Khartoum: Sudan's army has ousted veteran president Omar al-Bashir, but protestors against his iron-fisted rule denounced a "coup" and thousands rallied outside army headquarters as a night-time curfew kicked in.
In a sombre televised address on Thursday, Defence Minister Awad Ibnouf announced "the toppling of the regime" and said Bashir had been detained in "a secure place", bringing an end to his three decades in power.
Thousands of protestors were staging a sit-in for the sixth night running outside Khartoum army headquarters as the military council's curfew began at 10:00 pm (2000 GMT) despite growing international pressure to hand over to civilian rule.
The army had earlier warned protestors not to defy the curfew.
Washington said Khartoum should "exercise restraint and to allow space for civilian participation within the government".
"The Sudanese people should determine who leads them and their future and the Sudanese people have been clear and are demanding a civilian-led transition," State Department spokesman Robert Palladino told reporters.
The European Union urged the army to carry out a "swift" handover to civilian rule.
Ibnouf said a transitional military council would replace the president for two years, adding that the country's borders and airspace were shut until further notice.
State television later broadcast footage of him taking the oath to become head of the council, alongside his new deputy, army chief of staff Lieutenant General Kamal Abdelmarouf.
Bashir, who swept to power in a 1989 coup, was one of Africa's longest-serving presidents and is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) on charges of genocide and war crimes.
Organisers of the protests that have rocked Sudan since December vowed to press on until the whole regime was swept aside.
The protestors' Alliance for Freedom and Change said the regime had kept "the same faces", and urged demonstrators "to continue their sit-in in front of army headquarters and across all regions and in the streets".
Alaa Salah, who has become an icon of the protest movement after a video of her leading demonstrators' chants went viral, said that "change will not happen with Bashir's entire regime hoodwinking Sudanese civilians through a military coup".
Thursday's announcement meant "we have not achieved anything", said Adel, a protestor outside the army headquarters, where defiant demonstrators have braved tear gas and gunfire to keep up the sit-in.
"We will not stop our revolution. We are calling for the regime to step down, not only Bashir," he said.
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