AT LEAST one protester was shot dead during mass demonstrations marking the third anniversary of the Sudanese revolution that forced out dictator Omar al-Bashir, the Sudan Doctors Committee said today.

Tens of thousands took to the streets of Khartoum and other cities yesterday to demand the military relinquish power and opposing the US-negotiated power-sharing deal that returned civilian PM Abdalla Hamdok to office, but alongside the military officers who seized power in October.

Security forces attacked demonstrators staging a mass sit-in in front of the presidential palace on the banks of the Blue Nile. The Health Ministry said over 120 people were wounded.

Mr Hamdok pleaded with the people to accept the November 21 deal with the junta, saying it would “protect our nation from sliding into a new international isolation.”

The arrangement leaves power in the hands of a military-dominated Sovereign Council and mandates a “technocratic” cabinet of unelected officials that the Sudanese Communist Party says will be in hock to the International Monetary Fund and foreign corporate interests.

Brigadier-General al-Tahir Abu Hagga, an adviser to October’s coup leader General Abdel-Fattah Burhan, attacked what he called the “flagrant, controversial and hostile tone” of the protesters and warned that “the November 21 deal is the basis on which transitional political visions should be built.”

But the Forces for the Declaration of Freedom and Change, an umbrella group of revolutionary organisations, said it would continue to call people onto the streets until democracy was won and army chiefs faced justice for the estimated 45 people killed protesting against their takeover so far.

It calls for the restructuring of the military and the disbanding of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, formerly known as the Janjaweed militias, who are notorious for their role in the Darfur massacres.

The Communist Party said three years on from the start of the mass uprising that was to prompt the army to remove Mr Bashir, Sudanese politics revolved around “the clashes between the two camps — the camp of the revolution, and the camp of the enemies of the revolution.”

Sudanese Professionals Association spokesman Mohammed Yousef al-Mustafa said the street demonstrations “unified all revolutionary forces behind a single demand: hand power to civilians.

“Mr Hamdok must declare a clear position and choose whether to join the people or continue siding with the generals,” he warned.