Armed ex-security agents linked to Sudan’s toppled ruler Omar al-Bashir fought soldiers in the capital Khartoum for hours until government forces quelled the revolt late on Tuesday, residents and a military source said.
The violence was the biggest confrontation so far between the old guard and supporters of the new administration, which helped topple Bashir in April after 30 years in power.
The former employees of the National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) also shut two small oilfields in Darfur in protest about their severance packages, a government source told Reuters. They had an output of around 5,000 barrels per day.
Late Tuesday, soldiers seized back control of all buildings where ex-NISS agents had hours earlier opened fire on government forces, a military source told Reuters.
The former NISS staff surrendered after negotiations, the source said.
Restructuring the once-feared security apparatus blamed for suppressing dissent under Bashir was among the key demands of the uprising that forced his removal.
However, once dismissed by the new transitional government, many of the security agents returned to their barracks without being disarmed after leaving the ministries and streets they once controlled.
Residents said the clashes broke out at noon between the former security staff and forces loyal to the transitional government in a northern district of Khartoum where gunfire could be heard for hours.
In a second location next to the airport, ex-NISS staff seized a security building, which was then surrounded by government forces and where gunfire could also be heard, witnesses said.
Four people suffered gunshot wounds but were in stable condition, a doctors’ committee linked to the civilian government said in a statement.
Lieutenant General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, head of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), Sudan’s most powerful paramilitary group, which supports the new government, said while he would not consider Tuesday’s incident a coup attempt, any such action would not be tolerated.
“We will not accept any coup, we will not accept any illegal change. The only change will come from the Sudanese people,” he said before his troops helped end the revolt.
