CAIRO (Reuters) - Sudan’s army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan was sworn in on Thursday as head of a new transitional council he appointed to lead the country following the military takeover late last month, shrugging off domestic and international pressure to reverse the coup.
The new 14-member Sovereign Council, for which one member is yet to be confirmed, includes civilians representing Sudan’s regions but none from the Forces of Freedom and Change (FFC) political coalition that had been sharing power with the military in a democratic transition since 2019.
Burhan’s deputy will remain Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, commander of the powerful paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), with both men keeping roles they held before the coup.
The move is likely to harden opposition among civilian groups who have pledged to resist the takeover through a campaign of civil disobedience, strikes and mass rallies, the next of which is planned for Saturday.
Late on Thursday, protesters closed roads and burned tires in Burri, a neighborhood in the east of the capital Khartoum, witnesses said. Unverified pictures posted on social media appeared to show similar protests in other parts of the capital.
Sudan’s ousted Information Minister Hamza Balloul said the announcement was an extension of the coup and that he was confident the Sudanese people could defeat it.