Sudan to End State of Emergency in Most Areas

Officials announced the imminent end of a state of emergency across most of the country Thursday and began releasing political prisoners, including the top Islamic opposition figure.

Sudan, Africa’s largest country in area, has been under a state of emergency since President Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir seized power in 1989.

Thursday’s developments are expected to help prepare for a hand-over to a transitional government that will include former rebels.

The state of emergency will not be lifted in Darfur, the western region where fighting between rebels and pro-government militias has created one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, and the eastern Red Sea and Kassala states, where there have been occasional instances of anti-government violence and protests.

In a national broadcast Thursday, Bashir said the state of emergency would be lifted when the new constitution is adopted and a transitional government is installed in accordance with the January peace treaty that ended the 21-year civil war in southern Sudan.

“God willing, on the 9th of July, we will sign the interim period constitution,” Bashir said.

On July 9, the leader of the former rebellion in southern Sudan, John Garang, is due to become co-vice president in a transitional government that will prepare for elections and a referendum for southerners that gives them the option to secede.

The most prominent prisoner released Thursday was Hassan Turabi, an Islamic ideologue who was once the strongman of Bashir’s regime. He was dismissed after the president accused him of power grabbing.