Sudan's deadly crackdown evokes Arab Spring bloodshed

In the Middle East, it has often begun the same way: a popular swell of street protests against long-entrenched autocrats and demonstrators inspired by burgeoning aspirations for democracy and freedom.

But then the military moves in. Its ruthless, harsh force helps prop up the leader and his family, or safeguard the military's own longevity after a leader falls. Death, detention and disappearances become commonplace and in some cases, ruinous civil war with external intervention breaks out.

Organizers of the pro-democracy protests in Sudan say the death toll across the country since the violent dispersal of their sit-in camp in Khartoum earlier this week has increased to 60. Sudan's deadly crackdown has evoked Arab Spring bloodshed from earlier this decade — uprisings in Egypt, Syria and Libya. Tunisia was the one nation to escape mass carnage.

Here's a look at military crackdowns across the Arab world since 2011:

TUNISIA

The Arab Spring was born in Tunisia, where it was called the Jasmine Revolution. The country had long been wracked by widespread repression, high unemployment, rocketing inflation and endemic corruption under the rule of President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali.

The self-immolation by a beaten down and humiliated street vendor Mohammed Bouazizi led to nationwide protests fueled by social media that brought down the longtime authoritarian president in January 2011. He fled into exile to Saudi Arabia. That ushered in democracy for Tunisia and inspired similar movements around the Arab world. Though there were deaths in the struggle, it was nowhere near the bloody tolls of other Arab nations. The revolution transformed Tunisia into a fledgling democracy that became a catalyst for the Arab Spring, then miraculously transcended it as the only country to keep...