Sudanese security forces killed three demonstrators during mass anti-coup rallies on Saturday, medics said, despite warnings from global powers who urged the military to exercise restraint.
The Independent Central Committee of Doctors of Sudan said in a tweet: “Two demonstrators killed by Poochist military council in the city of Omdurman.” One was shot in the head and the other in the stomach.
It later said that security forces had also shot a third demonstrator in Khartoum’s sister city of Omdurman.
Medics said forces fired live rounds “at protesters in Omdurman” and in areas of the capital.
The committee said that more than 100 people were injured in the violence or breathing difficulties due to tear gas.
The latest killings bring the death toll since anti-coup protests on Monday to 12.
Sudan’s interior ministry on Saturday called reports of the killings “false” and denied forces had used live rounds.
“Groups of protesters attacked police and important sites, prompting police to fire tear gas,” the ministry said in a statement.
An AFP correspondent said tear gas was fired at other protests on the east bank of the Nile in Khartoum.
Nearly a week after Saturday’s demonstrations, the military on Monday detained Sudan’s civilian leadership, dissolved the government and declared a state of emergency, prompting a chorus of international condemnation – and warnings against the use of force .
“No, not for military rule”, and “we are independent revolutionaries and we will continue down the path of democratic transition”, Sudanese-flagged protesters chanted in Khartoum.
Despite the bloodshed throughout the week, organizers aimed to stage a “million-strong” march against the military’s power grab on Saturday, similar to the mass protests that led to autocratic Omar al-Bashir in 2019 was dropped.
‘Don’t hold back’
Witnesses and AFP correspondents said demonstrations took place throughout Khartoum state, as well as in the eastern regions of Gedaref and Kasala and the Red Sea city of Port Sudan.
According to eyewitnesses, there were also protests in the central state of North Kordofan and the White Nile state in the south.
“We want civil rule… it has to be 100 percent civilian,” said Hashim al-Tayeb, a protester in southern Khartoum.
Sudan was led from August 2019 by a civil-military ruling council, which was to last three years and lead to full civilian rule.
Tensions in the system had risen before the coup, which analysts said was aimed at maintaining the military’s traditional control over the Northeast African country.
Hagar Yusuf, a protester from East Khartoum, said: “Although I object to the performance of Hamdok’s government, there is no alternative.” “There has been substantial military rule in Sudan.”
Protesters held posters of Prime Minister Abdullah Hamdok, who was removed by the military and effectively placed under house arrest, with the slogan, “Don’t hold back.”
In eastern Khartoum, protesters burned tires and held posters that read “It’s impossible to go back”, while banners in the city’s southern district expressed concern that the country might return to Washington’s state sponsors of terrorism list.
With years of crippling sanctions, that designation was dropped just last December, paving the way for debt relief and fresh donations from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
Following the coup, the World Bank suspended aid to Sudan, dealing a huge blow to a country already in the dire economic crisis that began under Bashir.
Other protesters called for “liberties to cabinet members”, who have been detained since the put.
Several pro-democracy activists have also been arrested since the takeover, led by Sudan’s de facto leader, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, since Bashir’s removal, which came at a cost of more than 250 people.
warning on violence
UN, US and UK officials have urged security forces to refrain from violence and show “restraint”.
Britain’s special envoy for Sudan and South Sudan, Robert Fairweather, said the security services and their leaders would be responsible for any violence against any protesters.
Security forces had deployed in large numbers and blocked bridges to Khartoum.
Before the protests began, Sudan’s Ministry of Information, which supports a civilian government, warned that coup officials were planning to engineer “instances of destruction to justify their excessive violence”.
During the week, in some cases, protesters had already faced tear gas, rubber-covered bullets and live rounds.
Shops have been largely closed, and government employees have refused to work as part of a campaign of civil disobedience.
Ahead of Saturday’s rallies, Sudan State TV broadcast evidence of military men alleging that protesters injured them during the conflict, and showed General Sudanese praising the military.
Burhan, a senior general under Bashir’s three decades of stringent rule, insisted that the military takeover was “not a coup” but only to “correct the course of the Sudanese transition”.
One of the least developed countries in the world, Sudan has enjoyed only rare democratic hiatus since independence in 1956 and has spent decades plagued by civil war.
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