KHARTOUM: At least four protesters were killed and many injured by gunfire in the Sudanese city of Omdurman on Thursday, opposition medics said, as hundreds of thousands took to the streets to pile pressure on the country’s military rulers.

Organisers had called for a million-person march in response to the killing of young protesters in El-Obeid, a city southwest of Khartoum, earlier this week.

Thursday’s killings, reported by the Central Committee of Sudan Doctors, one of the main protest groups, came as opposition leaders said there had been some progress in talks with the military on reaching a deal to form a new government after the ousting of long-time leader Omar al-Bashir.

Sudan has been gripped by months of political turmoil that climaxed in the army overthrowing Bashir in April. The opposition has kept up protests, pressing the army to hand over to civilians.

Despite signing a deal in July which secured a three-year transition period and a joint sovereign council with a rotating leadership, talks over the wording of a constitutional declaration on the changes have stumbled.

“The agreement is really now just around the corner,” Satea al-Hajj, a leader in the Forces of Freedom and Change (FFC) coalition of opposition groups, said in a press conference in Khartoum on Thursday.

Published in Dawn, August 2nd, 2019