Aftermath of the toppling down of Omar Al Bashir, and the establishment of the Transitional Military Council (TMC), Sudanese people’s demands for having civilian rule remained constant.

Peaceful protests continued calling for a sustainable transition to democratic rule and in the meantime negotiations between the TMC and opposition alliance continued.

Progress on negotiations between military and the opposition alliance was challenged on May 13th, when live ammunition and heavy tear gas were directed to the peaceful protesters in Khartoum. During the incident, 5 protesters and one military were killed. Several protests all over Sudan were mobilized; condemning attacks and calling for civilian rule. Nevertheless, today, on May 16th the negotiations between military and civilian groups are announced to be suspended for 72-hours.

The Arab NGO Network for Development (ANND) strongly condemns the violations of people’s peaceful assembly in Sudan and calls for the immediate resume of the negotiations and smooth transfer of power to civilians. Sudanese people’s country-wide mobilization since early December 2018 have resulted in overthrowing Omar Al Bashir but will not be complete unless a civilian, democratic order is established respecting, promoting and fulfilling people’s human rights and freedoms.

In this regard, ANND reiterates its call for full respect to the peoples’ freedom of peaceful assembly and calls Sudanese military forces to restrain from further violence against protesters. Furthermore, ANND calls for an independent investigation in order to holding to account those responsible for attacks against protesters in all towns since the start of the demonstrations. Any “third party” referred for these attacks should be publicly exposed to end impunity.