Sudan’s Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok has survived an assassination attempt in the capital, Khartoum, according to state media.
According to AlJazeera, Members of Hamdok’s office confirmed that the prime minister had been moved to a safe location. in a safe place”.
“An explosion hit as Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok’s car was driving by but thank God no one was hurt,” Ali Bakhit, the prime minister’s office director, said on Monday.
Footage posted online showed two white vehicles used by Sudan’s top officials parked on a street, damaged with their widows broken. Another vehicle was badly damaged in the blast.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility.
Hamdok was appointed prime minister last August, after pro-democracy protests forced the military to remove the autocratic President Omar al-Bashir in April and replace it with a civilian-led government.
Military generals remain the de facto rulers of the country and have shown little willingness to hand over power to the civilian-led administration.
Hamdok recently confirmed the government would cooperate with the International Criminal Court’s efforts to prosecute those wanted for war crimes and genocide in connection with the Darfur conflict in Sudan in the 2000s.
Transitional authorities announced in February that they agreed to hand over al-Bashir to the ICC along with other former officials wanted by the ICC.
Nearly a year after al-Bashir’s ouster, the country faces a dire economic crisis. Inflation stands at a staggering 60% and the unemployment rate was 22.1% in 2019, according to the International Monetary Fund. The government has said that 30% of Sudan’s young people, who make up more than half of the over 42 million population, are without jobs.
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