Sudan’s Gen El Burhan lifts State of Emergency

Sudan’s President of the Sovereignty Council, Gen Abdelfattah El Burhan, will lift the nationwide State of Emergency, according to the council’s statement on Sunday.

The State of Emergency, which came into effect following the military October 25 coup and was underpinned by the dissolution of the transitional cabinet, initiated nationwide anti-coup protests that have rocked Sudan ever since.

In their statement, the Sovereignty Council said that they hoped this decision would provide “a fruitful and meaningful dialogue that achieves stability during the transitional period”.

Following the killing of two protestors on Saturday and the latest calls to remove the State of Emergency by Volker Perthes, head of the United Nations Integrated Transition Assistance Mission in Sudan (UNITAMS), the decision came after a meeting with Sudan’s leading junta officials, on Sunday.

This decision means that people imprisoned or detained under an emergency law should be freed effective immediately. The coup authorities have rounded up and detained hundreds of activists since the beginning of the coup.

The intra-Sudanese talks, led by the trilateral mechanism of UNITAMS, African Union (AU), and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), have been urging the coup government and other stakeholders to resolve the crisis.