The military power grab in Sudan appears to be the latest in a series of coups across the continent over the last decade:
Sudan, 2021
After weeks of tensions between military and civilian figures who have shared power in Sudan since the ouster of its autocrat Omar al-Bashir two years ago, armed forces on Monday detained the prime minister.
Civilian members of the ruling council and government ministers were also detained along with Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok, with the military saying he had refused to support their “coup”.
Guinea, 2021
Elite troops led by lieutenant-colonel Mamady Doumbouya take over the impoverished West African state in September, arresting 83-year-old President Alpha Conde.
The veteran became Guinea’s first democratically-elected president in 2010 after spending years in jails at the hands of previous juntas.
But last year he sparked fury by changing the constitution so he could run for a third term.
Mali, 2020, 2021
President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita is overthrown in August 2020 after several months of street protests in the troubled West African nation which is threatened by an Islamic insurgency.
Then in May this year the military takes over yet again after the civilian leaders of an interim government remove soldiers from some key posts.
Army strongman Colonel Assimi Goita survives an assassination attempt on July 20 at a Bamako mosque.
Under international pressure, the colonel vows to hold free elections by February.
Sudan, 2019
Dictator Omar al-Bashir’s 30 years in power are terminated by the army in April 2019 after a four-month street revolt sparked by the price of bread tripling.
More than 250 people die in the protests. A transition council of military and civil society leaders is formed in August 2019 and a civilian prime minister appointed the following month.
Zimbabwe, 2017
Robert Mugabe, who had led the country with an iron fist for the 37 years since independence, falls in 2017.
He is ousted by the military and members of his own ZANU-PF party, who replace him with former vice president Emmerson Mnangagwa.
Mugabe dies in Singapore two years later aged 95.
Burkina Faso, 2015
Less than a year after the fall of president Blaise Compaore after a popular revolt, Michel Kafando is overthrown as president in a coup led by his own presidential guard in 2015.
Less than a week later Kafando is back in power after the coup leaders fail to gather support, until elections are held in November.
Egypt, 2013
The military ousts Egypt’s first democratically-elected leader, the Islamist Mohamed Morsi, in 2013 after huge demonstrations against his one year in charge.
The general who led the bloody putsch, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, becomes president and begins a brutal crackdown on dissent that is still going on.
Guinea Bissau, 2012
Troops led by General Antonio Indjai oust interim president Raimundo Pereira and former prime minister Carlos Gomes Junior between two rounds of a presidential poll in 2012.
It is the fourth coup since independence from Portugal in 1974.
