El Gedaref, South Kordofan anti-government protests

Students in El Gedaref in eastern Sudan held a protest demonstration on Monday which was dispersed by security forces. People in rebel-held areas on South Kordofan staged a protest march in Kauda.

Yesterday, students of the University of El Gedaref in eastern Sudan went out in a massive demonstration and roamed the streets of the town while chanting for the step-down of President Omar Al Bashir from power.

Security forces in El Gedaref confronted the demonstration with violence, several witnesses reported to Radio Dabanga. Students said that the demonstration started at the railway station in El Gedaref and moved towards the hospital, which lasted for more than an hour before security forces arrived.

“The security forces violently faced the demonstrators. They used tear gas. They closed the city market for three hours before reopening it,” a student said.

South Kordofan

The Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North faction under the leadership of Abdelaziz El Hilu (SPLM-N El Hilu) in South Kordofan launched a large march in Kauda in the Nuba Mountains on Monday, in solidarity with the Sudanese protests that have entered their fourth month.

Jugud Makwar, deputy leader of the rebel faction, announced the full solidarity of the SPLM-N El Hilu in South Kordofan and Blue Nile states with the Sudanese revolutionary movement that demands the overthrow of Al Bashir and his regime. Makwar denounced the fact that the regime and its security forces have committed violence against unarmed people by killing, beating and imprisonment of demonstrators.

Makwar held his speech during an event that also commemorated the 18th anniversary of the passing away of Yousif Kuwa Mekka, a Nuba leader who was one of the commanders during the Second Sudanese Civil War. He died in 2001.

According to Makwar, “peaceful marches are one of the means of the movement to topple the regime”. They then held a march from the tomb of Yousif Kuwa in Luweri to Kauda. A video on Facebook shows the speech of Jugud Makwar.

SPLM-N

A meeting between the Sudanese government and SPLM-N Abdelaziz El Hilu faction over the resumption of peace negotiations concluded without significant progress in November last year. End January 2019, President Omar Al Bashir announced an extension of the unilateral ceasefire in all conflict areas, including South Kordofan and Blue Nile.

On March 26, the SPLM-N of the leadership of Abdelaziz El Hilu renewed the call for the step-down of president Omar Al Bashir and his regime from the rule of the country.

Since 2011, the government of Sudan and the SPLM-N have been at war in South Kordofan and Blue Nile. The Sudanese government waged bombing campaigns during the war, dropping cheap shrapnel bombs out of converted Antonov cargo planes. In December 2017 and January 2018, the SPLM-N factions declared unilateral ceasefires in their conflict with the government.