'REVOLUTIONARY ESCALATION' USHERS IN NIGHT RALLIES IN SUDAN

Khartoum, SUDAN

Sudan’s protest leaders earlier this week called for night-time demonstrations and marches in the capital, Khartoum, and elsewhere in the country, amid a tense standoff with the ruling military over who should lead the transition after the ouster of the autocrat Omar al-Bashir.

The protest leaders said they’ve begun a “revolutionary escalation” to pressure the country’s generals to hand over power to civilians and to condemn the military’s violent dispersal of their sit-in camp in Khartoum earlier this month.

At least 128 people have died since the security force’s crackdown on June 3, according to the protest organizers. The military-backed authorities, however, say 61 people died, including three members of the security forces.

The group representing the protesters — known as the Forces for the Declaration of Freedom and Change — said the night rallies begun on Tuesday and marches on Thursday.

A Sudanese delegation on Friday arrived in neighbouring Eritrea for a working visit, the Eritrean Information Minister disclosed on Friday.

The delegation is led by Chairman of the Transitional Military Council, TMC; Abdul Fattah Al-Burhan. They were received by President Isaias Afwerki at the Asmara International Airport.

The Chairman of Sudan's Transitional Military Council (TMC),
Lt. Gen. Abdul-Fattah Al-Burhan, arrived in Asmara in
mid-morning hours today for working visit to Eritrea. Delegation was accorded warm welcome by President Isaias Afwerki on arrival at Asmara's International Airport.

The two sides have since talks which are likely to center around bilateral relations and incidents back in post-Bashir Sudan.

Eritrea has in recent weeks been a vocal neighbour calling on the African Union to stop externalizing the crisis and then Afwerki’s visit to Egypt to hold talks on Sudan with Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fatteh Al-Sisi.

Eritrea was the only country in the region that the TMC leader had yet to visit in the last few months. Al-Burhan has already been to Egypt, South Sudan and Ethiopia holding talks with the respective leaders.

Back home, despite the resumption of talks between the junta and protest leaders; the call for a third party is the latest stumbling block to the talks. Protesters are also demanding a probe into deaths from a violent break up of a sit-in. - AP