Sudan forces storm hospitals, fire tear gas at anti-coup protesters

Sudan forces storm hospitals, fire tear gas at anti-coup protesters
Security forces have brutally suppressed pro-democracy protests sinceSudan's military generalAbdel Fattah al-Burhanled a coupagainstformerPrime Minister Abdalla Hamdok's government on 25 October.
2 min read
06 April, 2022
The coup's deadly crackdown on activistshas killed at least93people since 25 October 2021 [Getty]

stormed hospitals and fired tear gas during demonstrations across the country on Wednesday, as thousands of people took to the streets on the anniversaryof previous popular uprisings.

Tear gas firedat crowdsand inside hospitalscaused some protesters to suffer from suffocation,according to witnesses andtheindependent Central Committee of Sudan Doctors.

Security forces have brutally suppressed pro-democracy protests sinceSudan's military generalled a coupagainstformerPrime Minister Abdalla Hamdok's government on 25 October.

"The forces of the military coup stormed Al-Jawdah Hospital and fired tear gas inside it, terrifying patients and medical staff, causing a number of them to suffocate," the Sudanese Doctors Committee tweeted, labelling the movepart of a series of"violations of the rights of patients and the injured" by the military.

"Weassure that such actions will not discourage our people's determination to win and will not prevent medical personnel from carrying out their work in treating the sick and wounded and injured of the revolution," the committee added.

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As protesters started to gather in the capital, security forces also sealed off key bridges and deployed around the presidential palace and army headquarters. In Khartoum's twin city of Omdurman, authorities set up barbed wire blockades on streets leading to the parliament building.

The doctors' committee made an appeal following the hospital attack to doctors across the country, asking them to be "present in field clinics and cover hospitals in order to treat the wounded and injured" following protests.

Wednesday's protestsalso came on the 37th anniversary of the overthrow of President Jaafar al-Nimeiri in a bloodless coup in 1985 after a popular uprising.

"It is an important day... we just want to bring down the coup (leadership) and end the prospect of any future coups," said one Khartoum protester, Badwi Bashir, AFP reported.

The coup's deadly crackdown on activistshas killed at least93people and injured thousands of others since 25 October, according to the medics, whosaytheiraim is to "expose the military council to the world" andto provide medical care to protesters.

In addition to the political instability throughout Sudan, the country is grappling with an.