Sudanese opposition leaders arrested after mediation talks with Ethiopian prime minister

Despite accepting Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed as a mediator in recently-stalled talks with the military, two of Sudan's opposition leaders were arrested by security forces Friday and early on Saturday.

Opposition politician Mohamed Esmat and Ismail Jalab, a leader of the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North, met with Amed on Friday, only to face arrest shortly after at the hands of Sudan's security forces, Al Jazeera reports. The two men are leading members of the Freedom and Change alliance, a coalition of opposition groups in the country that are in the midst of months-long anti-government protests. It is not clear where the two men are being held.

Sudan is currently governed by a Transitional Military Council, but negotiations between protesters and the council have stalled after paramilitary forces stormed a protest camp on Monday, which the opposition says resulted in 108 deaths; Al Jazeera reports another source said 61 people died.

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While the military council has said they want to negotiate with the opposition with the goal of eventually forming a civilian government, Eric Reeves, a Sudan researcher at Harvard University, told Al Jazeera that the arrests show the council "is not really serious" about sitting down with the opposition, even with Amed stepping in as mediator. "This could not have been more blatant in the eye of the opposition and it certainly paralyzes any effort to move forward in negotiations," Reeves said, referring to the arrests. Read more at Al Jazeera.