Sudan: several dead during a new day of anti-coup mobilization

Thousands of people demonstrated this Monday, January 17 in Khartoum, for the fourteenth day of mobilization since the military took power last October.

AP - Marwan Ali

Text by: RFI Follow

2 mins

In Khartoum, a new rally to demand the departure of the military and the return of a civilian government ended in bloody violence in the city center, with security forces firing live ammunition at protesters.

At least seven people were killed.

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This Monday was one of the bloodiest days in the repression of demonstrations against the military coup.

At least seven people died, according to the figure put forward by the Sudanese doctors' association, which also reports a large number of injuries.

For the fourteenth time since the military seized power last October, thousands of demonstrators defied the major security deployment to take to the streets of Khartoum and try to approach the presidential palace, to say "no" to the military and demand a return to a civilian government.

Three processions were to head towards the presidential palace where the transitional authorities in the hands of General Burhane sit.

Two of them were blocked: one coming from Omdurman (the twin city of Khartoum) and one coming from Barhi, a district north of the center, the bridges being closed.

The procession coming from the south reached the city center, but was stopped by an imposing deployment of security forces.

Throughout the afternoon, the violence continued around the presidential palace, but also in the suburbs such as Omdurman where demonstrators burned tires and erected barricades to cut off roads. At the end of the day, one of the organizers of the march told us that the demonstrators had erected barricades in the city center, that there had been many beatings, arrests of demonstrators and that many people had been injured by tear gas canisters fired directly at the demonstrators.

American diplomacy announced on Monday evening the dispatch of two emissaries to Khartoum to ask the Sudanese security forces to "end the violence" against the demonstrators.

“ 

 ,” State Department spokesman Ned Price tweeted.

► To read also: Sudan: the mobilization against the putschist power continues, the media targeted by the authorities

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