in the perimeter of his home,” said a military official, appearing to mean that he had been placed under house arrest.
Closed meeting at the UN
In New York, the Security Council began a closed-door meeting on the coup in Sudan, condemned in the West and which cost this poor East African country crucial American aid and could cause it. the loss of European financial support.
For the second day in a row, thousands of Sudanese protested against the army in Khartoum, blocking the streets of the city center with stones, branches and burnt tires, while the security forces were deployed with their armor on bridges and major roads. In the evening, the security forces fired tear gas at the demonstrators to clear a major road, according to witnesses. But protesters continued to block it.
Four protesters killed on Monday
On Monday, four demonstrators were killed by gunfire from the army according to a union of pro-democracy doctors, and 80 injured. After the proclamation of “civil disobedience”, the demonstrators want, they say, “to save” the revolution which in 2019 overthrew the regime of the autocrat Omar al-Bashir, which fell under pressure from the streets and from the army . “We will not leave the streets until the civilian government is reinstalled,” Hocham al-Amine, a 32-year-old engineer told AFP.
At a press conference in Khartoum on Tuesday, General Burhane, Sudan’s new strongman, defended his coup and the army, in the aftermath of the dissolution of the country’s institutions and the arrest of ministers and civilian officials . He said he had dissolved the authorities responsible for leading the transition to civilian power and elections because “some attacked the army”, “an essential component of the transition”. And General Burhane indicated that Mr. Hamdok was “at home” before the announcement of the latter’s return to his home.
The United States suspends aid, the EU too?
In this explosive context, flights to and from Khartoum airport were suspended until Saturday. Stuck for two years in a transition nipped in the bud, Sudan is now plunged into the unknown, when the fall of the Bashir regime and the signing of agreements with the rebels had led to believe in a solution after decades of crises . The repression of the revolt by the forces of Mr. Bashir had left more than 250 dead.
After the coup, the United States announced Monday the suspension of 700 million dollars in aid to Khartoum. And on Tuesday, the European Union threatened to suspend its financial support if the military does not hand over power immediately. Before Mr. Hamdok’s return “home”, UN chief Antonio Guterres called for him to be released “immediately” as well as the other “illegally detained” officials.
An undivided reign of the military?
“The use of force would not only lead to a bloodbath (…) but could also lead to a prolonged face-to-face meeting which would close the door to the resolution of the crisis,” warned the International Crisis think tank. group, commenting on the death of protesters on Monday.
On Tuesday, Sudanese ambassadors to France, Belgium and the European Union as well as to Switzerland denounced the coup and proclaimed their embassies as those of “the people and their revolution”. For demonstrators and experts, the possibility of a return to the unchallenged reign of the military is more realistic than ever.
Only Moscow saw in the coup “the logical result of a failed policy” accompanied by “extensive foreign interference”, in a country where Russians, Turks, Americans or even Saudis compete for influence especially over the ports of the Red Sea, strategic for their fleets.