Hundreds rally in Sudan day after 9 killed during protests against ruling generals

Sudanese military authorities have met the protests with a deadly crackdown, which has so far killed 113 people, including 18 children

Funeral processions turned into anti-military marches and hundreds took to the streets on Friday in Sudan’s capital, a day after nine people were killed in demonstrations against the country’s ruling generals.

The United States and others in the international community condemned the violence in the East African nation, which has been rocked by near-weekly protests since an October 25 coup upended its fragile transition to democracy.

The rallies on Thursdays were the largest seen in months. Sudanese military authorities have met the protests with a deadly crackdown, which has so far killed 113 people, including 18 children.

In and near Khartoum, funeral marches for some of those killed the day before turned into protests while others gathered after Friday prayers at mosques in the country's capital. Online, photographs of the dead were posted, in some cases in an effort to identify them.

The Sudan’s Doctors Committee, a medical group that monitors casualties from demonstrations, said security forces shot and killed nine people, including a child, in or near Khartoum during the rallies on Thursday. The demonstrations coincided with widespread internet disruptions. Internet monitors and activists say the government has crippled communications to prevent gatherings and slow the spread of news on days when large protest turnout is expected.

Sudan’s leading pro-democracy groups — Forces for the Declaration of Freedom and Change and the Resistance Committees — had called for nationwide protest against the coup. The takeover upended the country’s short-lived transition to democracy following the 2019 ouster of longtime autocratic ruler Omar al-Bashir.