The US Senate failed on Thursday to overturn President Donald Trump‘s veto of legislation that would have ended US military assistance for the Saudi-UAE war in Yemen.

The vote handed a victory to the White House for its policy of continuing to back Saudi Arabia.

The vote was 53 to 45, falling short of the two-thirds majority needed to override a veto, despite a handful of Trump’s fellow Republicans joining Democrats in backing the War Powers Resolution.

It was only the second veto of Trump’s presidency, both this year. Neither piece of legislation garnered the two-thirds support in both the Senate and the House of Representatives needed to override the veto.

The resolution’s passage earlier this year marked the first time both the Senate and House supported the provision of the War Powers Act limiting the president’s ability to send troops into action without congressional authorization.

Backers of the resolution said they wanted to reassert Congress’s constitutional power to declare war, and send a strong message to Saudi Arabia about the devastating civilian toll of the four-year-long civil war in Yemen. 

“We’ve been materially assisting a foreign power in its efforts to bomb its adversaries. And sometimes helping that foreign power to bomb innocent civilians on the ground in the process,” Republican Senator Mike Lee, a co-sponsor of the resolution, said before the vote.

Senator Bernie Sanders, who is running for the Democratic 2020 presidential nomination and was a sponsor of the resolution that passed Congress, framed Thursday’s veto vote as a life or death issue.

“We can save thousands upon thousands of people if we override Donald Trump’s veto,” he tweeted shortly before the vote.

Congress increasingly frustrated

The war in Yemen, which pits Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates against Houthi rebels backed by Iran, has killed tens of thousands of people and spawned what the United Nations calls the world’s most dire humanitarian crisis, with the country on the brink of famine.

Many members of Congress have also become increasingly frustrated with Saudi Arabia over its human rights record, anger fueled by the murder of Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi at a Saudi consulate in Turkey last year. 

Saudi officials have rejected accusations that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) ordered the killing, despite a conclusion by US intelligence that MBS was complicit in the journalist’s murder.

The resolution’s opponents argued that support for the Saudi-UAE coalition was not an appropriate use of the War Powers Act, because the military provides supports such as targeting assistance, not troops.

“The premise of this resolution is fundamentally flawed and I believe a misrepresentation of what is happening on the ground in Yemen,” Republican Senator Jim Risch said before the vote.

Risch, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, is writing legislation to address the situation with Saudi Arabia.

He declined to discuss possible specific provisions of the measure, but said he hoped to introduce it in May with the goal of finding something that could pass both the Republican-controlled Senate and Democratic-controlled House and be signed, not vetoed, by Trump.

Amid US and international anger over the civilian toll of the Yemen conflict, the Trump administration last year stopped providing refuelling support for Saudi aircraft in Yemen.

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Hundreds of thousands of protesters have joined a sit-in outside Sudan‘s defence ministry to press the ruling military council to hand over power to a civilian administration.

The huge crowd was answering a call by an alliance of activists and opposition groups to join a protest march through Khartoum on Thursday.

The Declaration of Freedom and Change Forces (DFCF) alliance said on Thursday it had submitted a draft constitutional document containing its vision for the transitional period to the Transitional Military Council (TMC).

Protesters and activists have been negotiating with the TMC to form a joint civilian-military body to oversee the period following the forced departure of long-time President Omar al-Bashir.

However, the parties are deadlocked over who would control the new council, and what the features of a transitional government would be.

Opposition groups say the ruling council must be civilian-led and have promised to maintain a sit-in outside the ministry until their demands are met, but the TMC has shown no sign of willingness to relinquish ultimate authority.

The proposed joint council would replace the existing 10-member TMC that took control after the military overthrew President al-Bashir three weeks ago.

But protest leaders from the DFCF alliance say the generals are not serious about handing power to civilians.

The army has been pushing for a council of seven military representatives and three civilians, while the alliance demands a council made up of eight civilians and seven generals.

The disagreement prompted the alliance to announce Thursday’s “million-strong march to assert our main demand, which is for civilian rule”.

People came from a number of different provinces to join the march, a witness told Reuters News Agency.

Demand for quick response

At a televised news conference on Thursday, a spokesman for the DFCF said it expected a response from the military to its constitutional draft within two or three days.

The military council has warned it will not allow “chaos” and urged protesters to dismantle makeshift barricades they have set up around the main protest hub outside army headquarters.

It also demanded demonstrators open roads and bridges blocked by protesters who have remained outside the headquarters despite al-Bashir’s departure.

Ahmed Adam, who teaches at the University of London, told Al Jazeera that people on the streets were waiting for the military council to fulfil its promise and hand over power to civilians.

“The fear is that the current situation might lead to a confrontation. Some regional powers are involved in the situation and they actually back the military council to stay in power. People on the ground want the opposite,” he said.

The protesters have won support from Western governments for their demands.

However, Gulf Arab states have provided the military council with a three-billion-dollar credit lifeline to support an “orderly” transition.  

The African Union on Tuesday gave Sudan’s military rulers another 60 days to hand over power to a civilian authority or face suspension after an earlier deadline was missed.