The African Union said yesterday it had suspended Sudan until a civilian government was formed, intensifying international pressure on the country’s new military rulers to give up power.
Ethiopia meanwhile will launch a mediation effort today, diplomatic sources in Khartoum said.
The moves take place after security forces cleared protesters from a sit-in camp in central Khartoum on Monday, killing dozens of people in the worst violence since President Omar al-Bashir was removed by the military in April after four months of generally peaceful protests.
The opposition had been in talks with an interim military council over a civilian-led transition to democracy, but the negotiations faltered and this week’s crackdown marked a turning point in the power struggle.
The United Nations and several foreign governments have condemned the bloodshed. The African Union’s Peace and Security Council, in a meeting in Addis Ababa yesterday, decided to suspend Sudan from all AU activities until a civilian government has been formed. Suspension is the African Union’s normal response to any interruption of constitutional rule in one of its members.
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed was due to visit Khartoum today to try to mediate between the military and an opposition alliance, a diplomatic source at the Ethiopian embassy in Khartoum said.
The source told Reuters that Abiy would meet members of the Transitional Military Council and the opposition’s Declaration of Freedom and Change Forces during his one-day visit.
Ethiopia hosts the headquarters of the African Union but it was not clear if Abiy would be acting under AU auspices.
The Sudanese Health Ministry said on Thursday that 61 people had been killed in the crackdown but the opposition put the toll at 108.
The action was led by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary force, witnesses said. Troops fired on unarmed protesters then mounted a wider operation crackdown in the following days, they said.
The RSF, commanded by the military council’s deputy leader General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, was built up from militias that fought insurgents in Sudan’s western Darfur region during a civil war that began in 2003.