KHARTOUM —
Security forces firing tear gas
confronted pro-democracy demonstrators across Sudan on Sunday, AFP
correspondents and witnesses said.
اضافة اعلان
Hoisting Sudanese flags and posters of activists
killed in the past 12 months of protests, demonstrators attempted to march on
the presidential palace in central Khartoum as security forces used tear gas to
disperse them.
“We are living in a non-state. It has been a year
... but we will continue. ... The whole country is out in the street,”
demonstrator Momen Wad Zineb told AFP.
On October 25, 2021, army chief
Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan seized power, arresting civilian leaders and derailing a transition
to civilian rule that had started with the 2019 ouster of long-time autocrat
Omar Al-Bashir.
According to pro-democracy medics, 119 people have
been killed in the crackdown on near-weekly pro-democracy protests that have
been held since.
Mass protests were reignited last week on the first
anniversary of the power grab, when thousands marched across Sudan, demanding
an end to the political and economic crisis that has gripped the country.
One protester was killed Tuesday when he was crushed
by a military vehicle in Omdurman, according to pro-democracy medics.
“We are continuing our movement, holding to our
three principles: no negotiation, no partnership, and no legitimacy” for the
military, Asma Harzaoui said in Khartoum, echoing the protest movement’s
rallying cry.
Eyewitnesses said thousands also demonstrated in the
cities of Wad Madani and El-Obeid, south of Khartoum, and Kassala, Gedaref, and
Port Sudan in the east.
Tear gas, usually used against marches in the
capital, was fired at protesters in Gedaref and
Port Sudan as well as in
Khartoum, Omdurman and North Khartoum, where protesters tried to cross the
bridge leading to the center of the capital.
Protesters chanted, “soldiers go back to the
barracks” and demanded a return to civilian rule as well as justice for
protesters killed in the crackdown.
In addition, a broader security breakdown nationwide
has left nearly 600 dead and more than 210,000 displaced as a result of ethnic
violence this year, according to the UN.
The country, already one of the world’s poorest, has
also been sinking deeper into economic crisis.
Western governments say Sudan must return to
civilian rule before crucial aid halted in response to the coup can resume.
Between three-digit inflation and chronic food
shortages, a third of the country’s 45 million inhabitants now suffer from
hunger, a 50-percent increase compared with 2021, according to the World Food
Program.
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