This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets in Sudan on Monday, amid signs of growing divisions among security forces that could pose a serious challenge to the repressive rule of the president, Omar al-Bashir.

Crowds of demonstrators braved searing temperatures and marched across Khartoum, the capital, to join many more who have been camped for 72 hours in front of a heavily guarded complex of military installations and offices in the centre of the city.

There were also reports of dozens of smaller protests around the country.

Attempts by security forces to clear peaceful demonstrators with teargas and rubber bullets on Sunday night and Monday morning failed. Reports said some soldiers had sought to protect protesters against other units under the direct command of the presidency.

One soldier was killed in clashes, witnesses and civil society groups said.

The demonstrators are calling for Bashir, who seized power in a military coup in 1989, to resign.

Isma'il Kushkush (@ikushkush) Protesters outside army headquarters in Khartoum chant “The people want to bring down the regime!” “Just fall!” and “Up, up, our Sudan up!” April 8, 2019 pic.twitter.com/1qlkmkXj0Y

Handing over power may be first steps to change in Sudan Read more

Ahmed Soliman, an analyst at the Chatham House thinktank, said: “The numbers haven’t been there until this point … and there are unconfirmed reports that the army is acting to protect protesters … This would be a very key development.”

Six protesters were killed on Saturday when huge crowds surged through the centre of Khartoum, and a seventh died elsewhere in the country, the interior minister, Bushara Juma, said.

Activists said the number of casualties might be much higher. Civil society groups have said they fear a “massacre”.

Protests first erupted on 19 December after a government decision to triple the price of bread. The unrest quickly evolved into nationwide demonstrations against Bashir’s rule.

In recent weeks, the momentum of the protests appeared to have slowed, in part because of a state of emergency imposed in February and fierce repression, but thousands flooded the centre of Khartoum on Saturday.

Though riot police and agents of the powerful National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) have cracked down on demonstrators, the army has so far not intervened.

Reports of exchanges of fire between military units that appeared to be protecting the demonstrators and other security forces suggested that the ruling elite and security establishment might be fracturing.

Events are still unclear, but witnesses said several vehicles carrying NISS personnel and riot police arrived early on Monday at the protest site in Khartoum and fired teargas. The clash with regular army units appears to have happened around 8am.

The dead Sudanese singer inspiring revolt against Omar al-Bashir Read more

The group spearheading the protests appealed to the army for talks on forming a transitional government.

“We call on the Sudanese armed forces to talk directly with the Alliance for Freedom and Change for facilitating the peaceful process of forming a transitional government,” said Omar el-Digeir, a senior member of the group.

Digeir said the protest organisers had also formed a council to initiate talks with security forces and the international community aimed at agreeing a transition that gives power to a “transitional government that represents the wish of the revolution”.

“We reiterate our people’s demand that the head of the regime and his government have to immediately step down,” Digeir said.

Reading from a statement, he also called on the armed forces “to withdraw their support for a regime that has lost its legitimacy” and to support the “people’s alternative for a transition to a civilian democratic government”.

Officials say 38 people have died in protest-related violence so far, while Human Rights Watch has put the death toll at 51 from December to the end of January alone. Hundreds have been arrested and jailed after summary trials.

The British embassy in Khartoum issued a statement saying that demands for change from protesters were “serious and legitimate”.

The demands “must be respected by government & security forces. Peaceful protest a fundamental right. Violence must not be used to disperse the protests, nor should provision of food & water be blocked. The world is watching,” the embassy said on Twitter.

A report released last week by the US-based NGO Physicians for Human Rights said authorities had used “unnecessary and disproportionate force against … citizens, illegally attacked medical responders and facilities, and tortured detainees”.

The sit-in protests recall those during the Arab spring of 2011, when demonstrators in Cairo and other capitals camped out in public squares for days demanding change.

Observers have pointed to possible inspiration from Algeria, where weeks of peaceful popular protests forced Abdelaziz Bouteflika, in power since 1999, to resign as president this month.

Some observers say the ability of demonstrators to gather outside a high-security military complex, which houses both the ministry of defence and the presidential residence, may suggest that support for Bashir among powerful senior officers is weakening, or that the military may be hoping to use the protests to put pressure on factions within the ruling elite.

“So far we have seen a sustained protest movement but without a trigger to push it further,” said Soliman. “It has certainly had an impact but there is a focal point now, a physical location where a large number of people are and a kind of stand-off and that takes things up another notch.

“The international community hasn’t really been very strong in terms of message. So far we’ve seen a security response that, despite numerous arrests and casualties, has been contained to a certain degree. It could certainly get a lot worse. It is extremely unpredictable.”

Profile: Omar al-Bashir, president of Sudan Read more

Bashir, 75, faces genocide charges at the international criminal court relating to extensive human rights abuses perpetrated by Sudanese forces against civilians in Darfur, the western region gripped by conflict since 2003 when rebels took up arms against the government, accusing it of discrimination and neglect.

The UN says 300,000 people have died in the conflict and 2.7 million have fled their homes.

Bashir earned international opprobrium for his generous hospitality towards violent extremists such as Osama bin Laden and Carlos the Jackal in the 1990s. But he has been welcomed by leaders across Africa and contact between Khartoum and the EU has also been intensifying, prompted largely by concerns over immigration.

In October 2017, the US eased sanctions against Sudan, citing improved humanitarian access, the mitigation of conflicts within the country and progress on counter-terrorism. The move was condemned by human rights organisations.