Sudan generals, protest leaders agree constitutional declaration: African Union

"I am announcing to the Sudanese, African and international public opinion that the two delegations have fully agreed on the constitutional declaration," AU mediator Mohamed El Hacen Lebatt told reporters early on Saturday.

He also said meetings will be held to discuss a formal signing ceremony. 

The announcement came after four protesters were shot dead during a demonstration in the Sudanese city of Omdurman on Thursday, as thousands gathered for rallies in several cities to protest against the killing of schoolchildren earlier this week when gunfire broke out.

"Four protesters have been killed by live ammunition and several wounded at a rally in Omdurman," the doctors' committee linked to Sudan's protest movement said in a statement.

Four secondary school students were among six killed at a demonstration against commodity shortages in Al-Obeid, the capital of North Kordofan in central Sudan, on Monday, leading to a fresh outbreak of protests.

A leading general from the ruling military council, Jamal Omar, accused members of the notorious paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) of being responsible for the killings.

On Friday, Sudan's ruling generals announced that nine paramilitaries had been arrested for the killing of four teenage demonstrators.

The protest movement has long blamed the irregulars of the powerful RSF, whose commander General Mohamed Hamdan Daglo is deputy head of the ruling military council, for the deadly violence against demonstrators.

Ongoing talks

Talks between protest leaders and the generals were suspended after the Al-Obaid killings, which drew international condemnation, including from their Ethiopian mediator. 

But the negotiations eventually got under way on Thursday and were due to resume on Friday evening.

On the table are the remaining details of the political transition set out in a landmark power-sharing deal signed on July 17.

They include the powers of the proposed joint civilian-military ruling body, the deployment of security forces and immunity for the generals over protest-related violence

The talks have repeatedly been suspended and remained deadlocked for weeks after a brutal raid on a protest camp in Khartoum on June 3 widely blamed on the RSF.

At least 127 people were killed, according to doctors linked to the protesters. Officials have given a much lower death toll.

It took intense mediation from African Union and Ethiopian diplomats to bring the two sides back to the negotiating table.

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