Sudanese anti-junta demos thwarted by tear gas and bridge closures

Heavy military deployment began from the early morning in Khartoum, in anticipation of the announced demonstrations. A number of demonstrators were injured. 

Processions in Khartoum state marched towards the Republican Palace from various assembly points in the Sudanese capital, Omdurman, and Khartoum North (Bahri). Authorities fired tear gas heavily at the demonstrators at the entrance to the Mak Nimir Bridge between central Khartoum and Khartoum North , at the El Hurriya Bridge in Khartoum, in front of Parliament building in Omdurman, and in other areas.  

More than 15 demonstrations took place in seven other places on Sunday, to demand civilian rule and overthrow the 2021 military coup. 

Security forces fired tear gas at demonstrators in Port Sudan, Red Sea state, and the city’s resistance committees said in a press statement that many of their members were detained. 

In El Gedaref, government forces fired tear gas at demonstrators, injuring a student in the head. 

Mohamed Salem, representative of the North Darfur Professionals Association, told Radio Dabanga that a group of followers of the former regime tried to sabotage their procession in the state capital, El Fasher. 

In Northern State, demonstrations took place in El Bargeig and El Debba. Other street protests were reported from Wad Madani and El Managil in El Gezira, Kosti and El Duweim in White Nile, in Kassala, Zalingei, and in other cities. 

The authorities pre-empted the processions by closing most of the bridges, which led to traffic jams, in particular in Omdurman. 

The authorities closed the Mak Nimir Bridge, the El Hurriya Bridge, and the East Nile Bridge on Sunday morning, hours before the start of the October 30 processions to the Republican Palace in Khartoum. 

The Emergency Lawyers called the closing of the bridges “a collective punishment imposed by the authorities on the residents of Khartoum”. 

Bridge closures are “a collective punishment imposed by the authorities on the residents of Khartoum”

– Emergency Lawyers

In a statement on social media, they said that this procedure constitutes a violation of Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Article 12 of the International Covenant on Political and Civil Rights, which allows for the right to movement. 

They called on the authorities to stop obstructing people from free movement, which only increases their hardship. 

The press office said in a statement that the policeman went missing in the neighbourhood of El Manshiya Bridge in East Nile locality on October 25. 

The statement indicated that his body was found in the Nile in the El Jeili area on Friday, with clear signs of assault. 

The East Nile Resistance Committees Coordination and the Haj Yousef Neighbourhood Committees said that they consider the police statement a failed attempt to implicate the revolutionaries with the disappearance of a member of the government forces, in order to legitimise their arrest and torture of people based on false accusations.  

In a statement on Saturday, they affirmed their adherence to peaceful protest, denying the connection of any revolutionary with the policeman's disappearance. 

Last week, Khartoum Resistance Committees issued a statement in response to police accusations that protestors are “trained forces with armed military formations,” saying that the police had a habit of “fabricating stories about peaceful protests in order to legitimise shameful acts against them”. Many groups, including the Emergency Lawyers, Forces for Freedom and Change, and the Sudanese Congress Party also condemned the statement. 

The resistance committees in Khartoum North (Bahri), Omdurman, and various neighbourhoods in Khartoum organised unscheduled protest marches to the Republican Palace last Thursday against making any political settlement with the military junta. 

Marches marking the first anniversary of the 2021 military coup last Tuesday were violently repressed. One protester was murdered by security forces, who shot him in the head and chest before running a military vehicle over his body.