Hundreds of Sudanese university students took to streets in Khartoum on Tuesday chanting “civilian rule, civilian rule” to seek justice for those killed in months of political unrest.
The Sudanese Professionals Association, the group that spearheaded the campaign against long-serving President Omar al-Bashir, had called for Tuesday’s protest.
“Blood for blood, we don’t want compensations,” the students chanted, reported Yahoo News.
Some of the students were seen holding photographs of people killed in seven months of protest while others waved Sudanese flags. The June 3 crackdown on a sit-in protest camp in the capital Khartoum killed dozens of protesters and left hundreds wounded. Doctors close to the protest movement claim around 246 people have been killed nationwide in protest-related violence.
Tuesday’s protest rally follows a power-sharing agreement signed last week between protest leaders and army rulers. The breakthrough came after the African Union and neighboring Ethiopia stepped up mediation efforts to end the crisis.
The power-sharing deal calls for the formation of a ruling council consisting of five generals and five civilians, with a sixth civilian to be chosen by the ten-member council. A military general will head the council for 21 months and then a civilian will run the council for 18 months, to account for the total 39-month transitional period.
However, negotiations have yet to address accountability for hundreds killed since the protests first began in December.
The negotiation talks have reportedly been postponed over differences among the opposition parties. The opposition leaders said they needed more time to resolve differences among themselves.
“The talks have been postponed,” Omar Al-Digeir, a prominent protest leader, told reporters. “We need more internal consultation to reach a united vision.”
No new date has yet been set for the resumption of talks.
