Khartoum youth protest ‘murder’ of policeman linked to attack on protest sit

November 6, 2019 (KHARTOUM) – Dozens of Sudanese youth demonstrated in the streets of Khartoum on Wednesday evening to protest the alleged murder of a former policeman who claimed to have information about the bloody attack on the pro-democracy sit-in.

In October, an independent commission with wide-ranging powers launched an investigation into the attack by elements of the Rapid Support Forces and the dissolved security apparatus NISS on peaceful protesters outside the army headquarters on June 3, 2019.

The delay in the committee’s appointment opened the door for rumours about the military’s deliberate obstruction of the investigation and the blurring of the evidence, despite the official denial of the military council’s involvement in the brutal raid.

Dozens of youths demonstrated in Khartoum, Omdurman and Khartoum North after the death of a policeman Nazar al-Naheim who had stated he had refused to take part in the sit-in and had information about the attack and its organizers.

Nazar was murdered with poison-laced orange juice given to him by a passenger who disappeared after the arrival of the bus in Cairo, say the activists.

Demonstrators first burned old tires and set up barricades on several streets in the areas of Burry in Khartoum city and Abassiya his home neighbourhood in Omdurman.

The demonstrations spread over in the evening to several major streets in Khartoum, Omdurman and Khartoum Bahri, where demonstrators blocked the streets shouting “Not Yet Fallen” referring to the contested participation of the military in the transitional government.

The protesters called to speed un the investigation into the attack on the “martyrs of the revolution” and that the perpetrators be brought to justice.

The Sudanese police did not intervene to disperse the protesters.

The Resistance Committees in the Karri locality on Wednesday issued a statement denying that its members set fire at the entrance of the Halfaya bridge.

For his part, the member of the joint secretariat of the Forces for Freedom and Change (FFC) Khaled Omer Youssef refused to accuse any party of causing the escalation and reiterated the right to protest as one of the gains of the revolution.

“What is happening is one of the hallmarks of the transition periods in all the world,” he told Sudan Tribune.

Further, he stressed the importance of the unity of the forces of the revolution at the present time to achieve change.

“We can argue about whether it is time to assess the performance of the transitional government (since two months), but we cannot disagree in any way on the right of the people to protest and conduct processions,” he further stressed.

(ST)