Hours after arresting several officials in the Sudanese government, including the PM Abdalla Hamdok, the head of the Sovereign Council, Lieutenant-General Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, announced the dissolution of the Sovereignty Council and the Council of Ministers, declaring a state of emergency in the country, and suspended the work of articles from the constitutional document.
Under the camera’s flashlights, Al Burhan took the stage in his military uniform to justify the ongoing coup in Sudan by his desire “to rectify the 2019 revolution”, which toppled the regime of Al Bashir.
Before the revolution, Al Burhan was living under the shadow of strict military system, climbing steadily the military ranks since he served in the Sudanese army as an infantry officer, until he became the commander of the ground forces.
Amid the national rage in Khartoum and different key cities in Sudan, Omar Al Bashir, the Sudanese president at the time, announced a series of military promotion. Al Bashir granted Al Burhan the rank of First Lieutenant-General, as well as the position of Inspector General of the Armed Forces after he was commander of the ground forces.
Al Burhan’s new major positions drew attention to the little know military official.
Born in 1960 into a Sufi family in a village north of Khartoum, Burhan studied in a Sudanese army college, then later in Jordan and at the Egyptian military academy in Cairo, where fellow alumni included future Egyptian president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.
He is married and has three children, with no known politics affiliations or scandals.
Burhan’s history pictured the 61 years old as the best military official to calm down the situation after toppling the 26 years long regime of Al Bashir.
Awad Ibn Auf, the defense minister at the time, announced in April 2019 that he had chosen Lieutenant-General Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, who was relatively accepted by everyone, as the new head of the Military Council, and he officially assumed his duties after taking the constitutional oath.
Al Burhan signed with “Coalition of the Forces of Freedom and Change”, which led the popular protests, an agreement known as the “constitutional document”, which stipulated a transitional phase during which civilians and military would share power to lead the country towards elections and civilian rule.
The military leader played a major role, according to the Israeli newspaper Israel Hayoum, in supporting normalizing ties with Israel and pushing Sudan to join the Abraham accords’ club.
Nowadays, Al-Burhan becomes habituated to spotlight, as he is behaving and being treated like the head of Sudan’s state. His last moves drove back protests and manifestations to streets, as Sudanese fear losing the revolutions’ gaining and enter a new age of military control under Al Burhan’s seizure of power.
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