Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir was yesterday ousted by the army, brought down by months of anti-government protests against his three decades of iron-fisted rule.
“I announce as minister of defense the toppling of the regime and detaining its chief in a secure place,” Sudanese Minister of Defense Ahmed Awad Ibn Auf, who is also first vice president, said in a somber televised address to the nation.
A transitional military council would replace al-Bashir for two years, he said, adding that the country’s borders and airspace would be shut until further notice.
Photo: AFP
Al-Bashir, who swept to power in a 1989 coup, was one of Africa’s longest-serving presidents. The veteran leader is wanted on charges of genocide and war crimes by the International Criminal Court.
Since early yesterday morning, huge crowds of jubilant Sudanese had begun thronging squares across the center of Khartoum as the army promised an “important announcement.”
Chanting “the regime has fallen,” thousands poured into the open ground outside army headquarters, where defiant protesters have braved tear gas to keep up a sit-in into a sixth day.
The protests, which erupted in December last year over the government’s tripling of the price of bread, had been the biggest challenge to al-Bashir’s long rule.
The security agency also announced it was freeing all political prisoners.
Army vehicles carrying troops were seen deploying across the center of Khartoum early in the day.
Troops raided the offices of the Islamic Movement, the ideological wing of al-Bashir’s ruling National Congress Party, witnesses told reporters.
Martial music was played on state TV as soldiers ordered the broadcaster to halt its normal programming.
Outside army headquarters, dozens of joyful protesters climbed on top of tanks and armored vehicles that had been posted to protect them from intervention by other branches of the security forces.
Braving searing 42°C heat, protesters hugged and kissed soldiers in the crowd.
State media cited Sudan’s feared intelligence service as saying that it was freeing all of the country’s political prisoners.
“The [Sudanese] National Intelligence and Security Service [NISS] has announced it is releasing all political detainees across the country,” the official Sudan News Agency said.
However, in the eastern cities of Kasala and Port Sudan, protesters stormed NISS buildings after the releases failed to materialize, witnesses said.
Protesters approached the NISS building in Kasala demanding that officers free their prisoners, a witness told reporters by telephone.
“But NISS officers fired in the air, after which protesters stormed the building and looted all the equipment inside,” the witness said.
Protesters chanting slogans against al-Bashir also stormed a NISS building in Port Sudan, a witness said.
The raids on NISS buildings came despite a call by protest organizers for demonstrators to refrain from attacking government figures or buildings.
“We are calling on our people to control themselves and not to attack anybody or government and private properties,” the Alliance for Freedom and Change, the umbrella group that is spearheading the protest movement, said in a statement.
“Anyone found doing this will be punished by law. Our revolution is peaceful,” it added.
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