By Agencies
Khartoum: At least sixty people have been reported to have died in a two-day crackdown on Sudanese protesters carried out by security forces, a doctors’ committee close to the demonstrators said Wednesday.
A previous toll given by the Central Committee of Sudanese Doctors had counted 40 dead since the bloody dispersal of a weeks-long sit-in outside army headquarters in Khartoum on Monday. The committee said it held “the militias of the (military) council… responsible for this massacre.” Protesters have previously singled out the Rapid Support Forces, paramilitaries with origins in the 16-year-old war in the western region of Darfur whose commander is a deputy chairman on the ruling military council.
Following the deadly crackdown, the military council announced it was abandoning all previous agreements reached with protest leaders about a transition to civilian rule. The protest movement in turn dismissed the Generals’ promise of elections within nine months.
