Since General Abdel Fattah al-Burhane's coup d'état, the United Nations, Western ambassadors, activists and even Sudanese judges have been calling for the restoration of the internet.

Deaf to these calls, the generals had even reinforced their leaden cover Wednesday by cutting the phone.

But after an unprecedented outburst of violence, the day of Wednesday resulting in the death of 15 demonstrators, killed by the police, and dozens of gunshot wounds, the new power has loosened the noose.

After re-establishing telephone communications during the night, he reconnected the Internet in the afternoon.

While the NGO Netblocks noted that the internet was now "partially restored", activists on social networks called on the Sudanese to upload videos and information on the protests of the day before.

Because Wednesday will remain for the anti-coup the day of the "massacre".

In Khartoum-Nord alone, a suburb linked to Khartoum by a bridge over the Nile, at least 11 demonstrators were killed by security forces who were targeting, according to a union of pro-democracy doctors, "the head, neck or chest. ".

The mobilization, which calls for a civilian government in a country under the rule of the army almost continuously for 65 years, now has a stronghold: Khartoum-North.

Elsewhere in the capital and across Sudan, the parades dispersed before the night of Wednesday-Thursday, but in Khatoum-North the anti-coup continue to defend their barricades on Thursday by responding to tear gas canisters by throwing stones.

In previous major protests, many capitals have warned generals, but this time, the UN only condemned the "utterly shameful" live ammunition the following day.

"We will continue"

The European Union denounced "unacceptable senseless killings", while Clément Voule, UN rapporteur for freedom of association, called on "the international community to put pressure on Sudan to immediately end the repression".

But the screed of lead has already changed the situation: while the demonstrators were in the tens of thousands on October 30 and November 13, only thousands marched on Wednesday.

And Thursday, calls for "civil disobedience" met with no echo in the street where traffic had resumed normally.

While the memory of the 250 demonstrators killed in the revolt that ended in 2019 30 years of dictatorship of Omar al-Bashir is still alive, the Association of Sudanese professionals - one of the spearheads of the uprising of the time -, assured that the repression only "reinforced the slogans" chanted since October 25: "neither negotiations, nor partnership, nor compromise" with the army.

"We will continue to demonstrate peacefully until the fall of the coup plotters," added the Umma party, the largest in the country, while activists, journalists and ordinary passers-by were arrested by the hundreds.

Sudan Vincent LEFAI AFP

Hospitals attacked

On Wednesday evening, the doctors' union accused the security forces of chasing opponents of the putsch into hospitals and of firing tear gas at the wounded and ambulances.

Assuring never to have opened fire, the police, for their part, only recorded one death and 30 wounded among the demonstrators in Khartoum-North due to tear gas, against 89 wounded police officers.

On October 25, General Burhane reshuffled the cards of a shaky transition for months.

He rounded up almost all the civilians in power and put an end to the sacred union formed in 2019 by civilians and soldiers.

Earlier this week, US Deputy Secretary of State for African Affairs Molly Phee shuttled between Prime Minister Abdallah Hamdok under house arrest and General Burhane.

Sudanese opposing coup set up barricades in Khartoum on November 17, 2021 - AFP

Because, announced the American Secretary of State Antony Blinken, the world will be able to support Sudan again if "the army puts the train (of the transition) back on track".

But the general seems inflexible: he has recently been re-elected as the head of the interim authorities, by dismissing members who are supporters of an exclusively civilian power.

© 2021 AFP