Sudan military orders new election

Sudan’s ruling military council on Tuesday canceled its agreement with protest leaders and called for elections after a crackdown on a sit-in camp that left 35 people dead and dozens of others injured. Gen. Abedel-Fattah Burhan, head of the military council, called for elections within nine months.

After security officials confronted protesters in the camp outside military headquarters in Khartoum on Monday, the military initially claimed it only targeted a portion of the camp in response to criminal activity. Burhan said in a statement Tuesday that he ordered an investigation into the violence but blamed protest leaders for the incident, accusing them of “extending the negotiations and seeking to exclude other political and security forces” from participating in any transitional government.

The Sudanese military, after months of protests, ousted longtime leader Omar al-Bashir on April 11. Protesters have held sit-ins since then to demand a majority-civilian transitional government.

The opposition and military had started to make progress in talks over the transitional Cabinet and legislature but reached a stalemate over the makeup of the top sovereign council. The United Nations Security Council on Tuesday called for a closed-door session to discuss the unrest in the country.

Protest organizers, led by the Sudanese Professional Association, condemned the crackdown and called for more civil disobedience. “The military council has chosen escalation and confrontation,” protest spokesman Mohammed Yousef al-Mustafa said. “Now the situation is either them or us, there is no other way.”