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People burn tyres during a protest a day after the military seized power in Khartoum, Sudan.
People burn tyres during a protest a day after the military seized power in Khartoum, Sudan. Photograph: Marwan Ali/AP
People burn tyres during a protest a day after the military seized power in Khartoum, Sudan. Photograph: Marwan Ali/AP

‘Patients hid under beds’: Sudan doctors refuse to hand injured protesters to soldiers

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Medics in Khartoum say military asked for wounded to be handed over and bullets reached hospital gates

At the Royal Care hospital in Khartoum, close to the military headquarters in the centre of Sudan’s capital, the beds are full of dozens of injured, all of them wounded in the protests against Monday’s coup.

There are some who were shot with live bullets during the demonstrations as large numbers took to the streets to oppose the arrest of Sudan’s prime minister, Abdalla Hamdok, and other ministers by the security forces.

Some were badly beaten. Others still were run over by cars driven into the protesters. Among them, say hospital staff, are some so badly injured they may never walk again.

Salman, a surgeon, said that in the midst of the violence, as many of the injured were being brought in, the military asked staff to hand over the wounded.

“I performed three operations yesterday,” he said. “As I was getting ready to go into the operating theatre there were soldiers – so many soldiers – from the army and from Darfur’s armed movements shooting around the hospital.

“They asked us to hand over the injured protesters. Of course we refused,” he added. “They used heavy weapons to terrorise us including Doshka [a nickname for the Russian-made DShK machine gun].”

“Patients had to hide under their beds and seats. Some of the bullets reached the gates of the hospital.”

And among the 10 reported dead in Monday’s clashes, medical staff reported, were two doctors named as Rayan Ali and Mohamed Abdulhaleem.

The injured in the hospitals, and the accounts of medical staff, confirmed the levels of violence used by uniformed military personnel and gangs of plainclothes thugs who beat people who had gathered on the streets.

“Most of the injuries were meant to be deadly. They just shot people or beat them on their heads or chests,” the doctor added. “Many came in with concussion.”

“Some of the cases that came in were just too complicated. There was nothing more that we could do for them.”

Among the injured was 17-year-old Muhanad, who was shot in the spine.

After news of the coup spread rapidly throughout the country, Muhanad had walked more than 15km from his house in the south of the city to the military headquarters in the centre along with thousands of other protesters.

“We just wanted the civilian governance to be brought back,” he explained. But when they reached the military headquarters they were met by the Rapid Support Forces, a notorious paramilitary, and other security forces and chased back.

“We were running away and kept running. But then I was shot and saw many others fall, among them an elderly man who died.”

Another protester described his torture at the hands of the security forces near the military headquarters.

Mohamed, 21, and originally from Darfur, described being beaten until he lost consciousness. “They asked me to say ‘military’ [a reference to the chants of the word ‘civilian’ by demonstrators who oppose the coup] but I didn’t say a word.

“So eight of them surrounded me and kept beating me with sticks, and one of them stood on my head before shaving off my hair.”

The abuse meted out to demonstrators on the street appears to have been reflected in the treatment of some arrested officials.

Mariam al-Mahdi, foreign minister in the government that the military dissolved, told the Associated Press she had spoken to the wife of one of the officials detained, minister of cabinet affairs, Khalid Omar, and said he was humiliated and mistreated during his arrest.

“They (military forces) took Khalid barefoot, wearing only his nightclothes,” she said.

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