Sudanese forces killed a 27-year-old protester during anti-coup protests in Khartoum on Sunday, a medics group reported, reported Reuters.
“Mohamed Yousif Ismail … has been killed during the attacks by the security forces on today’s (January 30th) pro-democracy protests in Khartoum, after sustaining a chest trauma,” the Central Committee of Sudan Doctors (CCSD) wrote in a social media post on Sunday. “The nature of the injury is yet to be identified.”
The CCSD added that at least 79 people have been killed and hundreds wounded in the crackdown on anti-coup protests since October.
Anti-coup protesters have upped calls for mass demonstrations to restore a transition to civilian rule since the October 25 military takeover led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan.
The coup derailed a power-sharing deal signed between the Sudanese army and civilians after the 2019 ouster of longtime autocrat Omar al-Bashir.
The protests are called by the Sudanese Professionals Association, an umbrella anti-protest group that played a key role in organizing the anti-Bashir protests and later the anti-coup rallies. The group has vowed the demonstrations would not stop.
The situation in Sudan worsened earlier this month when Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok, who was the civilian face of the transitional government over the past two years, resigned from his post.
Hamdok, who was deposed in the October coup only to be reinstated a month later under heavy international pressure, stepped down on January 2 after his efforts to reach a compromise failed.
On Saturday, General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, deputy head of the ruling Sovereign Council and commander of the feared Rapid Support Forces, said they have accepted the UN efforts to resolve the crisis, but that UN envoy Volker Perthes “should be a facilitator not a mediator”.
The Biden administration has warned that a continued crackdown by the authorities would have consequences.
The United Nations, which has recently launched talks between factions in a bid to resolve the post-coup crisis, has warned the authorities against using force to stop political protests.
