Demonstrators flocked towards the central Khartoum site on Thursday evening, beating drums and singing revolutionary songs after calls for a “million-strong” demonstration to demand the ruling military council cede power. The council says it has assumed power for a two-year transitional period. This rally organized by The Alliance for Freedom and Change, an umbrella group leading the protests, came after Sudan’s new military rulers and protest leaders agreed to set up a joint committee, to chart the way forward two weeks after the ouster of veteran president Omar al-Bashir. The giant rally followed on a late-night meeting between the military council and leaders of the protest movement’s umbrella group. “We have an agreement on most demands presented in the document of the Alliance for Freedom and Change,” Lieutenant General Shamseddine Kabbashi, spokesman of the military council, told reporters afterwards. Wednesday’s meeting preceded an announcement by the military council declaring that three members of the ruling body had stepped down after demands from protesters. On Thursday, an activist Ahmed Najdi told reporters that he was expecting “a joint military-civilian sovereign council, which I think is the middle path and most protesters would agree to that”.