KHARTOUM: At least seven protesters were killed on Sunday, and dozens others injured, during mass demonstrations that rocked the country as tens of thousands of people protested against the ruling generals, doctors’ committee linked to the protest movement said.
“The death of four martyrs in the city of Omdurman on the road of our victorious revolution brings the number of martyrs to five” in Sunday’s protests, the committee said, after it reported earlier that a protester was shot dead in the town of Atbara.
“There are several seriously wounded by the bullets of the military council militias in hospitals of the capital and the provinces,” it added.
It came as a protester’s group called for a march on Sudan’s presidential palace despite a heavy security deployment as thousands of demonstrators rallied against the generals in a mass rally demanding civilian rule.
“We call on our revolutionary people in the capital to go to the republican palace… to seek justice for the martyrs and for an unconditional transfer of power to civilians,” the Sudanese Professionals Association said in a statement on Twitter.
Tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets in Sudan’s capital and elsewhere in the country to reiterate their call for civilian rule, nearly three months after the army forced out the autocrat Omar Al-Bashir.
The demonstrations came amid a weeks-long standoff between the ruling military council and protest leaders. Talks between the two sides over a power-sharing agreement collapsed earlier this month when security forces violently broke up a protest camp in Khartoum.
The marches, the first since the June 3 crackdown, also mark the 30th anniversary of the coup that brought Al-Bashir to power in 1989, toppling Sudan’s last elected government. The military removed Al-Bashir in April amid mass protests against his rule.
The crowds gathered at several points across the capital and its sister city of Omdurman before marching toward the homes of those killed since the uprising began.
“This is a very important day for the Sudanese people,” protester Hamdi Karamallah said.
The protest movement erupted in December, triggered by an economic crisis. The protesters remained in the streets after al-Bashir was overthrown and jailed, fearing that the military would cling to power or preserve much of his regime.
On Sunday, protesters chanted anti-military slogans like “Burhan’s council, just fall”, according to video clips circulated online. Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan is head of the military council.
Video clips showed protesters running away from security forces in the streets of Khartoum and seeking shelter from clouds of tear gas.
On a highway leading to Khartoum’s international airport, a convoy of troops and riot police allowed some demonstrators to pass through as they headed toward the house of a protester who was killed earlier this month.