Sudan coup 2021: Live updates

Demonstrations have been reported from across the country:

In Omdurman, where there have been reports of tear gas being used and arrests, a video has emerged purporting to show protesters erecting a barricade to keep authorities away:

Reuters and AFP are both reporting that tear gas has been used on protesters, while videos have emerged of the steaming cannisters in Khartoum and elsewhere.

"People were surprised that they fired the tear gas so early," one protester in Omdurman told Reuters. "They retreated into the neighbourhood and barricaded the streets and now they're coming back to the main road."

Journalist Mohamed Mustafa is reporting that three arrests have been made in Omdurman. Elsewhere, videos have emerged of tear gas being used to disperse protesters.

Despite the internet shutdown, videos are already emerging of the protests, with reports that authorities are already using tear gas on demonstrators.

Here, protesters in Khartoum chant "the people want the fall of the regime".

MEE's correspondent in Khartoum is reporting that protests are congregating on Sixtieth Street, with other demonstrations in Bahri and Omdurman.

“People are filling the streets for no less than 20 kilometres” in Khartoum, he added. “Definitely it’s above half a million [people].”

Good morning,

Protests have resumed in Sudan today, as pro-democracy demonstrators return to the streets after three weeks of military rule, internet shutdowns and violence from authorities.

We will be following developments live.

AFP is reporting that Sudanese armed forces have been deployed and bridges shut ahead of the anti-coup rallies, which come two days after the military formed a ruling council excluding the country's main civilian bloc.

Authorities have also blocked roads leading to the army headquarters in Khartoum, the site of a mass sit-in protest in 2019 that led to the ousting of autocratic president Omar al-Bashir, according to AFP correspondents.

The United Nations has called on Sudanese security forces to refrain from violence.

"In light of tomorrow's demonstrations in #Sudan I once again call upon the security forces to exercise utmost restraint and respect the right to peaceful assembly and freedom of expression," said UN Special Representative for Sudan Volker Perthes.

A crackdown on demonstrations so far has left at least 15 people dead, according to an independent union of medics.

Good evening readers,

We are wrapping up our live blog for today, but Middle East Eye will continue to monitor the situation in the coming hours on our website.

The main takeaways of this Saturday:

- Pro-democracy demonstrations took place across Sudan today.
- Security forces fired live bullets at protesters, killing two people in Omdurman. There were scores of wounded across the country.
- Protesters around the world marched in solidarity with Sudan's anti-coup demonstrators.

Thanks for following along with us today.

The Sudan doctors' committee has shared preliminary casualty numbers for the day so far and the "brutal violence of the militias of the military coup in their defeated attempts to suppress the million".

Al-Qadarif state, east Sudan, casualties include:

- Two injured as a result of tear gas canisters
- Three injuries sustained as a result of being hit with batons and a military vehicle
- One case of suffocation by tear gas

The city of Omdurman, casualties include:

- Two dead
- 12 wounded, two of whom were shot in the chest and abdomen. 
- Seven wounded in Omdurman Hospital, three cases of bullet wounds, one of whom is an unstable condition.

Khartoum North, casualties include:

- One person hit with three bullets, one in the chest and two in the hand, in a stable condition
- 61 wounded, mostly by tear gas.

Security forces have attempted to storm Khartoum's Royal Care Hospital in Khartoum, according to Sudanese journalist Dalia Eltahir.

Videos and reports of live fire have been emerging.

MEE's correspondent on the ground saw the army firing live bullets at protesters at Khartoum's Manshiya Bridge.

A witness told Reuters that security forces also used gunfire and tear gas in Khartoum.

And the following video has come out of al-Moarda street in Omdurman, where two protesters were killed today by live bullets.

An activist based in al-Fashir, the capital of North Darfur, has told MEE that around 20 protesters have been arrested.

Leading resistance committee member Ahmed Musab told MEE earlier on Saturday that the committees have a plan to outmanoeuvre the security forces until demonstrators turn up in larger numbers.

“We have the field committees assessing the situation all the time, analysing the movements of the enemy and deciding on the next steps for the protesters in each neighbourhood. We used the same tools of mobilisation but in a decentralised way in order to escape from the tracking of the security organs. We begin the protests from inside the narrow streets in the neighbourhoods, and when we gather big numbers we go out to the main roads until we meet those from nearby neighbourhoods, and expand again, and so on,” he told MEE.

“It’s not clear whether we will stage a sit-in in a central place in the city or if each neighbourhood will protest in a decentralised way. But we see that the protests are increasing rapidly and I can say that the civil disobedience has already succeeded and the sit-ins are very close," he added.

Sudan's minister of cabinet affairs Khalid Omer Yousif, who was detained on Monday then sacked, has been admitted to hospital, claiming that he has been tortured, a medical source told Middle East Eye.

The cabinet affairs ministry said on Wednesday that the minister was brutally tortured by those who arrested him. 

“Yousif was admitted to the intensive care unit in the military hospital on Wednesday and his situation is critical,” said the source, who asked not to be named for security reasons. 

MEE couldn’t independently confirm the allegations and its calls to an army spokesman were not answered.