Like a spot of oil

As the world's eyes are on Syria along the Turkish border, something else is underway in one of Africa's largest countries. Pass it on: Sudan seeks to be free from Bashir's dictatorship.

The Arab Spring that started in Tunisia early last year has sent political shock waves across the Arab world. One spring later, internal and regional power relations have been significantly altered. In Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, new governing coalitions have stood up, while leaders beyond those countries have felt the need to respond through oppression or some kind of reform. The current fronteer of the Arab spring seems to be situated in Syria, where the Assad regime is entrenched in a bitter struggle for survival in ever increasing international isolation and blind violence.

However, since less than two week, unrest has come over Sudan, too. This predominantly muslim country, inhabited by over 30m people, has been under Bashir's rule since 1989. Bashir, who has faced an international arrest warrant for years, rules with an iron fist, and is held responsible for the death of at least hundreds of thousands of people, most notably in the oil-rich area of Darfur. Torture is a daily risk and reality for anyone seeking to oppose his rule.



Yet rapidly rising food prices have been pushing the population into a desperate corner. Foreign Policy reports:

The current wave of unrest was started by women. On June 15, a group of female students at the University of Khartoum launched a public protest against drastic hikes in the prices of food and public transportation. Their male classmates joined them, and together they marched into the center of the city, where they were met by the combined forces of the police and the infamous National Intelligence and Security Service, who attacked the demonstrators with tear gas and iron rods. Courts have sentenced some of the detainees to lashes -- in some cases as many as 60.

But this failed to stop the revolt, which soon spread to other universities in Khartoum and then outside of the capital. Since then there have been demonstrations around the country, including places as far afield as Omdurman and Kasala.

So far, the story has hardly been covered in western media, which is, according to FP, partly due to a successful policy of foreign journalist bullying by the Khartoum regime. Therefore the FP calls upon media to cover the story more widely.

Sudan has been long enough under the yoke of a bloody and power-hungry dictator. And although the experience so far has shown us that the Arab Spring does not always yield smooth success (see, e.g. the situation in Syria and Libya), with a little help from the west, this may be Sudan's moment - with no other way forward than out.