HUDO urges Sudan govt. to release two wrongly accused Nuba

The Sudanese Human Rights and Development Organisation (HUDO) calls on the Sudanese government to intervene and release two men who have been falsely accused of raping two young women in South Kordofan last month.

In a call for ‘urgent action’ on Thursday, HUDO reports that two sisters (24 and 28 years old) were raped by two men in Talodi town on 16 September.

The women, both from Salamat village, were on their way to a wedding party in Talodi when a man on a motorbike stopped them and asked where they were going. After another man on a motorbike joined them, the first man told the sisters that they were “police criminal investigators”.

He accused the women of being members of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N) “on a mission”, and told them they would bring them to the police office. They then took each sister on the motorbikes in a different direction.

The motorbike that carried the oldest woman stopped at a house near the office of the National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS). The man ordered her to enter the house for questioning, but raped her instead.

He then took her to downtown Talodi, where she saw the other motorbike with her sister who turned out to be raped as well. They were dropped at the pace where they had been picked up. Though the younger sister was unable to walk, they managed to go to the police office and reported the case.

The next day, a policeman forced the women to accuse two men they had never seen. The sisters yielded under the heavy pressure exerted and identified trader Ahmed Eisa Bakheet (26) and his friend Sabir Yousef Jamjam (25) who is a government employee as the rapists. The two men were subsequently charged with rape under article 149 of the 1991 Sudan Penal Code.

HUDO states that since then the two are held “even after the two ladies confessed they are not the ones” who raped them. “They are in a very bad psychological and physical condition.” Both men are known for their “public criticism of wrong actions by government officials” in Talodi.

The human rights organisation urges the Sudanese government to arrange “the immediate release of Jamjam and Bakheet” and bring the perpetrators to justice. HUDO further calls on “embassies in Sudan to put pressure on the government to stop violating human rights and end the impunity (of government officials)”.