Part 6/13:
Amid this turbulence, Omar al-Bashir seized power in a military coup in 1989, becoming one of the longest-serving dictators in Sudanese history. Under his regime, civil liberties were crushed, and violence against civilians surged. Particularly devastating were the events in Darfur, where Al-Bashir armed militias to carry out ethnic cleansing, resulting in hundreds of thousands of deaths. Despite being indicted for genocide by the International Criminal Court, he remained firmly in control until protests erupted in 2019, signaling a glimmer of hope for change.