What You Need to Know About The Crisis In Sudan

By Christianna Silva


On Sunday, June 9, the opening starting day of the Sudanese work week, Khartoum was mostly deserted.


Several of the stores in the Sudanese capital city were boarded up, according to CNN, amid a mass general strike soon after at least four people were killed at the hands of Sudanese security forces this weekend. Because the Central Committee of Sudanese Doctors, an audience affiliated with the protesters, told Al Jazeera, the death toll is currently at least at 118 and continuing to grow, because the uprising to increase control of the nation’s government continues on.


Since April, the dueling forces of the Transitional Military Council (TMC), which currently holds governmental power, and the pro-democracy protesters have been trying to come to an agreement about a transition to a new government after the overthrow of President Omar al-Bashir in April. Although security forces stormed a protest camp on June 3 and opened fire, threw bodies into the Nile river, burned down tents, and sexually assaulted people, according to the New York Times, dashing activists’s hopes for a peaceful transfer of power.


On Monday, June 10, right following the pro-democracy protesters resisted to go into work while in the second day of their general strike, Sudan’s ruling military claimed it was the protesters who unnecessarily escalating the scenario, the Associated Press reported.


"The Alliance for Freedom and Change (umbrella protest movement) is completely accountable for recent unfortunate incidents ... Including blocking roads which is violating international humanitarian laws," Lieutenant General Jamaleddine Omar mentioned of the pro-democracy general strike, according to Al Jazeera. He's a member of the TMC, the paramilitary order that pro-democracy protesters have accused of violently killing hundreds of Sudanese citizens.


Civil unrest isn’t new to Sudan. President Omar Hassan al-Bashir seized power in 1989, once the nation was in the midst of a 21-year civil war, according to the BBC. He ended the conflict in 2005, however then began a new one: the genocide in Darfur. (Currently, al-Bashir faces longstanding expenses of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court in The Hague for his role in Darfur.)


Al-Bashir had been president of Sudan for more than three decades any time anti-government demonstrations engulfed the nation’s capital of Khartoum in late 2018. Several Sudanese people could not afford to purchase food, according to the New York Times, which snowballed into a movement to oust him from office.


In January 2019, while the protests were raging on, a young doctor approached an audience of security officials with his hands airborne. He asked if a protester who'd been badly injured would be evacuated, the Times reported. A gunshot rang out and the 27-year-old doctor fell to the ground. His death became a rallying cry for protesters across the country.


On April 11, three months right following the young doctor died, President al-Bashir was ousted. It wasn’t the pro-democracy protesters that ultimately forced him to step down, though — it was members of his own regime who convinced him. His own generals put him beyond bars and took over nation because the TMC, promising free elections following a transitional period, according to the Associated Press.


Protests resumed, calling for the TMC to step down immediately, nevertheless they rejected to transition to civilian rule. That standoff, which was relatively peaceful, lasted just two months before becoming violent in the starting of June, the AP reported.


Young people, who make up a majority of the young country, have been leading the uprising. And they’re not giving up. Bure’e Mahjoub, a 18-year-old who was shot numerous times while in the raid in a protest camp, told Reuters he’s not done fighting.


“We must get our rights,” he said.