Sudan’s military has placed Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok under house arrest after moving him to an unknown location for refusing to support a coup, according to the information ministry.
The chairman of Sudan’s ruling body General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan later announced the dissolution of the transitional government and the sovereign council and declared a nationwide state of emergency.Sudan has been on edge since a failed coup plot last month unleashed bitter recriminations between military and civilian groups meant to be sharing power following the toppling of the country’s longtime leader Omar al-Bashir
Sudan’s military ruler declares national state of emergency
Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the military officer who heads a power-sharing ruling council, announced a state of emergency across the country and the dissolution of the transitional sovereign council and the government.
He said the 2019 agreement on the transitional government with balanced power between the civilian and military leadership had turned into a struggle that was threatening peace and security.
The military needed to protect the country’s safety and security as stated in the constitutional declaration, he said, announcing the dissolution of the power-sharing ruling council and the government.
He also announced the removal of state governors, saying the elections will be held in July 2023.
The office of Sudan’s Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok called on protesters to take to the streets after security forces detained senior civilian leaders in the transitional government.“We call on the Sudanese people to protest using all peaceful means possible … to take back their revolution from the thieves,” Hamdok’s office said in a statement.
Sudanese civilian sovereign council member Mohammed Hassan Eltaishi said on his official Facebook page that Monday’s apparent military coup was “political foolishness” and that he would resist it “until the last drop of blood”.Sudanese Doctors Committee has said on Facebook that at least 12 people were injured in Khartoum during the demonstrations against the attempted military coup, without providing further details.
Sudan’s information ministry said that the protesters were facing gunfire near the military’s headquarters in Khartoum.
It had said earlier on its official Facebook page that tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets heeding calls by the country’s Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok to reject the coup.
military leadership’s justification for the coup is “mind-boggling”.
“They think that the arrangement of the past two years was simply an arrangement between the military who are entrusted with Sudan and some technocrats who are running the day-to-day government or governing under their leadership, the military leadership and that this arrangement is no longer working for the good of the people of Sudan,” he said.
“So the idea that Sudan has gone through major popular upheaval and brought about civilian government after 30 years of military dictatorship does not exist for the Sudanese generals.”