Ethiopia is offering to mediate discussions between the Sudanese military and opposition leaders after over 100 protestors were killed in a military crackdown.

The Sudanese coalition for the opposition said on Friday that they would accept mediation efforts by the Ethiopian Prime Minister, Abiy Ahmed, in an attempt to find a way out of the current Sudanese crisis.

The grounds on which the coalition said it would accept mediation include a confession by the Sudanese military transitional council for the killing of protesters during a sit-in, last Monday. They are also calling for an international probe to begin immediately and the release of all detained during the military crackdown on the sit-in.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said that the Sudanese army, political powers and the people should all act bravely and responsibly towards a democratic transition.

Reuters quoted an anonymous opposition leader as saying that the Sudanese security forces arrested an opposition operative, Mohammad Esmat, after the latter had engaged in talks with the Ethiopian Prime Minister. No response by the transitional military council of Sudan was reported.

The Ethiopian Prime Minister’s visit to the Sudanese capital, Alkhartoum, was aimed at defusing tension among the various parties after the Sudanese military used lethal force to disperse Sudanese protesters last Monday. The crackdown claimed the lives of more than 100 protesters and injured dozens more, according to the Central Committee of Sudan’s Physicians, which is believed to be linked with the Sudanese opposition.

P.M. Ahmad was quoted as saying that his country is committed to promoting peace in the region and hoping for a better and peaceful future for a unified Sudan.

In response to the latest deadly crackdown by Sudan’s military, the African Union suspended Sudan’s membership in the union until the country has a civil transitional government paving the way for a smooth democratic process.

Meanwhile, deputy-head of the Sudanese Military Council, Mohammad Daqlu, defended the military’s crackdown on the latest sit-in by saying that the protesters had among them some thugs and drug traffickers.

Daqlu, who is widely nicknamed as Hameedaty, was quoted as saying, “We will not allow any chaos and we will react in a way that preserves the law and the status of the state.”

Since last December, Sudan has lived through mass demonstrations in protest of the soaring prices of goods and commodities, as well as inflation. The protests recently pushed the Sudanese army to overthrow the authoritarian President Omar al-Bashir who remained in power for over three decades.