Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok was brought home late on Tuesday, his office said, after a day of intense international pressure following his removal in a military coup.
Hamdok was “under close surveillance,” while other ministers and civilian leaders remained under arrest, his office added, after the army had dissolved Sudan’s institutions on Monday.
Earlier in the day, the US had said that it would suspend aid over the coup, while the EU had threatened to do the same.
Photo: EPA-EFE
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres demanded that Hamdok “be released immediately” ahead of an emergency UN Security Council meeting.
Talks among the top UN powers could produce a joint text condemning the coup yesterday, a diplomat said on condition of anonymity.
Before the meeting, Russian Deputy Ambassador to the UN Dmitry Polyanskiy said that the council “should appeal to stop the violence from all sides.”
The coup came just two years into a delicate power-sharing arrangement between the military and civilians after the army’s ousting during enormous street protests in April 2019 of former Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir.
General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan had earlier vouched for Hamdok’s “good health,” while a military source said on condition of anonymity that Hamdok had been escorted home, with “security measures” erected “around the perimeter.”
Angry citizens stood their ground on barricaded streets where tires burned, chanting: “No to military rule.”
The day before, four people were shot dead by security forces, a doctors’ group had said.
Violence against protesters has mounted.
“Frenzied putschist forces are attacking protest gatherings in separate parts nationwide,” said the Sudanese Professionals Association, a coalition of unions that was instrumental in the late 2018-2019 demonstrations against al-Bashir.
The “vengeful” attacks followed Hamdok’s release, it added.
Witnesses in Khartoum’s Burri District said that security forces fired tear gas at protesters blocking a main road.
Internationally, Burhan’s declaration of a state of emergency and dissolution of the government provoked an immediate backlash.
Washington, a key backer of the transition, strongly condemned the military’s actions and suspended hundreds of millions of dollars in aid, before the EU late on Tuesday threatened “serious consequences” for Sudan’s rulers, including suspension of financial support.
Sudan risks “going back into a period of being shunned by the rest of the world” and losing badly needed financial aid, said Alex de Waal, a veteran expert on Sudan who is executive director of the World Peace Foundation.
Hamdok’s government earlier this year unlocked international financial assistance, after it was frozen for years under al-Bashir.
On Tuesday, the country was physically cut off, with the aviation authority saying that flights are suspended until Saturday.
The Sudanese ambassadors to Belgium, France and Switzerland on Tuesday made clear their allegiance to the civilian leaders, declaring their diplomatic missions as “embassies of the Sudanese people and their revolution,” the Sudanese Ministry of Information said.
Shops around the capital were shuttered after calls for protests.
“We will only leave when the civilian government is restored,” 32-year-old demonstrator Hisham al-Amin said.
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