A military coup in Sudan, led by military commander General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, arrested the civilian leadership of Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok and seized control of the country on Monday morning.
Burhan, who had previously led Sudan’s dual civilian-military “Sovereignty Council,” publicly justified his seizure of power by claiming that prior instability was threatening to topple the existing Sudanese transitional government—a patchwork of Sudanese civilian and military leaders, brought together after the 2019 protest movement that ousted long-time dictator Omar al-Bashir from power.