‘Darfuri students still targeted in Khartoum’: Students Association

The Darfur Students Association (DSA) has demanded the release of the Darfuri students being held in Khartoum.

In a statement on Wednesday, the Association reported that Darfuri students are still being harassed and assaulted in the country’s capital.

More than 100 students from Darfur were detained during the current month. Most of them were released after being charged with crimes “they did not do”. 28 of them are still being held in detention centres.

The DSA requested the National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) and militant student members of the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) to “immediately stop targeting Darfuri students”.

The Association called upon the international community to intervene and protect the students, and appealed to the Sudanese people and civil society organisations to support them.

Assaults on Darfuri students by militant youth members of the NCP intensified after the death of a senior member of the NCP student wing at Sharg El Nil College in Khartoum on 29 April. According to reports, a group of 150 militant NCP students attacked a number of Darfuri students, who were having a meeting of the Darfur Student Association at the campus. In the ensuing clashes, the NCP student was killed.

In the following weeks, many Darfuris studying at universities in Sudan’s capital were assaulted and detained.

At a press conference in Omdurman on Tuesday, the secretary-general of the DSA branch of the Ahliya University said that one third of the Darfuri students in Khartoum state have been subjected to beatings the last couple of weeks. 221 of them sustained injuries.

He reported that many Darfuri students have not been able to sit for their exams. Others have left the universities, and returned to Darfur.