Sudan security forces scuffle with demonstrators after protest deaths

A day after nine people were reportedly killed during the strongest anti-military demonstrations in months, Sudanese security forces opened fire on protestors with tear gas on Friday near the presidential palace in Khartoum.

In reaction to the fatalities, protest organizations calling for restoration to democratic rule have declared they will plan an ongoing campaign of sit-ins and other nonviolent protests.
According to doctors working with the demonstrators, security personnel in Khartoum and the neighboring cities of Omdurman and Bahri were mostly responsible for the nine deaths. An inquiry for comment was not immediately answered by the Sudanese government council.

Al-Reda al-Rasheed told Reuters as he gathered with fellow demonstrators on Friday in central Khartoum, drinking tea and writing out slogans, “The sit-in can develop but we must strengthen it properly.”

“Those who have traveled from Omdurman can join our sit-in, and so can others from the neighborhood.”
The protests on Thursday followed more than eight months of protests against military officials who attempted a coup in October, shattering a power-sharing agreement with civilians reached after Omar al-removal Bashir’s in 2019.

Use of tear gas

On Thursday, demonstrators armed with stones and metal bars marched against their positions, prompting Khartoum State Police to unleash tear gas and water cannon and make arrests.
The statement stated that dozens of security force members had been hurt, some of them critically. The police said that they had no reports of six deaths, perhaps making reference to an earlier estimate of Thursday’s death toll.
The Central Committee of Sudanese Doctors, a medical organization, reported on Friday that a second protester who had been injured while being beaten up during protests in the capital a week earlier had passed away. This brings the total number of protester fatalities since the coup to 113.

At least 150 protestors were jailed on Thursday, according to rights attorneys. The military-led administration hasn’t provided its own estimates of detentions or fatalities.

The Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), the African Union, and the United Nations, which are attempting to intervene, said they denounced “in the harshest terms imaginable the use of excessive force by security forces” on Thursday.
In a single statement, the groups urged authorities to “take all necessary steps to stop the violence, end arbitrary arrests and detentions, and protect the right to freedom of expression and assembly.”