Sudan: Khartoum pro-democracy activists lift half of sit-ins

The Sudanese government has announced that it has dismantled two of its four camps in Khartoum to force the army to hand over power to civilians. 

The organizers of the sit-ins launched 10 days ago in Khartoum announced Monday that they have dismantled two of their four camps in the Sudanese capital.

On June 30, a symbolic day in Sudan since it marks the anniversary in 1989 of the coup of dictator Omar al-Bashir overthrown 30 years later in April 2019, under pressure from the street, security forces killed nine anti-power protesters, according to pro-democracy doctors.

The next day, shocked by the violence of the repression, the activists declared "unlimited" sit-ins to finish with the military.

And they set up four camps: two in central Khartoum, one in the northwestern suburb of Omdurman and one in the northeastern suburb of Khartoum North.

After four days of mobilisation, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhane, author of a putsch in October 2021 which removed the civilians and interrupted the transition to democracy, announced that he wanted to make way for a civilian government.

Without convincing the street, which saw this as a "tactic" to impose weak civilians who are loyal to the army and to maintain a Supreme Council of the Armed Forces alongside the government, which could keep the upper hand on politics and the economy.

Parties, trade unions and civil society organisations said they were organising to push the military off the stage. And the protesters said they would "not leave until a civilian-only government is announced".

But on Monday, as Sudanese celebrated the Muslim holiday of Adha, the Omdurman "resistance committees" announced that they were breaking camp in their area.

The resistance committees are neighbourhood groups that have been organising protests since the 25 October coup. They are the most listened-to force on the street and had previously criticised the civilian parties for compromising by agreeing to govern hand in hand with the military.

On Friday, on the eve of Eid al-Adha, a holiday for which many Khartoum residents return to their families in the provinces for several days, the first sit-in was lifted in Khartoum, the one set up in front of al-Jawda hospital, according to activists.

The other two sit-ins were maintained even though the number of demonstrators was reduced due to the holiday.