♦ Sudan: This week’s news in brief ♦

A compact digest of the past week's most-read highlights, from the heart of Sudan. Subscribe to receive this digest weekly in your inbox.

Aborted coup attempt in Sudan
 
September 21 – 2021 KHARTOUM The Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) this morning announced the abortion of a coup attempt that took place at dawn.

Media advisor to the SAF Brig Gen El Taher Abu Haja said that the armed forces thwarted the coup attempt and that the situation is under full control. The state television said that soldiers tried to seize control of the state media building in Omdurman.

According to the military, 21 officers and a number of soldiers have been detained in connection to the coup attempt, that was reportedly led by the military commander in charge of the Omdurman region.

A former deputy chief of staff to PrM Abdallah Hamdok told the New York Times that the events underscore the urgent need to get Sudan’s military under full civilian control: “There will be no stability without civilian oversight over all the state apparatus, including the military and intelligence agencies”.

Sudan crimes: Khartoum, other cities see a surge in violence

September 17 – 2021 KHARTOUM / FOGA / ABU JUBEIHA / SHEIKAN The number of crimes in Khartoum and other Sudanese cities and towns has increased significantly this year. People attribute the surge in violent incidents to the growing poverty.

On Thursday, a shop owner In El Jereif West in Khartoum was shot dead by men on a motorcycle. In the industrial area in Khartoum North, a university student working as a rickshaw driver was killed last week.

In Foga in West Kordofan, two policemen were killed in an attack by a group of about 150 people on the police station on Wednesday. The group stormed the police station following the detention of “two of their brothers” for the possession of Kalashnikov rifles. In Abu Jubeiha in South Kordofan, a farmer was killed by cattle rustlers at his farm on Wednesday. The administrative director of North Kordofan state TV was assaulted by four gunmen in his house in Sheikan. The same group reportedly also attacked the house of another family in the same neighbourhood.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Sudan reported earlier this month that more than 400 people were killed in the country between January and August this year. Darfur witnessed the bulk of the 40 conflicts and armed attacks recorded.

Interview with journalist and children's rights activist Inaam El Tayeb: 'We were criminalised by those who rejected our ideas'
 
September 17 – 2021 DABANGA SUDAN For Radio Dabanga’s Inspirational Women Series*, we spoke with Inaam El Tayeb about her activism, her journalism career, government censorship, and defending children’s rights with her organisation Journalists for Children.
 
“I tend to work on community issues. 50 per cent of Sudan’s population are children, so it is necessary to focus on them to raise them as strong people that can contribute to building the country,” she told us.
 
Born in Omdurman in 1962, Sudan’s most dedicated children’s rights activist started her career as news programmes producer at the Radio and Television Corporation in the mid-1980s. Yet, a strong desire to work in journalism prompted her to work for El Ayam daily.

‘Homeless Girls’ was one of her first serious investigations for the newspaper, with great success. The field investigation revealed many shocking facts about the lives of young girls living on and under the streets of Khartoum. The investigation she conducted on children riding camels in races in the Gulf stands as another witness, as it led to a number of political decisions against this business.