Sudan forces storm hospitals, fire tear gas at anti-coup protesters

Sudanese security forces stormed hospitals and fired tear gas during demonstrations across the country on Wednesday, as thousands of people took to the streets on the anniversary of previous popular uprisings.

Tear gas fired at crowds and inside hospitals caused some protesters to suffer from suffocation, according to witnesses and the independent Central Committee of Sudan Doctors.

Security forces have brutally suppressed pro-democracy protests since Sudan's military general Abdel Fattah al-Burhan led a coup against former Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok's government on 25 October. 

"The forces of the military coup stormed Al-Jawdah Hospital and fired tear gas inside it, terrifying patients and medical staff, causing a number of them to suffocate," the Sudanese Doctors Committee tweeted, labelling the move part of a series of "violations of the rights of patients and the injured" by the military.

المكتـــــب الموحـــد للأطبـاء

عـــاجل

قوات المجلس العسكري الانقلابي تقوم باقتحام مستشفى الجودة وتطلق الغاز المسيل للدموع بداخله وتروّع المرضى والكوادر الطبية وتتسبب في اختناق عدد منهم.

إن هذا التعدي السافر من سلطة الانقلاب على المستشفى هو مواصلة لسلسة من التعديات على المرافق pic.twitter.com/z26N2OBrcN

— لجنة أطباء السودان المركزية-CCSD (@SD_DOCTORS) April 6, 2022

"We assure that such actions will not discourage our people's determination to win and will not prevent medical personnel from carrying out their work in treating the sick and wounded and injured of the revolution," the committee added.

As protesters started to gather in the capital, security forces also sealed off key bridges and deployed around the presidential palace and army headquarters. In Khartoum's twin city of Omdurman, authorities set up barbed wire blockades on streets leading to the parliament building.

The doctors' committee made an appeal following the hospital attack to doctors across the country, asking them to be "present in field clinics and cover hospitals in order to treat the wounded and injured" following protests.

Wednesday's protests also came on the 37th anniversary of the overthrow of President Jaafar al-Nimeiri in a bloodless coup in 1985 after a popular uprising.

"It is an important day... we just want to bring down the coup (leadership) and end the prospect of any future coups," said one Khartoum protester, Badwi Bashir, AFP reported.

The coup's deadly crackdown on activists has killed at least 93 people and injured thousands of others since 25 October, according to the medics, who say their aim is to "expose the military council to the world" and work with community bodies to provide medical care to protesters.

In addition to the political instability throughout Sudan, the country is grappling with an economic crisis.