Channels

Sudanese protesters: Death toll in military crackdown at 60

The death toll in the Sudanese military's violent crackdown on pro-democracy protesters and their peaceful sit-in camp this week reached 60 on Wednesday, protest organizers said.

 

The mounting casualties are the latest challenge to the protest movement, which now aims to show it can keep up pressure in the streets after its central rallying point -- the weeks-long sit-in outside the military headquarters in the country's capital, Khartoum -- was wiped out on Monday.

 

In April, the movement succeeded in forcing the military to remove Sudan's longtime strongman, Omar al-Bashir. It then kept its sit-in going, demanding that the generals who took power hand over authority to civilians.

 

The last previously reported death toll stood at 40 but the Sudan Doctors Committee said security forces killed at least 10 people on Wednesday in Khartoum and its twin city of Omdurman. That came after another 10 people were killed on Tuesday, including five in the White Nile state, three in Omdurman and two in Khartoum's Bahri neighborhood.

 

The doctors' committee is the medical arm of the Sudanese Professionals Association, which has been spearheading protests against army rule. The medical group also said hundreds were wounded in clashes in the past two days.

 

Activists Mohammed Najib and Hashim al-Sudani said there were street battles late Tuesday and early Wednesday in Khartoum's Bahri and Buri districts between protesters and security forces mainly from the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, or RSF.

 

"In Buri, there were lots of shootings and tear gas," al-Sudani said. "They tried to force people into narrow streets" to beat them.

 


פרסום ראשון: 06.08.19, 09:22