THE UN Security Council is expected to meet in an emergency closed-door session today to address the crisis in Sudan, diplomats told AFP, after a military general ousted the civilian government.

The session was requested by the UK, Estonia, France, Ireland, Norway and the US, the diplomats said yesterday.

During a press conference by video link from Khartoum with journalists in New York, the UN envoy to Sudan, Germany’s Volker Perthes, indicated his intent to inform today’s security council meeting on the Sudan developments.

He also urged its 15 members to show unity, stressing that their statements had been taken into account seriously for two years by Sudanese actors.

Council members are considering asking the broader UN membership to adopt a joint declaration, diplomats said.

However, this would not go so far as to condemn the coup, as the UN secretary-general, Antonio Guterres firmly did, but would limit itself to evoking the concern of the security council.

The military move by Sudan’s top general to declare a state of emergency and dissolve government – one of several such takeovers in Africa this year – sparked swift international condemnation.

The UN demanded the “immediate release” of the prime minister, while the US suspended aid and urged restoration of a civilian government.

General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan’s announcement in a televised address came after the armed forces detained government leaders that have been heading the transition to full civilian rule following the April 2019 ouster of autocrat Omar al-Bashir, in one of the world’s least developed countries. – AFP, October 26, 2021.