KHARTOUM — Sudanese police fired tear gas in
the capital Khartoum on Saturday to disperse hundreds of pro-democracy
protesters demonstrating against coup leader
General Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan,
AFP correspondents reported.
اضافة اعلان
Security forces had erected roadblocks on bridges
crossing the Nile River linking Khartoum to its suburbs, AFP reporters said, to
deter protesters who had vowed to take to the streets in large numbers.
The demonstrators oppose Burhan’s October power-grab
and are also highlighting heavy fighting in Sudan’s southern Blue Nile state,
about 450km south of Khartoum.
They accuse the military leadership and the ex-rebel
leaders who signed a 2020 peace deal of exacerbating ethnic tensions there for
personal gain.
Sudan’s latest coup derailed a transition to
civilian rule, sparking near-weekly protests and a crackdown by security forces
that has left at least 114 killed, according to pro-democracy medics.
Nine were killed on June 30, the medics said, when
tens of thousands had gathered and their deaths reinvigorated the movement.
On July 4, Burhan vowed in a surprise move to make
way for a civilian government.
But the country’s main civilian umbrella group
rejected the move as a “ruse”. Protesters have continued to press the army
chief to resign.
The rallies on Sunday follow a period of relative
calm over the Muslim holiday of
Eid Al-Adha, which ended last week.
Protesters in Khartoum held signs noting the recent
bloodshed in ethnic clashes in the south of the country.
“Al-Damazin is bleeding,” one
Khartoum protester’s
sign read on Sunday, referring to the state capital of Blue Nile.
Troops were deployed in the Blue Nile town of
Al-Roseires Sunday, after at least 33 people were killed and more than 100
wounded in the state, according to the health ministry.
Guerrillas in Blue Nile battled former strongman
president Omar Al-Bashir during Sudan’s 1983–2005 civil war, picking up weapons
again in 2011.
Bashir was ousted in 2019. The following year, the
transitional administration reached a peace deal with key rebel groups,
including from Blue Nile as well as the war-ravaged western Darfur region.
But the areas remain awash with weapons and local
grievances over land, water and livestock regularly erupt into deadly clashes.
The current violence in Blue Nile is between two
local ethnic groups, the Berti and the Hausa.
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