Sudan's opposition rejects military council's election plan after violent outburst

Sudanese protesters in Omdurman.
(Image credit: AHMED MUSTAFA/AFP/Getty Images)

Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, was the site of violence on Monday, after security forces stormed a protest camp outside the Sudanese defense ministry, resulting in 35 deaths. It was the worst violence in the country since former President Omar Al-Bashir was ousted in April, Al Jazeera reports. But it reportedly will not prevent the protesters from continuing their movement.

Just a day later, the opposition rejected a plan from the transitional military council, which has succeeded Al-Bashir, to hold national elections within nine months, as opposed to the originally planned three years.

"What happened, killing protesters, wounding and humiliation, was a systematic and planned matter to impose repression on the Sudanese people," Madani Abbas Madani, a leader of the Declaration of Freedom and Change Forces opposition alliance, said. He added that the alliance would continue a civil obedience campaign to try to force the council from power.

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In turn, the military council canceled all prior agreements with the opposition, and would instead focus on setting up regionally and internationally supervised elections within nine months. The council's leader, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan said he regretted the violence and that the matter would be investigated. Read more at Al Jazeera.

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Tim O'Donnell

Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.