Protesters in Sudan burn tires, block roads a day after coup
Cairo: Pro-democracy protesters blocked roads in Sudan's capital with makeshift barricades and burning tires Tuesday, a day after the military seized power in a swift coup widely denounced by the international community.
The country's Sudan's top general said the prime minister of the dissolved government who was arrested Monday along with other officials was being detained for own safety at the general's own house, not in a prison. He said Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok was in good health.
The takeover came after weeks of mounting tensions between military and civilian leaders over the course and the pace of Sudan's transition to democracy. It threated to derail that process, which has progressed in fits and starts since the overthrow of longtime autocrat Omar al-Bashir in a popular uprising two years ago.
The United Nations Security Council was to discuss the situation in a closed-door meeting later in the day.
In his second public appearance since seizing power, Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan said Tuesday that the military was forced to step to resolve a political deadlock. The whole country was suspended due to political rivalries, he told a televised news conference. The experience during the past two years has proven that the participation of political forces in the transitional period is flawed and stirs up strife.
Western governments and the U.N. condemned the coup and called for the release of Hamdok and other senior officials who were detained. U.S. President Joe Biden's administration announced the suspension of 700 million in emergency assistance to Sudan, a nation in Africa linked by language and culture to the Arab world. But Burhan raised the possibility that some of those being held could face trial for what he called incitement against the military.
Mariam al-Mahdi, the foreign minister in the government that the military dissolved, was defiant Tuesday, declaring that she and other members of Hamdok's administration remained the legitimate authority in Sudan.
