Qualla: 1971 Sudanese coup d'état

1971 Sudanese coup d'état: Introduction

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Siesta hours in Khartoum are quiet. The afternoon heat empties the streets, and the city's rhythm slows while people retreat inside to wait out the sun. In the mid-afternoon of 19 July 1971, Major Hashem al-Atta used that quiet to move tanks into positions around the government buildings. By sunset he had seized the presidential palace, captured President Gaafar Nimeiry and several dozen of his followers, and announced a new revolutionary council. Three days later, Nimeiry was free, Atta was under arrest, and a British passenger jet had been forced down in Libya by Gaddafi's fighter jets. For ordinary Sudanese, the week had been bewildering even by their standards.

1971 Sudanese coup d'état: The Communist Question

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

By mid-1971, relations between Nimeiry's government and the Sudanese Communist Party had collapsed. The SCP had supported the 1969 coup and initially participated in the new government. Now Nimeiry wanted to phase out communist influence. He ordered the deportation of SCP Secreta...

1971 Sudanese coup d'état: The Siesta Coup

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The coup began in mid-afternoon on 19 July, when Khartoum was at its quietest. Major Hashem al-Atta - one of the original Free Officers, now secretly retained by the SCP - moved tanks around the government buildings with minimal resistance. He captured the Presidential Palace and...

1971 Sudanese coup d'état: The BOAC Intervention

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Al-Nur and Hamdallah were abroad when the coup happened. They boarded a British Overseas Airways Corporation jetliner in London for Khartoum, expecting to arrive as heroes. They did not arrive. Muammar Gaddafi, who had come to power in Libya two years earlier and was at this poin...

1971 Sudanese coup d'état: The Counter-Coup and Its Cost

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Three days after Atta seized the palace, loyalist army units stormed in, rescued Nimeiry, and arrested Atta and his confederates. The counter-coup was swift. The reprisals were not swift - they were sustained. Nimeiry, blaming the SCP for the coup attempt, ordered the arrest of h...

1971 Sudanese coup d'état: From the Air

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

From cruising altitude Khartoum shows its distinctive three-city geometry where the Blue and White Niles meet. The Presidential Palace sits on the east bank of the Blue Nile, near the riverfront that forms central Khartoum's civic heart. Radio Omdurman - from which so many Sudane...