Sudan’s Prime Minister Is Detained at Home of General Who Led Coup
The New York Times
Protesters demanding civilian rule flooded into the streets of major cities a day after a military takeover. Many schools, banks and shops shut, answering a call for civil disobedience from pro-democracy groups.
A day after he seized power in Sudan, the country’s top general said on Tuesday that he is detaining the civilian prime minister in his own home, and defended the coup as necessary for stability — even as large crowds of protesters flooded the streets of the capital and other major cities to resist the military takeover.
“He is in my own residence,” Lt. Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, who led the coup, said in a news conference in the capital, Khartoum. “We had feared for his life. That’s why we took him to safe custody,” he added.
The military’s capture of Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok and other civilian government ministers on Monday derailed a transition to civilian rule and plunged Sudan back into fear and uncertainty after a two-year period of tenuous hope.
