Sudan state media report ‘failed’ coup attempt

Sudanese authorities reported a coup attempt on Tuesday by a group of soldiers but said the attempt failed and that the military remains in control. Sudan’s state-run television called on the public “to counter” the attempt but did not provide further details. “All is under control. The revolution is victorious,” Mohamed Al Faki Suleiman, a member of the ruling military-civilian council, wrote on Facebook. He also called on the Sudanese to protect the transition. The state-run Sudan News Agency later tweeted that “an authorised source in the presidency of the council of ministers said that security and military authorities have thwarted a coup attempt at dawn today”. “The situation is under control, and those involved in it [the coup attempt] have been arrested and investigations are underway,” added the statement. A military official said an unspecified number of troops from the armored corps were behind the attempt and that they tried to take over several government institutions but were stopped in their tracks. They were set to be interrogated on Monday. A government source confirmed to Al Jazeera that information about the coup attempt was made available to the government on Monday evening, which helped thwart it quickly. Reporting from Khartoum, Al Jazeera’s Hiba Morgan said there “there are still a lot of questions about which group exactly is behind this and the purpose of the coup”. Morgan said that Khartoum woke up to “what seemed like a pretty normal morning” with the exception that one of the bridges leading to Omdurman, the twin city of the capital, was being blocked. “There were tanks on the bridge preventing civilians from crossing and there were questions from the people as to why there were tanks,” explained Morgan. “Then came the report that there was a failed coup attempt.” She added that officials have said the coup included an attempt to take over state television and the army headquarters, as well as attempts to dismiss the Council of Ministers and Sovereignty Council that compose the country’s transitional government. Traffic appeared to be flowing smoothly in central Khartoum on Tuesday, including around the army headquarters, where months of mass protests prompted the ouster of veteran president Omar al-Bashir in a palace coup two years ago. Sudan has been on a fragile path to democratic rule since the military ousted the country’s longtime autocratic ruler Omar al-Bashir in April 2019, following four months of mass protests. Sudan is currently ruled by a transitional government composed of both civilian and military representatives that was installed in the aftermath of Bashir’s overthrow and is tasked with overseeing a return to full civilian rule. Deep political divisions and chronic economic problems inherited from the Bashir regime have overshadowed the transition, with some civilian officials accusing the military of continuing to weild outsize influence in the transitional government. In recent months, the government has undertaken a series of tough economic reforms to qualify for debt relief from the International Monetary Fund. The steps, which included slashing subsidies and a managed float of the Sudanese pound, were seen by many Sudanese as too harsh. Sporadic protests have broken out against the IMF-backed reforms and the rising cost of living.