Four injured as Sudan student demo quelled

Four students were seriously injured on Wednesday, when Sudanese riot police dispersed a mass protest by members and supporters of the Darfur University Students’ Association in Susan’s largest city Omdurman, just north of the capital Khartoum.

The mass demonstration was to denounce the ‘assassination’ of student Adam Yahya Haroun on Sunday.

Haroun, a Darfuri student at the Islamic University of Omdurman was found ‘electrocuted’, however his body reportedly bears signs of torture.

As reported by Radio Dabanga earlier this week, Adam Mousa of the Darfur Students Association reported that Haroun, from Beleil in South Darfur, left the University’s boarding hostel in Omdurman’s El Fitihab district at about 6 pm on Sunday evening.

“He went to the University to study, but did not return,” he said. “At 8.30 pm on Monday a university guard phoned us and said that Adam had suffered an electric shock, and died on the way to the Military Hospital in Omdurman.”

Mass speech

On Wednesday morning Darfur students’ association of universities held a mass speech at El Shigla compound of Omdurman Islamic University before they took to the streets in demonstration.

The security services and police intervened, using tear gas to disperse the demonstration which led to the serious injury of four students.

“The demonstrators chanted slogans calling for justice and retribution,” a student told Radio Dabanga.

He said that a force of the security services and the police using dozens of vehicles attacked them using tear gas, severely beat them, caused injuries to four students and pursued them until the Mohamed Salih Omer dormitory.

He said that “the speakers denounced the security services’ systematic targeting and killing of Darfuri students, especially the activists; the latest being the assassination of Haroun.

He explained that “the speakers demanded an urgent inquiry and a new autopsy of the slain student’s body. They called for the perpetrators to be arrested and brought to justice. The speakers also called for stopping the killings and torture of students.”

Signs of torture

Adam Mousa told Radio Dabanga this week that the death certificate issued by the hospital administration stated that there were signs of torture on Haroun’s legs and head.

“However, security officers confiscated the certificate,” he said. “Other officers took Haroun’s body to the Omdurman Teaching Hospital nearby, where they obtained another medical report stating that he died of electrocution.”