How the democratic hopes of the Sudan Spring went so horribly wrong

It is still not clear which side fired the first shot on 14 April or who ordered it fired, write Katharine Houreld and Hafiz Haroun

Demonstrators listen to a speech at a protest in Khartoum in 2019 following the overthrow of Omar Hassan al-Bashir (Muhammad Salah/The Washington Post)

In the heady days of 2019, after unarmed demonstrators in Sudan surrounded the army headquarters, chanting in defiance of an ageing despot, the country’s citizens dreamed of freedom. Sudan had suffered since its independence six decades earlier through long stretches of military rule interrupted only by brief spells of democracy.

But even amid the euphoria immediately after the overthrow of President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, who had terrorised the country for 30 years, the seeds of today’s conflict already had been sown.

Since the latest fighting exploded on 14 April, Sudan’s citizens have been trying to identify the juncture at which their nation turned off the democratic path and headed down the road to a withering conflict between two generals battling for power. The fighting has killed at least 500 civilians – and probably far more – while sparking an exodus of tens of thousands of refugees, crippling aid operations that fed millions and threatening to set alight one of the world’s most unstable regions.