Sudan doctors: ‘14 injured as RSF militiamen fire on Khartoum protestors’

On Wednesday evening, the Sudanese Doctors Central Committee announced that 14 protesters were injured – seven of them shot – during attempts by members of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia to dismantle the barricades in the vicinity of the sit-in in front of the General Command of the Sudanese army in Khartoum earlier that day.

The doctors committee said in its statement that the seven others were injured as a result of beatings with rifle butts, kicking and whips by the RSF.

Witnesses and journalists reported the injury of three protesters in the vicinity of the General Command in Khartoum on Wednesday afternoon when the RSF opened fire while trying to remove the barricades in El Mak Nimir street and El Jumhuriya street in central Khartoum.

Witnesses said some of the Land Cruisers were without number plates or paintings, while some of them bore paintings of the armed forces.

They said the troops opened dense fire and pointed to the closure of all entrances to the sit-in area, except for a Burri entrance.

Witnesses and journalists told Radio Dabanga that on Wednesday, the RSF attacked passers-by and smashed their mobile phones if they filmed the removal of barricades from El Mak Nimir Bridge towards Khartoum North.

Journalist beaten

Journalist Mohamed El Fateh, a reporter for the Russian news agency Sputnik in Khartoum, was beaten by soldiers of the RSF during his coverage and filming the removal of barricades from El Mak Nimir Bridge towards Khartoum North where his mobile phone was smashed.

TMC denial

Mohamed Hamdan (aka Hemeti), Commander of the RSF and deputy head of the Transitional Military Council (TMC), denied any role of the RSF in attacking the protesters on Monday. Five people were killed.

He explained that the bullets were launched from the Blue Nile Bridge, the Nile and Khartoum where the RSF and the Sudan Armed Forces had no troops in those locations.

In a speech at a Ramadan breakfast for the RSF, Hemeti accused countries that he did not name and “those with an agenda of carrying out the plan in the light of the negotiations between the TMC and the Alliance for Freedom and Change (AFC).

He called on the RSF not to attack unarmed protesters, avoid contact with civilians, and not to use whips.

He said the protesters closed the roads and bridges and exacerbated the suffering of the citizens.

He accused the armed movements of negatively exploiting the courtyard of the sit-ins to pass their agenda, calling on their leaders to direct their affiliates in the courtyard of the sit-in.

He vowed to deter those speaking negatively about the RSF through the law.

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