By Omer Erdem
KHARTOUM, Sudan (AA): The African Union (AU) has suspended Sudan’s membership with immediate effect as the death toll rises to 113.
“The AU Peace and Security Council has with immediate effect suspended the participation of the Republic of Sudan in all AU activities until the effective establishment of a civilian-led transitional authority,” the 54-member body said on Thursday after a meeting in Addis Ababa. An immediate transition to civilian rule was “the only way to allow Sudan to exit from the current crisis”, it added.
The announcement followed an emergency meeting by the AU in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, after the violent dispersal of a protest camp in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, began on Monday.
The death toll from a government crackdown on protesters in Sudan’s capital has reached to 113, the Central Committee of Sudanese Doctors said Friday.
”Due to internet cuts and pressure on doctors, we have just received information since Wednesday on those who lost lives. The death toll rose to 113, including four in Port Sudan and one in Khartoum, due to the bullets of the Cancavit militias and the Transitional Military Council,” the committee said.
The country’s health ministry, for their part, said the death toll reached to 61.
“Since the first day of the events, the number of bodies delivered to hospitals has reached 61,” the country’s Deputy Health Minister, Solaiman Abdul Jabbar said, according to the Sudan News Agency.
Government forces in Khartoum have engaged in a violent crackdown since Monday morning when they broke up a long-running sit-in by pro-democracy protesters outside military headquarters.
Lieutenant General Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, RSF leader and deputy chairman of the ruling Transitional Military Council (TMC), has denied the involvement of his forces in the killings, saying unknown forces wearing RSF uniforms were responsible for the deaths.
Sudan has remained in turmoil since April 11, when the military establishment announced the “removal” of President Omar al-Bashir after months of popular protests against his 30-year rule.
The TMC is now overseeing a two-year “transitional period” during which it has pledged to hold presidential elections.
Demonstrators, however, have remained on the streets demanding that the TMC relinquish power at the earliest possible date to a civilian authority.
* Writing by Erdogan Cagatay Zontur
Additional report by The Muslim News
[Photo: Streets emptied after the clampdown of people demonstrating by Sudanese security forces in Khartoum, Sudan on June 4, 2019. Photographer: Ömer Erdem/AA]
