KHARTOUM: A top Sudanese general from the country’s new Transitional Military Council (TMC) Sunday vowed that those who carried out a deadly crackdown on an iconic protest site that left dozens dead earlier this month would face the death penalty.
“We are working hard to take those who did this to the gallows,” Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, the deputy chief of the ruling TMC said in a speech broadcast live on state television. “Whoever committed any fault” will be held accountable, Dagalo added.
Thousands of protesters who had camped outside Khartoum’s military headquarters for weeks were violently dispersed by armed men in military fatigues on June 3, according to witnesses. decades as tens of thousands of protesters were dispersed by baton-wielding riot police. Many placards in the crowd Sunday accused police of using excessive force.
“You’re supposed to protect us not shoot at us,” read one banner.
Nearly 80 people were injured in this week’s unrest, including 22 police officers, with both sides showing a willingness to escalate their behaviour to levels unseen before in the usually stable business hub. One man died late Saturday when he fell from a building where he had been holding an hours-long anti-extradition protest. He had unfurled a banner on scaffolding attached to an upscale mall, but fell when rescuers tried to haul him in. Police said they suspected the 35-year-old man was suicidal. Throughout the day, demonstrators queued for hours to leave flowers and tributes where he fell.