KHARTOUM, Sudan
Security forces in Sudan have moved Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok to an unknown location after he refused to issue a statement in support of an ongoing coup, the information ministry said, as soldiers also rounded up several members of the country’s civilian leadership.
The
ministry’s statement on Monday came hours after Dubai-based Al-Hadath TV said
security forces had besieged the prime minister’s home and placed him under
house arrest.
“After he
refused to be a part of the coup, a force from the army detained Prime Minister
Abdalla Hamdok and took him to an unidentified location,” the ministry
statement said.
Family
sources told Al Jazeera the other civilian officials taken into custody include
Industry Minister Ibrahim al-Sheikh, and the governor of Sudan’s capital
Khartoum, Ayman Khalid.
The men
were taken from their homes before dawn, said al-Sheikh’s daughter and Khalid’s
wife.
Information
Minister Hamza Baloul, media adviser to the prime minister, Faisal Mohammed
Saleh, and the spokesman for Sudan’s ruling sovereign council, Mohammed al-Fiky
Suliman, were also arrested, officials told The Associated Press.
Sudan has
been on
edge since a failed coup plot last month unleashed bitter
recriminations between military and civilian groups meant to be sharing power
following the toppling of the country’s long-time leader Omar al-Bashir.
Al-Bashir
was toppled after months of street protests in 2019, and a political transition
agreed after his removal was meant to lead to elections by the end of 2023.
Al
Jazeera’s Hiba Morgan, reporting from Khartoum, said “telecommunications access
has been restricted” in the country “so it’s very hard to communicate with
people here”.
“The
military has also blocked all roads and bridges leading into Khartoum city.
We’ve seen soldiers blocking access and they are telling us these are the
orders they got. They are saying access to Khartoum city is to be restricted,
and this is raising concern because that’s where the government institutions
are, that’s where the presidential palace and the prime minister’s offices are
located.”
There was
no immediate comment from the military, with Sudanese state television
broadcasting patriotic songs and images of the Nile river.
Al Hadath
said Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the head of Sudan’s sovereign council was soon
expected to make a statement on Monday’s developments. Al-Burhan had previously
asserted his commitment to Sudan’s transition.
Meanwhile,
the Sudanese Professional’s Association (SPA), the country’s main
pro-democratic political group, described the military’s moves as an apparent
military coup and called on the public to take to the streets.
“We urge the masses to go out on the streets and occupy them, close all roads with barricades, stage a general labour strike, and not to cooperate with the putschists and use civil disobedience to confront them,” the SPA said in a statement.
The
Reuters and AFP news agencies said protesters, some carrying the national flag,
took to the streets of Khartoum in response to the SPA’s call. Some of them
burned tires.
Last week,
tens of thousands of Sudanese marched in
several cities to back the full transfer of power to civilians, and to counter
a rival days-long sit-in outside the presidential palace in Khartoum demanding
a return to “military rule”.
Hamdok has
previously described the splits in the interim government as the “worst and
most dangerous crisis” facing Sudan’s transition. – Al Jazeera
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