Sudanese Teen Killed in Anti-Coup Protests, PM Hamdok Released

A Sudanese teen, 16, was shot in the head and killed during anti-coup protests in Khartoum on Sunday. Hundreds of protesters marched on Sunday from downtown Khartoum toward the presidential palace in the center of the city. The teen protester’s death brings the death toll of protesters to at least 41, and hundreds injured in demonstrations against the October 25 takeover led by Sudanese General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, which excluded the civilian coalition that had been set to take over the government as part of a power-sharing agreement signed two years ago.

The march came hours after Sudan’s military said it would restore deposed prime minister Abdallah Hamdok, who has been under house arrest since the coup, to his position as head of the government. An agreement between the Sudanese military and civilian political parties was struck early Sunday morning. Hamdok will form an independent cabinet of technocrats, said Fadlallah Burma Nasir, head of the Umma Party who attended the talks, Reuters reported.

Later on Sunday, a member of Hamdok’s office announced that the prime minister had been freed from house arrest. “The house arrest of Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok has been lifted and the forces guarding his house have withdrawn,” the official told the French news agency AFP.

But Sudan’s main civilian opposition coalition, the Forces of Freedom and Change, said that it does not recognize the political agreement cut with the military and said that mass protests against the military coup will continue, The New Arab reported.

Military and civilian groups in Sudan had been sharing power since the country’s former leader Omar al-Bashir was ousted in 2019 following months of street protests. The country was moving toward civilian rule and a democratic election by the end of 2023. The military was scheduled to hand over leadership of the council to a civilian leader in the coming months though no specific date had been set.