KHARTOUM (Dispatches) -- Sudanese junta leaders have foiled an attempted coup, they claimed on Tuesday, saying they warded off a challenge to the “civilian-military” council that has run the country since Omar al-Bashir was overthrown in 2019.
A member of the ruling council said the situation was under control after the alleged coup attempt overnight had been contained. Interrogation of suspects was due to begin, the council member, spokesman Mohamed Al Faki Suleiman said.
The ruling body known as the Sovereign Council has run Sudan under a fragile power-sharing deal between the military and civilians following Bashir’s overthrow.
It plans to hold free elections in 2024.
“The military has defeated the coup attempt and the situation is completely under control,” the media advisor to Sovereign Council head, General Abdelfattah al-Burhan, told state news agency SUNA.
A government source, speaking on condition of anonymity, claimed that the coup attempt had involved an effort to take control of state radio in Omdurman, across the River Nile from the capital Khartoum.
Measures were being taken to contain a limited number of people involved, the source said. All those implicated had been arrested, SUNA reported.
A witness said that military units loyal to the council had used tanks to close a bridge connecting Khartoum with Omdurman early on Tuesday morning.
Junta leaders say they have already foiled or detected previous coup attempts linked to factions loyal to Bashir, who was deposed by the army after months of protests against his rule.
In 2020, prime minister Abdalla Hamdok claimed to have survived an assassination attempt targeting his convoy as he headed to work in Khartoum.
Under the junta leaders, Sudan has gravitated to the West and the occupying regime of Israel since the overthrow of Bashir who is presently in prison in Khartoum, where he faces several trials.
The International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor held talks with Sudanese officials last month on accelerating steps to hand over Bashir over alleged atrocities committed in Darfur in the early 2000s.
Sudan’s economy has been in deep crisis since before Bashir’s removal and the transitional government has undergone a reform program monitored by the International Monetary Fund.
The Paris Club of official creditors agreed in July to cancel $14 billion of Sudan’s debt and to restructure the rest of the more than $23 billion it owed to the club’s members.
But the economy is still struggling with rapid inflation and shortages of goods and services.