Sudanese Professionals Association says campaign will continue until military transfers power to civilian government.

Sudan‘s main protest group has started a nationwide “civil disobedience” campaign it said would run until the country’s ruling generals transfer power to a civilian government.

The call for the campaign by the Sudanese Professionals Association (SPA), which first launched the protests against former President Omar al-Bashir, came days after a bloody crackdown on demonstrators left dozens dead in the capital Khartoum.

“The civil disobedience movement will begin Sunday and end only when a civilian government announces itself in power on state television,” the SPA said in a statement.

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“Disobedience is a peaceful act capable of bringing to its knees the most powerful weapons arsenal in the world,” the statement added.

It was still unclear how the campaign would unfold on the streets, especially in Khartoum where all key roads and squares have been deserted since Monday’s crackdown.

Led by men in army fatigues, the raid on the weeks-long sit-in outside the army complex left at least 113 people dead, according to doctors close to the demonstrators.

Protesters wave flags at the sit-in outside the military headquarters in Khartoum in early May [Salih Basheer/AP]

The health ministry said 61 people died in the crackdown, 52 of them by “live ammunition” in Khartoum.

Witnesses say the assault was led by the feared Rapid Support Forces (RSF), who have their origins in the notorious Janjaweed militia, accused of abuses in the Darfur conflict between 2003 and 2004.

Day after mediation talks

The call for “civil disobedience” came a day after Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed visited Khartoum, seeking to revive talks between the generals and the protest leaders on the country’s transition.

Sudan’s Transitional Military Council (TMC) seized power in April after removing al-Bashir on the back of months-long protests against his three-decade rule.

Since then, it has resisted calls from protesters and Western nations to transfer power to a civilian administration.

Several rounds of talks with the demonstrators finally broke down in mid-May.

In a bid to revive the negotiations, the Ethiopian prime minister held separate meetings with the two sides in Khartoum on Friday.

“The army, the people and political forces have to act with courage and responsibility by taking quick steps towards a democratic and consensual transitional period,” Abiy said in a statement after the meetings.

“The army has to protect the security of the country and its people and political forces have to think about the future of the country.”

But three members of an opposition delegation that met the Ethiopian prime minister were later arrested, their aides said on Saturday.

Opposition politician Mohamed Esmat was detained on Friday, while Ismail Jalab, leader of the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N), was taken from his home overnight.

“A group of armed men came in vehicles at 3am (01:00 GMT) and took away Ismail Jalab … without giving any reason,” Rashid Anwar, one of his aides, told AFP news agency. He said SPLM-N spokesman Mubarak Ardol was also detained.

Esmat and Jalab are both leading members of the Freedom and Change alliance, an umbrella of opposition parties and some rebel groups.

The alliance, of which the SPA is a key member, was the main organiser of mass protests since December that led to al-Bashir’s removal.

Khartoum tense

The arrest of the opposition leaders threatens to further complicate efforts to reconcile the protest movement and the generals.

“The Transitional Military Council is not really serious about negotiating with civilians. This could not have been more blatant in the eye of the opposition and it certainly paralyses any effort to move forward in negotiations,” Eric Reeves, a researcher on Sudan at Harvard University, told Al Jazeera.

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Meanwhile, activists are calling for the security forces behind the deadly raid on the sit-in to brought to justice. “We want accountability for every single blood,” Mohammed Ameen, an activist told Al Jazeera.

Ameen said a new military council should be formed with a sole mission – to hand power to a civilian authority.

Since the crackdown, Khartoum residents have mostly been sheltering indoors, leaving the streets deserted. RSF members and soldiers on Saturday cleared major Khartoum streets of roadblocks put up by protesters.

Demonstrators had used tyres, tree trunks and rocks to erect the makeshift barricades, which the generals had warned would not be tolerated.

The RSF chief and deputy head of the TMC, Lieutenant General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, warned he would not tolerate “any chaos”.

Some barricades remained in place, witnesses said on Saturday, but the protest site at military headquarters was out of bounds.