NISS detains student from home in North Kordofan

The National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) held a 22-year-old student from his family home in Um Rawaba in North Kordofan on Sunday March 24, the Human Rights Centre (HUDO) reported in a statement today.

Suliman El Haj is a student at Khartoum University. On Sunday at 4pm, nine soldiers dressed in NISS uniform arrived in two vehicles to his family home in Um Rawaba and shouted his name, Hudo reported.

The father of Suliman came to meet them at the gate followed by his mother, when Suliman. “Immediately five soldiers started beating him with black hoses and sticks in front of his mother while shouting at him “you are a rebel displaced from El Faid and we shall chasten and educate you”.”

Suliman was taken away in the vehicle. His mother followed them up to the NISS office, where she was insulted, chased away, and warned not to return to the office. Suliman has been detained incommunicado. His family worries that he will face torture while in detention.

After the war erupted in South Kordofan in 2011, Suliman’s family has been displaced from El Faid Um Abdallah in South Kordofan to North Kordofan, HUDO, a Sudanese human rights organisation based in Kampala, said in its statement.

“Internally displaced people from conflict areas, in particular the educated ones, used to be arrested and accused by security agencies that they are affiliated to the armed groups,” the NGO wrote. It expressed its concerns and called upon the Sudanese government to disclose the status of Suliman El Haj and to allow family and lawyers to visit him.