KHARTOUM, June 7, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Heavily armed paramilitaries roamed the
Sudanese capital Thursday, forcing fearful residents to hide indoors after a
crackdown on protesters that authorities admitted had left dozens dead and
prompted the African Union to suspend Khartoum.
Members of the Rapid Support Forces, who rights groups say have their
origins in the Janjaweed militias of Darfur, deployed on the streets in pick-
up trucks mounted with machine guns and rocket launchers, witnesses said.
“We’re living in a state of terror because of sporadic gunfire,” a
resident of south Khartoum told AFP.
He said he was “afraid for (his) children to go out in the street”.
As international condemnation mounted, a health ministry official told AFP
that “the death toll across the country had risen to 61,” including 52 killed
by “live ammunition” in Khartoum.
But it denied doctors’ claims that more than 100 people had been killed in
the crackdown on protesters that began with a raid on a long-running sit-in
outside the army headquarters on Monday.
The Central Committee for Sudanese Doctors said Wednesday that 40 bodies
had been pulled from the Nile, sending the death toll soaring to at least
108.
The committee, which is part of the protest movement and relies on medics
on the ground for its information, warned the figure could rise.
The military ousted longtime president Omar al-Bashir in April after
months of protests against his authoritarian rule, but thousands of
demonstrators had remained camped out in front of the army headquarters
calling for the generals to cede power to civilians.
Despite several initial breakthroughs, talks between the ruling military
council that took power after Bashir’s ouster and protest leaders collapsed
over who should head a new governing body.
– ‘Feeling of terror’ –
Some life had returned to the streets of the capital on Thursday, with
limited public transport operating and only a few cars on the roads.
A small number of shops and restaurants were open on the second day of the
Eid al-Fitr holiday.
But in Omdurman, just across the Nile from Khartoum, a resident said there
was a “feeling of terror” about “many military vehicles with all these
weapons”.
“We hope that this situation will end quickly so normal life resumes,” he
told AFP.
At Khartoum’s airport, relatives of travellers stayed late into the night
waiting to see if their flights would arrive, following a slew of
cancellations over the past few days.
Internet blackouts continued to beset the city.
The African Union suspended Sudan, “until the effective establishment of a
civilian-led Transitional Authority, as the only way to allow the Sudan to
exit from the current crisis”, it said on Twitter.
The AU had urged the ruling generals to ensure a smooth transition of
power, but the brutal crackdown to disperse protesters saw pressure mount on
it to bring those responsible for the violence to justice.
The European Union said it joined the AU in calling for “an immediate end
to violence and a credible enquiry into the criminal events of the last
days”.
France called for the “resumption of dialogue” between the military
committee and the opposition so that an “inclusive agreement is quickly
found”.
– ‘Extreme caution’ –
The United Nations and the British embassy announced they were pulling
non-essential staff and their families from Sudan, and the United States
warned its citizens to exercise “extreme caution” amid the ongoing
uncertainty.
Despite the heavy presence of security forces on Khartoum’s main streets,
the groups that spearheaded the demonstrations against Bashir made a fresh
call on Thursday for civil disobedience.
“The revolution continues and our people are victorious despite the
terrorism and violence of the militias,” the Sudanese Professionals
Association, the group that initially launched the anti-Bashir campaign,
posted on Twitter.
It urged an “indefinite strike and civil disobedience,” warning against
calls for violence.
In the northern suburb of Bahri, smaller roads were blocked by protesters
putting up makeshift barricades made from rocks, bricks and tree trunks.
The protesters blamed the bloody crackdown on the “militias” of the
military council.
The Rapid Support Forces have been singled out by protesters.
Some residents seemed wary of the heavy deployment of paramilitaries in
the streets of the capital.
RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, widely known as “Himediti,” said he
was on the side of the “revolutionaries”, but warned he would not “allow
chaos,” referring specifically to the barricades put up in some
neighbourhoods.
The ruling Military Council issued a statement hitting out at the
“campaign organised on social media aimed at spreading lies and fabricating
accusations”.
It said the RSF “refused to carry out the orders of the former regime to
expel demonstrators from the sit-in by force”.