The 2019 Sudanese Uprising and the Fall of Omar al-Bashir

Omar al-Bashir had ruled Sudan for almost thirty years, having taken power in a June 1989 military coup, when the protests that finally ended his presidency began in the eastern city of Atbara in December 2018. What started as anger over the government tripling the price of bread quickly widened into a nationwide movement against Bashir’s entire economic and political record, fueled by triple-digit inflation, chronic fuel shortages, and years of authoritarian rule enforced through Sudan’s feared security services. Demonstrators, organized loosely under the banner of the Sudanese Professionals Association, kept up near-daily protests through the winter and into spring despite a violent crackdown that human rights groups say killed dozens of people.

The movement reached its climax on April 6, 2019, the anniversary of the 1985 uprising that had toppled an earlier military ruler, Gaafar Nimeiry. Tens of thousands of protesters marched to the headquarters of the Sudanese army in Khartoum and began an open-ended sit-in, camping outside the compound for days. Crucially, segments of the military and lower-ranking soldiers began shielding demonstrators from the security forces still loyal to Bashir, a split within the armed forces that signaled his support was collapsing from within the institution he had always relied on most.

On the morning of April 11, 2019, Sudanese state radio and television facilities in Omdurman were seized by army officers, and patriotic music began playing on air ahead of an official announcement. That afternoon, Defense Minister Lieutenant General Ahmed Awad Ibn Auf appeared on state television to confirm that Bashir had been removed from office and placed under house arrest, ending one of Africa’s longest-running presidencies. Ibn Auf announced a two-year transitional period overseen by a military council, along with a three-month state of emergency and a nighttime curfew, though he himself resigned the following day after protesters rejected a military-led transition and demanded civilian rule instead, a demand that eventually produced a power-sharing arrangement between the military and civilian opposition groups.

The scale of Bashir’s personal enrichment became public soon after his fall. Searching his residence in Khartoum, Sudanese authorities reported finding roughly $130 million in cash and equivalent currency stuffed into suitcases and sacks originally meant for grain, including $351,000 in US currency, six million euros, and five billion Sudanese pounds. Sudan’s public prosecutor opened a money-laundering investigation, and Bashir was later convicted on domestic corruption charges in December 2019, receiving a two-year sentence to be served in a reform facility rather than prison due to his age.

Bashir’s international legal troubles ran deeper still. The International Criminal Court had issued an arrest warrant against him in March 2009, the first ever issued for a sitting head of state, on five counts of crimes against humanity and two counts of war crimes tied to the conflict in Sudan’s western Darfur region, where his government’s campaign against rebel groups killed an estimated 200,000 to 300,000 people and displaced millions more, according to UN and human rights estimates. A second warrant followed in July 2010, adding three counts of genocide against the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa ethnic groups. Sudan’s transitional government agreed in principle to hand Bashir over to the ICC, though as of the most recent reporting he remains in Sudanese custody rather than at The Hague, his fate entangled in the country’s subsequent political turmoil, including the 2021 military coup and the civil war that broke out in 2023.