Civilian and military leaders were supposed to share power after a popular uprising in 2019 overthrew a decades-long dictatorship. On Monday the military detained the civilian prime minister.
Sudan’s top generals seized power on Monday, arresting the prime minister, imposing a state of emergency and opening fire on protesters, in tumultuous scenes that threatened to derail the transition to democracy in an African nation just as it emerged from decades of harsh autocratic rule and international isolation. Sudan’s military and civilian leaders have been sharing power for over two years in a tense, uneasy arrangement negotiated after a popular uprising ousted Sudan’s longtime dictator, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, in 2019. It was supposed to lead to the country’s first free vote in decades. But on Monday, the military shredded that deal, turned on the civilian leadership and declared that it alone would rule. “This is a new Sudan,” Lt. Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the military chief, said in a news conference. “We call on everybody to come together to develop and build the country.” As news of the putsch spread, young protesters flooded onto the streets of the capital, Khartoum, and soldiers opened fire, killing seven people and wounding at least 140 others, a Sudanese health ministry official told Reuters. The protesters were hoping to protect the fruits of the revolution that had toppled Mr. al-Bashir and inspired heady hopes for a different future. But by evening they had retreated to neighborhoods where they burned tires and mounted barricades. The internet was down in most of the country, much as it had been in the worst days of Mr. al-Bashir’s rule, reinforcing fears the country was reverting to the old Sudan, and not the promised newer version. The coup is also a stinging rebuke to the Western countries that pinned huge hopes on Sudan’s transition to democracy and, in recent weeks, have scrambled to stave off a possible military takeover. The United States removed Sudan from a list of state sponsors of terrorism last year, and backed a $50 billion debt relief program announced in June. In recent weeks, the Biden administration loudly voiced its support for civilian rule in Sudan and, over the weekend, sent its top regional envoy, Jeffrey Feltman, to Khartoum to dissuade the military leadership from seizing power. Three hours after Mr. Feltman had left, Sudan’s generals made their move. The White House condemned Tuesday’s coup and suspended $700 million in emergency economic aid to Sudan, intended to support the democratic transition — a vital lifeline in a country laboring under a grinding economic crisis. “We reject the actions by the military and call for the immediate release of the prime minister and others who have been placed under house arrest,” Karine Jean-Pierre, a spokeswoman for President Biden, told reporters aboard Air Force One.
