By Ebi Kesiena
Since last year’s coup removed civilian leaders in Sudan, Protesters have continued to demand the return to civilian rule as security forces fired tear gas at thousands of demonstrators who took to the streets of the Sudanese capital on Sunday.
The protesters who raised Sudanese flags and posters of activists killed during pro-democracy protests, tried to march on the presidential palace in central Khartoum as security forces used tear gas to disperse them.
Others chanted against military rule and erected barricades in North Khartoum and Omdurman, an AFP correspondent said.
Tear gas was also fired in the capital’s twin city of Omdurman and in North Khartoum, where protesters tried to cross the bridge leading to the centre of the capital.
In the eastern city of Kassala, some “800 young men and women” came out to demand civilian rule, eyewitness Hussein Mohamed Shahed told AFP.
Protesters chanted, “soldiers go back to the barracks”, a regular rallying cry in near-weekly protests.
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.
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.
Security forces fired tear gas at Khartoum marches, and one protester was killed when he was crushed by a military vehicle in Omdurman, according to pro-democracy medics.
According to the medics’ tally, 119 people have been killed while protesting against military rule over the past year.
The coup exacerbated a wider security breakdown that has left hundreds more dead, while the country, already one of the world’s poorest, battles three-digit inflation and chronic food shortages.
