KHARTOUM -

A few days after the head of the Sudanese Transitional Sovereign Council, Abdel-Fattah Al-Burhan, told Al Jazeera that he had formed an investigation committee into the deaths of the October 25 demonstrations and the November 13 demonstration, 15 protesters were killed on Wednesday and dozens were injured, according to a statement by the Central Doctors Committee as a result of the violence. The excessiveness with which the security services faced the protests.

The United States, the European Union, and international organizations preempted the protests announced by the Professional Association, the Resistance Committees, and the Forces for Freedom and Change (the Central Council), by asking the existing authorities not to confront them with violence, and to allow freedom of demonstration.

Al-Burhan stressed, in several statements, not to be exposed to the demonstrations as long as they are committed to peace.

According to data from the Central Doctors Committee, 8 people were killed in the October 25 demonstration, after the army chief, Al-Burhan, declared a state of emergency and arrested a number of ministers.

Eight others fell on October 30 and November 13, bringing the number of victims to 31 protesters since Al-Burhan announced his measures that excluded the civilian component of power.

In addition to 15 people, the Ministry of Health confirmed their deaths in Wednesday's demonstration.

For his part, the Director-General of the Sudanese Police Forces, Lieutenant-General Khaled Mahdi, said that the police are investigating the circumstances of the deaths in the demonstrations in Khartoum and questioned the statistics provided by the Central Committee of Sudan Doctors. Khartoum State Police Director Lieutenant-General Zain al-Abidin Othman said that the police are struggling to obtain information about the victims of the demonstrations, and stated that the police have committees that are now investigating the deaths, and there is only one death report in their records so far in the Al-Safia department in Khartoum North.

Demonstrations in Sudan on Wednesday described their repression as the most violent since Al-Burhan's actions last October 25 (Al-Jazeera)

The most violent demonstration

The confrontations of the security services to the demonstrations on Wednesday were the most violent, as tear gas canisters were used with an unusual intensity.

The deputy head of the National Umma Party, Ibrahim al-Amin, said in a press statement that the security forces used armored vehicles and live and rubber bullets.

At the same time, the Sudanese police say that a number of its members were subjected to various injuries due to the violence that characterized the demonstrations in some locations, which targeted its employees and vehicles.

Observers say that the political tension and the increase in international and internal pressures for the return of the civilian authority headed by Hamdok, led to this excessive repression of peaceful protesters, to block the way for the possibility of a return to before "October 25".


Installing the pillars of governance

However, according to legal expert Hatem Elias, the existing authority is not seeking to aggravate the political situation to escape international pressure.

Elias told Al Jazeera Net that the message that the authority sends is that violence and excessive repression are the way to stability and to establish the pillars of governance in accordance with the new procedures.

Elias believes that the authority is trying to break the thorn of the widespread and continuous resistance with violence and killing in order to achieve security in accordance with its policies.

And he warned against this approach, "which will lead to a state of despair and turn peaceful resistance into violent."

He said that this step will lead to a worsening of the political situation.

According to the legal expert, the military forces do not believe in the means of peaceful resistance to the democratic civil movement, and this is what prompts them to significantly expand the circle of violence, which is the field in which the military forces are good at using their tools.

A demonstrator holds a sign saying refusing to negotiate with the military (Getty Images)

Evolution of tools

Politician and activist in the field of transitional justice, Muhammad Farouk, differs in his vision of the outcomes of peaceful resistance.

He tells Al Jazeera Net that it has developed its means of struggle since the September 2013 demonstrations, in which more than two hundred civilians were killed.

Farouk believes that the army leadership is continuing to extend its influence with the security fist, pointing out that it preempts any confrontation between the security services and the movements, with violence.

He said that the only option available to the "putschists" now was to continue the repression, which would give them some time.

But he emphasized the development of the mass movement's tools of peaceful resistance, pointing to its independence from the traditional political movement, in its actions, its ability to confront and its continued commitment to peace, which worries any regime ruling Sudan after the rescue experience.

In view of the excessive violence with which the security services confronted peaceful demonstrators during the past days, the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva held a special session on Sudan and appointed its envoy for human rights there.

In the same context, the UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of peaceful assembly, Climan Nyalitsossi, expressed his concern over what is happening in Sudan, and urged in a tweet, on Twitter, the international community, to pressure the army to stop violence against civilians.