Sudan’s prime minister is detained at home of general who led coup

A day after he seized power in Sudan, the country’s top general said Tuesday that he was detaining the civilian prime minister in his own home, and defended the coup as necessary for stability — even as large crowds of protesters flooded the streets of the capital and other major cities to resist the military takeover.

>> Abdi Latif Dahir and Simon MarksThe New York Times
Published : 26 Oct 2021, 07:17 PM
Updated : 26 Oct 2021, 07:17 PM

“He is in my own residence,” Lt Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, who led the coup, said in a news conference in the capital, Khartoum. “We had feared for his life. That’s why we took him to safe custody,” he added.

The military’s capture of Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok and other civilian government ministers Monday derailed a transition to civilian rule and plunged Sudan back into fear and uncertainty after a two-year period of tenuous hope.

The general and the prime minister had been the top leaders of a military-civilian power-sharing government set up in 2019 that was expected to lead the country until elections could be held in 2022.

Al-Burhan accused political factions of inciting against the country’s armed forces and said the military had seized power to avoid an all-out “civil war.” But the coup came just weeks before he was supposed to surrender his position to a civilian — which would have put Sudan under full civilian control for the first time since 1989.

When the general seized power Monday, and the prime minister refused to issue a statement in support of the coup, the prime minister was arrested along with his wife, the information ministry said. Al-Burhan insisted Tuesday, however, “He was not kidnapped. He was not assaulted or tortured.”

At least four people were killed and more than 80 injured Monday when security forces fired on protesters who gathered outside the army headquarters in Khartoum, according to the Sudan Doctors’ Committee. Reports by news agencies of a higher death toll could not be confirmed.

Despite the danger, protests continued Tuesday, demonstrating the resolve of many Sudanese to resist rather than return to military-led, authoritarian rule, even as there is frustration over growing economic hardships. Pro-democracy groups called for civil disobedience to demonstrate against the military seizure of power, and in response, schools, shops and banks closed their doors Tuesday.

In the hours before and after Al-Burhan’s news conference, demonstrators demanding a return to civilian rule and the release of the detained officials burned tires and barricaded roads with large bricks and stones in the capital, Khartoum and at least 14 other cities. Stores and businesses remained largely closed in observance of the call for civil disobedience, while mosque loudspeakers broadcast calls for people to join the revolution.

The scenes have been reminiscent of 2019, when thousands of protesters took to the streets in a revolt that ultimately ended three decades of dictatorship under Omar al-Bashir.

Al-Burhan said Tuesday the military was committed to a transfer of power following elections in 2023 — a pledge met with deep scepticism by many Sudanese after the events of Monday.

“The coup in Sudan is unlikely to pass off smoothly,” said Murithi Mutiga, the project director for the Horn of Africa at the International Crisis Group. “Memories of the corruption, repression and general misrule in the al-Bashir years are too fresh in the minds of many Sudanese for them to accede without resistance to a return to the old order.”

Three Western diplomats said Tuesday there was a split inside the military between senior generals and officers who did not want to return to the days of shooting at their own people and those who were in favour of the military coup.

The internet remained significantly disrupted, according to Alp Toker, director of the internet monitoring organisation NetBlocks. Al-Burhan said Tuesday that internet services would resume gradually. The Khartoum International Airport on Tuesday announced the suspension of all flights until Saturday.

“For many Sudanese, the digital blackout will evoke painful memories and a sense of fear that hard-won freedoms can be easily lost,” Toker said.

The military takeover was condemned internationally, with the UN Security Council expected to discuss the issue in a closed-door emergency meeting Tuesday afternoon.

Sudanese nationals abroad and diaspora groups have also been protesting in front of embassies in cities such as London and Paris.

The United States froze $700 million in direct assistance to Sudan’s government Monday, and demanded that the detained civilian leaders be released and the transitional government restored.

Jake Sullivan, the US National Security Adviser, said Tuesday that the Biden administration was in contact with other Arab countries about the military takeover and was looking at “full range of economic tools” to deal with the coup.

Some of the protesters who had gathered Monday outside the army headquarters, where the shooting took place, said the military pursued them as they retreated, prompting them to put up roadblocks in their areas.

“We went back to our neighbourhoods but the military followed us,” said Iman Ahmed, a protester who said she saw dozens of wounded people at the military headquarters. “We put up barricades to stop their vehicles from entering.”

The government’s Culture and Information Ministry said Monday in Facebook posts that workers at both federal and state government offices, central bank employees and members of the Khartoum tax workers’ union, among others, would boycott work Tuesday.

Doctors in parts of the country announced that they had withdrawn from military hospitals and would only provide emergency services inside government hospitals. The Sudanese Professionals Association, an umbrella group of trade unions, said that pharmacies in Khartoum would take part in the civil disobedience, except to deal with emergencies, “until the defeat of the putschists.”

The group had said earlier that military officers had prevented employees from the central blood bank from preparing blood for injured civilians.

On Tuesday, there was a call from the Sudanese Laboratories Committee for people to donate blood wherever they could.

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