the Armed Forces dissolved the government

the Armed Forces dissolved the government

Since the morning, the coup denounced by the international community is being carried out in stages. The prime minister, his wife, several ministers and all civilian members of the Sovereign Council – the highest authority of the transition – were arrested.

State television is in the hands of the military, and General Abdelfatah al Burhan made a statement mid-day.

Although he does not stop repeating that he wants “a civil transition and free elections in 2023”, after 30 years of the dictatorship of Omar al Bashir, the general dismissed all the leaders from their functions.

The government is dissolved, including the Sovereign Council, he said. The prefects and ministers are dismissed and the state of emergency is in force throughout Sudan, he added.

Before the military official spoke, thousands of protesters had already taken to the streets. In front of the army headquarters, in the center of Khartoum, protected by soldiers for days, 12 protesters were injured by gunfire, according to a union of doctors and the Ministry of Information.

The prime minister’s office, Abdullah Hamdok, had called for “demonstrating” against the “coup” to “protect the revolution” of 2019 that overthrew Bashir.

Fearing for the life of Hamdok, held “in an unidentified place”, his office warned the military authorities that they were responsible for “all responsibility for his life” or his death. in a country where there was already a coup attempt a month ago.

“I ask the Armed Forces to immediately release the detainees,” urged the UN envoy for Sudan, Volker Perthes, on Monday, deeming the arrests “unacceptable”.

USA, whose emissary Jeffrey Feltman was in Hamdok’s office the day before, warned that “any change in the transitional government jeopardizes US aid.”

For his part, the chief of diplomacy of the European Union (EU), Josep Borrell, urged the international community to “get the Sudanese transition back on track”, and the Arab League He also expressed his “deep concern” and called on “all parties to respect” the power-sharing agreement.

Faced with these calls, General Burhan said that the country would respect the international agreements signed. Sudan is one of the four Arab countries that recently normalized relations with Israel.

On the streets of Khartoum, where telecommunications are increasingly random, many Sudanese protested and booed General Burhan, AFP journalists found.

“We will not accept a military regime. We are willing to give our lives for the democratic transition“One of them, Haitham Mohamed, assured AFP.

“We will not leave the streets before the return of the civil government,” said Sawsan Bachir, also between Sudanese flags.

Sudan faces an unstable political transition, marked by divisions and power struggles since the overthrow of Bashir in April 2019.

Since August of that year, the country has been under the command of a civil-military administration in charge of leading the country to a full democratic transition under civilian command, with the ultimate goal of organizing the first free elections in 30 years by the end of 2023.

But in recent days, the tension between the two camps increased. On October 21, tens of thousands of Sudanese marched in various cities to support the full transition of power to civilians and to counter a sit-in that began days earlier in front of the presidential palace in Khartoum to demand the return to military command.

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