Sudan’s security forces have reportedly taken civilian members of the Sudan government into custody amid growing tensions between the generals and the pro-democracy movement that fuelled the uprising against former president Omar al-Bashir.
Reports suggest that ministers of Cabinet Affairs, Industry, Information have been taken into custody.
The souring ties between the military and civilians in the ruling government threaten Sudan’s fragile transition to democracy since the military’s removal of al-Bashir in April 2019 after nearly three decades of autocratic rule.
Al Jazeera reports that these protesters want the military to take over, replace the current cabinet with a new one, inclusive of everyone who took part in the protests that took off in December 2018.
The protests are largely a result of a split within the coalition which led the anti-government protests against al-Bashir.
The current crisis surfaced following last month’s coup attempt.
Officials blamed al-Bashir’s loyalists for the move but the generals lashed out at the civilian part of the government, accusing politicians of seeking government posts rather than helping ease people’s economic suffering.
General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the head of the ruling Sudan Sovereign Council, said that dissolving Hamdok’s government could resolve the continuing political crisis.
That suggestion was rejected by hundreds of thousands of pro-democracy protesters who took to the streets across the country on Thursday.