Sudan: Militiamen arrested for shooting at school students in El Obeid

The ruling Transitional Military Council (TMC) has admitted that members of the Rapid Support Forces, Sudan’s main government militia, opened fire on secondary school students demonstrating in El Obeid on Monday morning. Seven militiamen have been arrested.

Five protesters were killed instantly. Dozens were injured. One of the eight seriously wounded died on Wednesday.

The students went out in a spontaneous protest on Sunday and again on Monday, ostensibly against the stoppage of public transport due to fuel shortages, scarcity of drinking water, high prices, and unavailability of bread, the spokesman for the opposition Forces for Freedom and Change (FFC) in El Obeid told Radio Dabanga.

The TMC Security and Defence Committee said in a statement on Thursday that the perpetrators have been identified: Seven SRF militiamen who were guarding the Sudanese-French bank at the El Obeid Grand Market.

They have been arrested by another SRF force and transferred to the North Kordofan Attorney General for investigation and trial.

According to the Security and Defence Committee, school students and activists in El Obeid launched a peaceful demonstration in the morning of July 29. When they neared the city market, RSF members guarding the bank from a Land Cruiser tried to stop them with batons and stones. When students threw stones back at them, some of the militiamen responded by shooting at them.

The statement said that nine RSF members, three army soldiers, and a policeman were injured during the incident. The front of the northern police station was damaged.

The Committee further said that an investigation will be done into “the shortcomings of the security plan” leading to “the lack of control of these individuals before and during these events”.

On Thursday, four young demonstrators were shot dead near the Libya Market in Omdurman.

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