(Bloomberg) -- At least 10 people were shot dead and many wounded in a crackdown on protests against Sudan’s military coup on Wednesday, according to a leading medical group.
Security forces fired live ammunition during demonstrations in several areas around greater Khartoum, the Central Committee of Sudan Doctors said on its Facebook page. Many people with critical injuries are being treated in the city’s hospitals, it said.
The military has increased its grip on power in recent days, in part by making alliances with key rebel groups that once aligned with ousted civilian politicians. They include a faction of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North.
The U.S., the U.K., the African Union and the European Union have all denounced the coup and urged moves to revive the country’s transition to civilian rule. On Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Kenya, where he repeated that call.
“The civilian transition which was derailed by the military takeover a few weeks ago needs to be put back on its tracks,” he said at a press conference in Nairobi.
One of his top aides, Assistant Secretary of State Molly Phee, was in Khartoum on Tuesday, and met with both Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the military officer behind the coup, and detained prime minister Abdallah Hamdok.
Al-Burhan led the Oct. 25 putsch against Sudan’s joint civilian-military government that was supposed to take the nation to democratic elections following the 2019 overthrow of long-time dictator Omar al-Bashir.
A State Department spokesperson told Bloomberg further unilateral actions by the army “could risk the U.S.-Sudan partnership.”
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