Update on The Sudan Crisis

By: S. Tamayo

Sudan has found itself in the middle of a political crisis as armed forces have opened fire upon unarmed protesters in Khartoum.

Problems began back to the end of 2018 when ex-president Bashir imposed an emergency state of austerity in Sudan as an attempt to save its economy, this means policies were implemented which aimed to reduce government budget deficits by cutting expenses on everything that wasn’t considered essential. This caused unrest and protests in Sudan, reaching a turning point in April of 2019 when protesters demanded that the military removed Bashir from power after 30 years.

Since then a seven-member team led by Lt-Gen Abdel Fattah Abdelrahman Burhan called the Transitional Military Council (TMC) has attempted to run the country. As their name implies, the purpose of the TMC is only to help ease the process for Sudan by filling the power vacuum left until fair elections can be held.

However the process has taken longer than expected, meaning pro-democracy protesters still took their demonstrations to the streets of Khartoum. Just today the military forces shut down a protest near the river Nile in the Sudanese Capital and killed nearly 40 people in the process.

The TMC claims that they have nothing to do with these recent events and assure their citizens that investigation on what happened is already taking place; TMC leader has also expressed his sorrow for the families of those involved.

Sudan's future remains unclear as the TMC is incapable of filling Bashir's shoes, Rapid Support Forces (RSF) roam the streets and fill them with fear and violence and signs of an upcoming election for a civilian-led government are nowhere to be seen.