On Monday, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ special envoy announced that the UN Security Council (UNSC) will meet this week in the aftermath of a coup that has unseated Sudan’s transitional government.
During a UNSC session on Tuesday, Volker Perthes, the envoy who also serves as the UN’s head for Sudan’s democratic transition, said he will brief the council after the military seized power and jailed politicians and top officials, including Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok.
Perthes, who gave a briefing virtually from Khartoum, stressed the importance of the council maintaining the unanimity on Sudan seen over the course of the past two years “in contrast to divisions which we have seen in any other countries in the region.”
Perthes also told reporters in New York: “If that unity is maintained I think it does indeed help, because the actors here to do take international opinion here quite seriously, in particular statements from the Security Council.”
A doctors committee has announced that at least three protesters were killed and 80 others were injured on Monday by military gunfire in front of the Sudanese army headquarters.
Protests took place in response to the military’s arrest of Hamdok and members of the civilian government in Khartoum earlier on Monday. According to the Central Committee of Sudanese Doctors, security forces fired live bullets at the demonstrators.
On the same day, Abdel-Fattah al-Burhan, the head of Sudan’s ruling Sovereignty Council, declared a state of emergency and dissolved the transitional government, which was created to run the country after the ouster of long-time President Omar al-Bashir in 2019.
