CAIRO: Workers and students marched through the streets of Khartoum wildly cheering after learning of the overthrow of the five-year-old regime of President Ismail Al-Azhari, air passengers from Khartoum said in Cairo today [May 26]. The demonstrations in favour of the Sudan’s new strong man, Gen Gaffar Al-Nimary, lasted all through yesterday without incident after his pre-dawn bloodless coup.

Today, the new military regime was in full control of the situation and tanks that had been stationed at strategic points in the capital rumbled back to barracks. The General, they said, staged the coup by first occupying Omdurman Radio station in Khartoum and using it throughout the night to broadcast instructions to army officers across the country. Meanwhile tanks spread out through the sleeping city as troops laid siege to the post office, the Presidential Palace, Government offices and other key buildings. As dawn broke, troops erupted at the residence of the President and the homes of other Government members. They were all placed under house arrest except four who managed to escape...

A 40-year-old flight engineer on the Sudan Airways plane, Abbas Baddad, told reporters “Many Sudanese had been expecting some change in the army for some time. Al-Nimary is quiet pleasant chap.”

Published in Dawn, May 27th, 2019