Beja leader: security situation in eastern Sudan ‘extremely fragile’

The Grand Market of El Gedaref has been closed for four days now, out of fear for an invasion of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). Security agents continue to detain activists and volunteers in the city that is witnessing an exodus to other places in eastern Sudan. People are not only arming themselves but are speculating about a possible secession of the region. “The security situation in eastern Sudan has become extremely fragile,” a Beja leader warned.

Merchants at the El Gedaref Grand market closed their stores on Sunday, following rumours about a possible RSF attack on the city. The rumours say that “RSF sleeper cells in El Gedaref state” are waiting for action calls”. The general mobilisation of civilians in the region only fuels the fears of clashes in eastern Sudan.

Speaking to Radio Dabanga, a resident of El Gedaref, which is hosting tens of thousands of displaced from Khartoum and El Gezira, said that “a state of fear is now controlling the hearts of the people.”

He reported that “the commercial activity in the city is witnessing a stagnation due to merchants closing their shops and moving their goods to safer places.

The city of El Gedaref is still receiving displaced people who fled El Gezira, since December 18, when the RSF took control of the central Sudanese state, he said, and described their conditions as bad due to the scarcity of services and the lack of organisations providing them with assistance.

Detention centre instead of shelter

That many volunteers attempting to help out displaced people are held by security officers in the city does not help much to improve the situation.

A medic of the El Gedaref Ministry of Health who was released on Saturday told Radio Dabanga on Monday that the security force that held him and two of his colleagues, took them to a youth centre, which was designated to shelter people fleeing the war, before the security authorities turned it into a detention centre.

Bakheet Abdallah related that an armed force affiliated with the Joint Emergency Room of El Gedaref, “which includes Military Intelligence, the General Security Service, and the secret police” raided their offices at the Health Ministry on December 27.

“The men, all masked, seized my colleagues Mohamed Mousa and Ibtisam Hasan, and me on the suspicion of being a cell affiliated with the RSF. My woman colleague was immediately released but kept me and Mohamed for three days for what they called investigations.”  

He expressed his concern that “the joint security force continues, just like during the regime of Omar Al Bashir, to target members of the grassroots resistance committees, teachers, and other activists with frenzied detention campaigns, at a time when we are witnessing a massive exodus of panicking people to the countryside and to Kassala and Port Sudan”.

‘Security threats’

Abdallah further warned of “a rapidly deteriorating security situation, represented by the spread of weapons among civilians, and increased hate speech among the segments of society in the region.  

“The mobilisation of young men by the army and Islamist groups may have dire consequences,” the medic said and called on the people “to resort to the voice of reason and not be swayed by these campaigns”.

The former secretary general of the Beja Conference, El Amin Shangerai, also warned about “the extremely fragile security situation” in eastern Sudan (El Gedaref, Kassala, and Red Sea state). 

He told Radio Dabanga from Washington DC on Monday that “there are security threats that may cause the situation to burst, one of them being the presence of a large number of leaders of the Al Bashir regime in the region, who are mobilising the eastern Sudanese to fight alongside the army”.

Shangerai further said that he is also “extremely worried about the emergence of separatist tendencies among the people of eastern Sudan, while they now, more than ever, should be patriots.”