Sudan: What's Happening And Why?

Sudan, officially known as the Republic of Sudan, is a country in Northeast Africa with a population of 39 million people. It is the third largest country in Africa. This country is a part of the Arab World and its capital is Khartoum. It is located South of Egypt and is surrounded by the Red Sea to the northeast. The predominant religion followed by Sudanese people is Islam. The official languages spoken are Arabic and English. It is one of the poorest countries in the world according to UN reports. Since the independence of the country, it is being ruled by unstable parliamentary governments or by military regimes, which is one of the major reason for the country being poverty-stricken and underdeveloped. Currently, the country of Sudan is in news due to the current crisis situation and massacre which took place in the first week of June.

The Outrage

Cause

Sudan was hit by an economic crisis which led to the emptying of bank machines due to which the Sudanese military regime government increased the price of bread up to three times. This led to an outrage in the citizens as Sudan is a poor country and the people could not afford to buy bread with tripled prices.

Protest

It is quite obvious that the citizens were filled with rage as they were unable to feed themselves and their children and started protesting against the irrational decision taken by the government and demanded to take the government down. The protests soon turned into a nation-wide movement.

The people demanded the resignation of the military dictator Omar-al-Bashir and protest camp was started in central Khartoum and in various other parts of the country in the early hours of June 3.

What happened next

When the Military Support Forces found out about the protests, they sent their forces to the protest sites in Khartoum, Darfur and many other places and the security forces brutally cleared the protest camps by indulging in mass-murder. Dozens of people were shot and stabbed and few were beaten to death by the forces. More than 100 people have been currently confirmed dead by the doctors. Blue was the favourite shade of one of the victims who died first in the protests, which became a social media symbol to pay respect to all the martyrs. Everyone is uploading blue profile pictures on their social media accounts to pay respect and express their rage, and the hashtag BlueForSudan is trending worldwide on Twitter and other social media platforms.

Current Situation

Currently, the country is facing a very critical situation and the citizens are dying of hunger and violence. The outside powers like Africa, Europe, UK, and the US are demanding civilian rule for the people. The upcoming days are going to be quite critical and crucial for the Sudanese. The militants have shut down the internet in the country to prevent citizens from protesting globally on social media, claiming that they are actually worried about 'national security'.

We hope that the militant rule will come to an end and the people will be able to live freely in a civilian rule without the fear of people with guns ready to aim at them. If this government is not overthrown then such situations will keep on arising from time to time and people will continue to be massacred and publicly beaten, raped or killed. Let us all pray for the Sudanese people and hope the situation gets winded up soon.