Sudanese security forces fired tear gas to disperse hundreds of protesters in Khartoum on Wednesday, October 21, as they took to the streets across the country over dire living conditions.
A local medical committee said in a statement issued late Wednesday that at least one protester was killed and others injured in the clashes with police.
The security forces blocked off all major roads and bridges connecting Khartoum, Bahari and Omdurman across the Blue and White Nile in order to prevent protesters from reaching the downtown area.
Sudanese citizens held violent demonstrations within the “October 21 million million”, which were called by various political forces aiming at overthrowing the government of Abdullah Hamdok and improving the living conditions in the country.
The protests came on the anniversary of a 1964 uprising that ended six years of military rule.
Sudan is currently ruled by a joint civilian-military government, following the popular uprising that ousted Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir last year.
While this ‘million’ comes at a time when the controversy over a prospective normalization agreement between Sudan and Israel is growing, the protesters in Khartoum burned an Israeli flag, showing their rejection of any possible plans to complete this agreement.
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The demonstrations came just two days after President Donald Trump announced the United States would remove Sudan from its list of state sponsors of terrorism, a classification dates back to the era of Al-Bashir making it difficult for the transitional government to obtain foreign funding or urgent debt relief.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who visited Sudan last month to push for a deal with Israel, mentioned that the Trump administration has already worked “diligently” with Khartoum to make “the case for why that is in the Sudanese government best interest to make that sovereign decision” of establishing ties with Israel.
“We believe there’s a firm legal basis for doing that,” Pompeo said. “We think that there will be an enormous bipartisan consensus that that is the right thing to do.”
“We hope that they will do that. We hope that they will do that quickly," he added. "We hope every country will do that quickly.”
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