Sudan's deposed prime minister released, returns home

Cairo: Sudan's deposed prime minister and his wife were brought home late Tuesday, his office said, after a day of intense international pressure following his removal in a military coup.

The release of Prime Minister Abdallah Hamdok and his wife followed international condemnation of the coup and calls for the military to release all the government officials who were detained when Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan seized power on Monday.

Hamdok had been held at Burhan's home, the general said, and was in good health. But of the many other senior government officials detained Monday, Burhan alleged that some tried to incite a rebellion within the armed forces, saying they would face trial. Others who are found "innocent" would be freed, he added.

The military seized power in a move that was widely denounced abroad. On Tuesday, pro-democracy demonstrators blocked roads in the capital with makeshift barricades and burning tires. Troops fired on crowds a day earlier, killing four protesters, according to doctors.

The takeover came after weeks of mounting tensions between military and civilian leaders over the course and pace of Sudan's transition to democracy. It threatened to derail that process, which has progressed in fits and starts since the overthrow of longtime autocrat Omar al-Bashir in a popular uprising two years ago.

At an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council on Tuesday, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged world powers to unite to confront a recent "epidemic of coups d'etat." But the UN's most powerful body took no action during the closed-door consultations about Sudan, a nation in Africa linked by language and culture to the Arab world.