The September 2013 Sudan Protest Killings

Status boundary: human-rights organizations documented lethal force, arrests and torture, and attributed many abuses to Sudanese security forces and allied armed men. The archive does not assign a particular death to a named officer without a surviving judgment. A single known conviction was overturned on appeal, and the wider crackdown remains unresolved.

Austerity and the start of the protests

On 22 September 2013, President Omar al-Bashir’s government announced the removal of fuel subsidies and other austerity measures. Sudan had lost much of its oil revenue after South Sudan became independent in 2011, and prices were already placing severe pressure on households.

Protests began in Wad Madani and spread across the capital region and other towns. Demonstrators objected not only to fuel prices but also to repression and the government’s economic record. Human Rights Watch found that government forces responded with tear gas, batons and live ammunition.

Lethal force in Khartoum and Omdurman

Human Rights Watch documented shootings in Khartoum’s poorer suburbs and in Omdurman. Its report named victims including 15-year-old Saleh Sadiq Osman Sadiq, 19-year-old Omar Khalil Ibrahim Khalil and 68-year-old merchant Abdullah Yousif Suliman. Salah Sanhouri, 26, was killed on 27 September and became one of the most widely recognized victims.

Amnesty International and ACJPS found that most of the people in their casualty record were shot in the head or chest, while others were shot in the back. They concluded that even where some protesters threw stones or burned tires, the use of live ammunition was unnecessary or disproportionate.

Why the death toll is presented as disputed

The principal independent figures are close but not identical. Human Rights Watch described more than 170 people, including children, reported killed. Amnesty International and ACJPS documented at least 185 deaths. A Justice Ministry investigation later identified 86 protesters killed.

These figures should not be blended into a false single total. The archive uses “at least 185 documented by Amnesty and ACJPS” for the highest developed rights-group study and preserves the government’s lower figure as a separate official finding.

Arrests, detention and torture allegations

Rights groups reported more than 800 arrests. Some detainees were held for weeks without charge or access to lawyers and relatives. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty documented allegations of beatings, electric shocks, stress positions, sexual assault and other ill-treatment.

Journalists and human-rights defenders were also targeted, and authorities restricted reporting. The pattern complicated casualty documentation and access to evidence. Some injured protesters reportedly avoided hospitals because they feared arrest.

Commissions and blocked accountability

Sudan established three state commissions of inquiry. Human Rights Watch reported in 2016 that their findings had not been made public. A UN independent expert had already said that the information supplied by the government did not demonstrate a thorough and independent investigation.

Families filed criminal complaints but encountered refusals, missing documents, immunities for security personnel and intimidation. In 2014, Amnesty and ACJPS reported that only one of 85 family complaints had reached trial. By 2016, around sixteen cases were described as pending, but the groups knew of no completed prosecution that produced lasting accountability.

The Sara Abdelbagi case

Pharmacist Sara Abdelbagi was shot outside her home in Omdurman during the protests. Her case was the one known prosecution to advance to trial. A policeman was convicted, but the conviction was overturned on appeal in May 2014 for lack of evidence.

The reversal is important to the archive’s classification. It would be inaccurate to describe the crackdown as having produced a final murder conviction. The case illustrates both an attempt to prosecute and the failure of that judgment to survive review.

Five years without a conviction

In October 2018, Amnesty International said that Sudanese authorities had not brought a single person to justice for the killings and cited 185 protesters shot dead. That assessment came five years after the crackdown and after the government’s inquiries, arrests of four officers and efforts to offer diya payments to families.

Compensation cannot substitute for an effective criminal investigation, a fair trial or public findings. Later political upheaval and war further damaged Sudan’s justice institutions. No authoritative source reviewed for this page established a subsequent final conviction resolving the 2013 killings.

Why the archive marks the case unresolved

The existence of the killings is not the unresolved question. The open issue is individual criminal responsibility and the absence of durable judgments. Rights investigations establish a strong institutional pattern; criminal law still requires case-specific evidence and adjudication.

The archive therefore records the security-force attribution made by independent investigations, preserves the competing casualty counts and states plainly that the only known conviction was reversed. It does not equate an inquiry, arrest, private complaint or compensation offer with a final conviction.

Timeline

• 22 September 2013 — The government announces the end of fuel subsidies and other austerity measures.
• 23–30 September 2013 — Protests spread through Wad Madani, Khartoum, Omdurman and other towns; security forces use live ammunition.
• October 2013 — Arrests and protest-related violence continue as authorities promise investigations.
• May 2014 — A policeman’s conviction for killing Sara Abdelbagi is overturned on appeal.
• 3 September 2014 — Amnesty International and ACJPS publish a study documenting at least 185 deaths and extensive detention abuses.
• November 2015 — A Justice Ministry official says a government inquiry identified 86 protesters killed and four arrested officers.
• 22 September 2016 — Rights groups report no completed prosecution with lasting accountability.
• 9 October 2018 — Amnesty states that no person has been brought to justice for the 185 documented deaths.

Frequently asked questions

Sources and source-quality review

The file relies primarily on detailed investigations by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and ACJPS, and uses later follow-up reporting to track the justice record. Where the government and independent groups reported different totals, both figures are retained with their scope.

• Human Rights Watch — “We Stood, They Opened Fire”21 April 2014 · chronology, more than 170 reported deaths, named victims, detention abuses and investigative obstruction
• Human Rights Watch — Full report PDFApril 2014 · methodology and detailed incident record
• Amnesty International and ACJPS — Excessive and deadly3 September 2014 · 185 documented deaths, 85 family complaints and use-of-force findings
• Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and ACJPS — No justice for protester killings22 September 2016 · government figure of 86, overturned conviction, pending cases and inquiry failures
• Amnesty International — Five years later and no justice9 October 2018 · no person brought to justice for 185 documented deaths

Status note

Reviewed through 30 September 2026. No lasting final criminal conviction for the September 2013 protest killings was verified. Because Sudan’s institutional landscape has changed repeatedly, any future judgment should be added only after court-level or independently corroborated confirmation.