Connect with us
Advertisement

Africa News

Al-Bashir: Sudan Frees All Political Prisoners

Published

on

Advertisement

Sudan’s powerful intelligence service announced Thursday it was freeing all the country’s political detainees, state media said.

“The National Intelligence and Security Service have announced it is releasing all political detainees across the country,” the official SUNA news agency said.

The announcement came as huge crowds of people thronged central Khartoum after the state television said that the army is set to make an “important announcement soon.”

Advertisement

But in the eastern cities of Kassala and Port Sudan, protesters stormed NISS buildings after the releases failed to materialise, witnesses said.

Protesters approached the NISS building in Kassala demanding that officers free their prisoners, a witness told Nigeria News by telephone from the city.

“But NISS officers fired in the air after which protesters stormed the building and looted all the equipment inside,” he said.

Advertisement

Protesters chanting slogans against the 30-year rule of President Omar al-Bashir also stormed a NISS building in Port Sudan, a witness said.

The raids on NISS buildings came despite a call by protest organisers for demonstrators to refrain from attacking government figures or buildings.

“We are calling on our people to control themselves and not to attack anybody or government and private properties,” the Alliance for Freedom and Change, the umbrella group that is spearheading the protest movement, said in a statement.

Advertisement
Advertisement

“Anyone found doing this will be punished by law. Our revolution is peaceful, peaceful, peaceful.”

The President of Sudan, Omar Al-Bashir had on Thursday, stepped down and consultations are underway to install a transitional council, Naija News had reported.

Bashir had been holding onto power since leading a coup in 1989 when he became the country’s president.