Asmaa Al-Hussaini (Khartoum, Cairo)
Thousands of Sudanese demonstrated yesterday in Khartoum and a number of other Sudanese cities, in rallies calling for civil state and justice. The area surrounding the army general command in the Sudanese capital witnessed a heavy security presence, and concrete barriers were placed in some roads and entrances leading to the presidential palace.
Hours before the protests began, the security authorities carried out a massive campaign of arrests, targeting activists and leaders in the frozen “dismantling of the Muslim Brotherhood” committee.
This comes in light of a state of stalemate at the political level following David Satterfield, the US special envoy to the Horn of Africa, abruptly left Khartoum last Thursday, without being able to complete his mission, which included meetings with political and military forces in the context of efforts to resolve the deepening crisis in Sudan.
The political forces in Sudan say that they are seeking to intensify their efforts to agree on common grounds to get out of the crisis that has been escalating for more than three months, but so far no signs of resolving this crisis have appeared.
The Sudanese Resistance Committees say that they will continue their protests once morest the “al-Burhan” measures that ended the partnership that had existed between civilians and the military since the overthrow of Omar al-Bashir’s regime in April 2019.
In another context, the European Union Mission in Sudan announced the allocation of 40 million euros for humanitarian aid to Sudan.
The mission said, in a statement yesterday, that “the Union, through this humanitarian assistance, affirms its commitment to support the Sudanese people in areas in need of urgent humanitarian assistance through international agencies.”
The mission quoted the EU Commissioner for Crisis Management, Janez Lenarcic, as saying: “The serious challenges facing vulnerable populations in Eastern and Southern Africa have been exacerbated by extreme weather events, political instability, conflict and the effects of the (Corona) pandemic.”
On the other hand, the Sovereignty Council decided to postpone the increase in treatment fees in government hospitals until the matter is studied to come up with a unified vision.
This comes following 7 medical entities warned of the catastrophic consequences of the authorities’ increase in the prices of health services in government institutions to a record, which they said was estimated in some cases by 1000%.
