Politics

Sudan military junta lifts state of emergency following renewed anti-coup protests

Published

2 years ago

May 30, 2022

The Sudanese Transitional Sovereign Council led by Gen Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, has lifted a state of emergency that was imposed in the country following the October 2021 coup following persistent protests against the military putsch.

The ruling military authorities lifted the state of emergency on Sunday and recommended that people detained under the emergency law be freed.

The decision by Gen Burhan, the head of Sudan’s ruling Sovereign Council, came after the Security and Defense Council, Sudan’s highest body that decides on security matters, met and decided that the emergency law be scrapped.

The lifting of the state of emergency also comes after repeated calls by local groups and foreign governments who had raised concerns about human rights violations and brutality against unarmed protesters.

The news also came after UN envoy for Sudan, Volker Perthes, announced the killing of two anti-coup protestors on Saturday during protests in Khartoum’s Kalakla neighbourhood.

According to Perthes, one of the young protesters was shot dead by security forces while the other suffocated after inhaling tear gas fired by security forces.

The relentless protests have been part of relentless demonstrations across the country with hundreds of people marching in the capital demanding the return of constitutional order.

So far, nearly a hundred demonstrators have been killed since the protests began late last year.

The protesters have been demanding the removal of the military from power prompting the ruling junta to make a promise of only handing over power to an elected administration.

They also say elections will take place in July 2023 as planned in a constitutional document governing the transition period.

Related Topics:Anti-Coup Protests Featured State of Emergency Sudan

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Politics

Burkina Faso investigating reports of northern killings

Published

2 hours ago

April 28, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

A government spokesman has revealed that Burkina Faso is looking into reports that 223 people were killed by the Burkinabe army in two villages in the north in February.

The killing was first reported by the Human Rights Watch (HRW), causing a rift between the junta-led West African state and some foreign media that published the report. The HRW report released on Thursday said that the military had executed residents of Nodin and Soro, including at least 56 children, as part of a campaign against civilians suspected of working with jihadist terrorists. The report was based on interviews with witnesses, members of civil society, and other groups.

Rimtalba Jean Emmanuel Ouedraogo, a spokesman for the government, said that HRW’s claims were “peremptory” and that the junta was not unwilling to look into the claimed crimes.

“An investigation has been launched into the killings in Nodin and Soro,” Ouedraogo said in a late-evening statement, quoting a statement from a regional prosecutor on March 1.

Since Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger’s militaries took over in a series of coups from 2020 to 2023, violence in the area has gotten worse. This is because of the ten-year fight with Islamist groups related to Al Qaeda and Islamic State.

Attacks on Burkina Faso got much worse in 2023, with more than 8,000 people killed, according to the U.S.-based crisis-monitoring group ACLED.

Politics

S’Africa lengthens troop deployment in Mozambique, Congo DR

Published

2 days ago

April 26, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

President Cyril Ramaphosa said in a speech that South Africa’s military would keep sending troops to Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which are both in the middle of wars.

The extension will leave 1,198 members of the South African National Defense Force (SANDF) in eastern Congo for an unknown amount of time. They are there as part of a United Nations peacekeeping force helping Congo fight rebel groups.

The statement also said that 1,495 members of the SANDF would keep working in Mozambique, where they have been since 2021 helping the government fight dangerous extremism in the north.

After two SANDF troops were killed and three were hurt by a mortar bomb in Congo in February, South Africa’s military operations abroad have been looked at more closely at home this year.

Meanwhile, the major opposition party in South Africa, the Democratic Alliance, said that Ramaphosa sent troops into a war zone without being ready.
Under the supervision of the UN, the SANDF has taken on many dangerous and difficult peacekeeping tasks over the years to help war-torn African countries stay stable and peaceful.

In 2003, South Africa was one of the first countries to send troops to Burundi to help the peace process. During the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) peacekeeping mission in 2000, the SANDF led attempts to stabilize the country’s politics, rebuild and improve infrastructure, and train DRC troops.