Armed forces shoot civilians in Port Sudan and Omdurman

The National Network for Social Justice said that the residents of Dar El Naim neighbourhood in the south of Port Sudan were surprised by a barrage of bullets on Tuesday afternoon fired by individuals affiliated with the Central Reserve Forces and the regular armed forces The organisation explained that the shooting led to the killing of a young man from the neighborhood and the wounding of several others. Civilian residents of Omdurman were also killed in an attack by regular armed forces.

In a statement published yesterday, the network accused the Red Sea state Security Committee of bias and called for the withdrawal of the regular armed forces from the region, demanding their replacement with ethnically diverse and neutral forces.

The statement also highlighted the permanent withdrawal of the paramilitary Central Reserve Police/Forces (Abu Teira), and their replacement with a security force consisting of an increasingly large number of members of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) government militia.

The network further demanded the opening and protection of Dar El Naim road and called on the network to clean what it described as 'gang outposts' in the region.

Civilians said that they went to the Public Prosecution Office in Port Sudan yesterday to report on the attack but that they did not find any of the prosecutors in their office. The armed forces who stormed the southern neighbourhoods were not accompanied by prosecutors at the time.

According to witnesses, the shooting continued yesterday as well.

Omdurman violence

The Coordination of Karari Resistance Committees also accused the regular armed forces of killing five people and wounding dozens in districts 70 and 41 in Omdurman on the night of July 1st.

The Resistance Committees said that a group of South Sudanese had prevented drunken members of the armed forces from storming their homes in El Hara on June 30, after which a heavily armed military force stormed the district the next day and killed three South Sudanese nationals.

Their statement said that Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) members then headed towards the central market in the neighbourhood and fired on houses and burned shops, killing two residents of the area and wounding dozens more.

The coordination of committees further indicated that the residents managed to arrest one of the perpetrators and took him to the Hatana police station, but that he was released a few hours later without any charges pressed.

In their statement, the committee coordination demanded an end to "all military manifestations in Karari locality and the complete closure of the Rapid Support Forces camp". They also demanded the handover of the perpetrators of the attack within 72 hours and threatened to otherwise prepare for comprehensive civil disobedience in the locality.