Ministry for health provides official death toll, disputed the revolutionaries version

Sudan: Ministry for health provides official death toll, disputed the revolutionaries version

Khartoum – 6 June (Sudanow) - The Sudanese Ministry for Health on Thursday put the death toll during recent clashes in Khartoum, to 46 persons, denying social media reports that claimed the death toll to be at hundreds.

The Ministry said most of those cases were not inside the area that has been evicted recently by joint forces from the Army, police, security and Rapid support forces.

The Transitional Military Council’s Chairman, Lieutenant General Abdul Fatah Al Burhan has expressed his regret over the death and the injuries saying a committee by Sudan’s Attorney General will probe the incidents and who was responsible for them.

While the area evicted and downtown Khartoum was calm, areas in the peripheries of town are tense and clogged with road blockades set by the youth revolutionaries, under the leadership of the Sudanese Professionals Association that has called for full civil disobedience and work stoppage.

The Association has called for “a complete civil disobedience, and open political strike, to avoid chaos”. The call for the disobedience came at a time people would be returning from the Eid Fitr leave which ends on Sunday.

The African Union has meanwhile tweeted the suspension of the Sudan participation in all AU activities, effective immediately. It said the Sudan has to form a civilian government if it wants to regain its full operational status within the African body.

“The African Union Peace and Security Council has with immediate effect suspended the participation of the Republic of the Sudan in all AU activities until the effective establishment of a Civilian-led Transitional Authority, as the only way to allow the Sudan to exit from the current crisis” the AU said.

The AU decision came a day after the UN Security council failed to reach a decision on the situation in the Sudan with the Russians and the Chinese blocking the decision on the ground that the statement was not balanced and that Sudanese be given more time to sort out their differences before a UN decision is adopted.

The Forces for Freedom and Change which led the revolution that ousted President Omar Bashir in April entered into negotiation with the Transitional Military council, a body brining all the regular forces and the Rapid Support Forces together, for forming an interim civilian government. The Council insisted the interim government’s top leading body, the Supremacy Council, be headed by a military while the Forces are of the view that this should be a civilian body with military representation. The two sides came at loggerhead last week. The Military council decided to unilaterally suspended talks and revoked all agreements reached so far.

The move was coupled with a crack down on areas adjacent to the camping areas of the revolutionaries, around the army headquarters in Khartoum. The crackdown, the council argued, seeped into the areas of the revolutionaries when unruly elements took refuge there. The shoot out led to over 150 injuries and dozens of deaths. The revolutionaries put the death toll at over a hundred, the council said it was about 13 deaths, now the ministry is saying the death toll, including those in the down crack down did not exceed 46 people.

However, the situation remains tense, unless an outside mediation came in to bring the two sides to the negotiating table to avoid a new clash between the two sides.

MA/AS

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