Khartoum - Forty bodies have been recovered from the River
Nile, a medical organisation said Wednesday, bringing the death toll
from a violent crackdown on protesters by security forces to around
100.
"They were taken with vehicles that belong to the Janjawid militias
to an unknown destination," The Central Committee of Sudan Doctors
(CCSD) said in a statement on Facebook.
The group had earlier placed the body count from Monday's violence at
60.
Meanwhile, Sudanese opposition groups rejected talks with the
Transitional Military Council (TMC), hours after the interim leaders
said they were ready to reopen negotiations.
"We don't see any way back into negotiations with the TMC," said
Madani Abbas Madani, a spokesman of Forces of Freedom and Change
(FFC), an opposition umbrella body.
Earlier on Wednesday, TMC leader Abdel Fattah Burhan said in a
televised speech that the military council was "ready for
negotiations with the other parties without any conditions."
The TMC decided to make this concession "to avoid our homeland
slipping into chaos," he said, backtracking from Tuesday's
announcement that there was no capacity for talks.
There is mounting international pressure to resolve the crisis, which
started Monday when security forces fired live ammunition at a mass
sit-in in front of military headquarters in the capital Khartoum.
More than 300 people were injured, according to the CCSD, although
the exact number of wounded was difficult to establish since the TMC
has switched off the internet in many parts of the country.
The developments in Sudan have raised "great concern" in Saudi
Arabia, which called for dialogue to resume between the Sudanese
parties to end the crisis.
"The Kingdom affirms the importance of resuming dialogue between the
various parties in Sudan to fulfil the aspirations of the brotherly
Sudanese people," the Saudi government said in a statement carried by
the official SPA news agency.
Sudan is a partner to a military coalition led by Saudi Arabia and
the United Arab Emirates fighting in Yemen against rebels linked to
Iran, a regional rival of Riyadh.
In April, Saudi Arabia and the UAE pledged to jointly offer 3 billion
dollars in aid to Sudan, in a move aimed at supporting Sudan's
interim military rulers in easing the country's economic woes.
On Tuesday, the TMC had called for general elections within seven to
nine months in an attempt to appease protesters, but they had refused
this approach, descending once again onto the streets, blocking roads
and burning tyres.
The TMC has been in power since long-time ruler Omar al-Bashir was
deposed and arrested in a peaceful military coup in April that
followed months of anti-government protests.
But protesters say the new military rulers are a continuation of
al-Bashir's former regime and have vowed to continue their sit-in,
which was completely cleared after Monday's crackdown.
The attack caused an international outcry, drawing strong criticism
from the United Nations, European Union, African Union and
other observers.