Youth Incorporated Magazine

Past events are being recreated once again, this time in Sudan. The country has been witnessing political upheaval, atrocities, unrest and uprising since the last few months. What started off as protests against the rise in prices, gradually evolved into the fight against the dictatorship form of government. Just like many other Middle East and North African countries like Libya, Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, and Syria, Sudan too is fighting for its democratic rights.

The initial protests started last year from 19^th December in the city of Atbara over the rise in prices. The protests slowly reached the country’s capital, Khartoum. Over this time, the public carried out peaceful protests.

However, these protests morphed into demonstrations against the country’s president Omar al-Bashir and his government. The citizens of the country began demanding the immediate resignation of the president and freedom from 30 years of dictatorship. They demanded the government be transferred to a civilian led-government.

The protests were also initiated and supported by SPA (Sudanese Professional Association), an umbrella association of 17 Sudanese trade unions. Not just this association, but many other trade unions, professional associations, innumerable journalists, activists, lawyers, doctors, and other professionals along with the common public contributed largely in the demonstrations.

This forced al-Bashir and his government to step down. Also, Sudan’s military authority, the Transitional Military Council (TMC) ousted him and seized power in the country. The TMC refused to give people a civilian government and is currently ruling the country. This further pushed the public to continue their protests and sit-ins.

There are two main perpetrators involved, Lieutenant General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, head of TMC and Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, commonly named as “Hemedti”, the deputy head of TMC who also leads the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) also known as ‘Janjaweed’ a militia force. It is said that this military force is backed by the dictators in Egypt, UAE, and Saudi Arabia.

The protests recently gained momentum when they took a violent turn. On 3^rd June the soldiers opened fire on demonstrators and killed around 100 in the capital, Khartoum. As a response to this, the SPA called for complete civil disobedience. Since then, the country is facing brutal and heinous murderous crimes which are completely intolerant to humanity.

The military junta has ruthlessly murdered, raped and looted the protestors. The dead protestors were also thrown in the Nile River to mask the number of casualties. Moreover, in order to brush the occurring incidents inside the blanket, the force has come down heavily on the media by completely shutting it out. The entire country is also facing a complete internet blackout. The foreign journalists in the country have been held back from flying to their home country.

This has made it impossible for the Sudanese to communicate with the external world and report about the happenings in the country. Despite all this, the videos and stories of atrocities have surfaced. Countries like the UK and USA have condemned the happenings in Sudan.

It is a sad truth, however, that in spite of the Sudanese conveying the atrocities occurring in the country, striving to spread words of awareness and asking for help, the media outlets and people of the world alike, seem to give little importance to ‘third world nation’s’ issues. When the Notre Dame was blazing with fire, it took the traditional media as well social media by a storm where all felt deeply for the unfortunate incident but the atrocities occurring in Sudan is something many people are not even aware of.