Five Darfur students held in Sudan capital

Five Darfuri students were arrested by police during a sit-in at the University of Khartoum on Tuesday, and handed to the security apparatus.

The sit-in was being carried out at the Faculty of Animal Production in protest against the university administration’s dismissal of five of their colleagues, according to a statement by the Darfur Students Association on Tuesday.

Those detained are Manal Abdullah Ali of the Faculty of Agriculture, Aseel Jadallah of the Faculty of Agriculture, Wael Faisal of the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Mahmoud Ahmed Ibrahim of the Faculty of Forestry, Mohamed Ahmed Nasser of the Faculty of Forestry, and Adam Hassan of the Faculty of Agriculture.

Release

The Darfur Students Associations of universities demanded the release of the five students immediately, while one of the gathering leaders criticised the detention and called it “contrary to the Constitution and the law”.

He appealed to the Darfur Bar Association and all lawyers and activists to act for the immediate release of the detained students.

The Darfur Students Association welcomed the release of Mohamed Ishag Adam Ibrahim Hajar, the head of the Association at the University of the Holy Quran, and Hamid Rahamtallah Eisa, the deputy secretary-general of the association who were detained since 27 November of the last year.

Dismissed

This week, the University of Khartoum’s administration dismissed five Darfuri students: Abdelmalik El Tigani Mukhtar, Yousif Mohammed Ibrahim, Idris Abdel Kareem, Musa, Mohammed Suleiman and Hafiz Imam Gasoum, all of them from the Faculty of Forestry and Animal Production from study for a whole academic year.

One of the students from the Faculty of Forestry of Khartoum University expressed intense anger and disgust at “this arbitrary action of dismissal of students based on their political, regional and ethnic affiliation”.