Parliament requests information on Sudan prisoners in Libya

A Member of Parliament called upon the Speaker of Parliament to shed a light on the situation of Sudanese people held in prisons in Libya.

On Monday, MP Siham Hassan filed a request to the Speaker of the Parliament that would summon the Minister of Foreign Affairs to brief the National Assembly on the latest developments regarding Sudanese people who are being held in Libyan prisons.

Siham told Radio Dabanga that his request for a briefing by the minister came after questions emerged about the measures the Foreign Ministry is taking for the Sudanese held in Libya – their protection in particular.

The situation has received widespread attention starting Saturday, when activists published the names of 175 Sudanese prisoners held in Tajwa Prison in Libya. The news was published on social networking sites.

The Sudanese activists also released a statement saying that their goal to draw attention to “the inhumane suffering of the Sudanese in the Libyan prisons nowadays”.

She added that the request for the briefing poses a question to the Minister of Foreign Affairs on the role of the ministry in raising awareness of Sudanese not to travel to Libya, which he considers “a crisis area”.

Hassan called on the Sudanese and Libyan authorities, as well as international human rights organisations to intervene and release the Sudanese people from the prisons in Libya.

Torture video

Two Sudanese people died as a result of torture in a prison in Libya in January this year. Videos appeared on social media at the time, showing Sudanese men being tortured by Libyan militiamen. Radio Dabanga has access to the videos of the torture.

Following the videos showing the torture of Sudanese men being tortured in Libya, the African Union has announced to investigate the cases.

Sudanese acivist Adam Hari Bosh told Radio Dabanga that more than 5,000 Sudanese are stranded in Libya. “The majority of them are from Darfur, who have become the most vulnerable to the horrific abuses in Libya.”

According to Sudanese Minister Ibrahim Ghandour at the time, an estimated 221,500 Sudanese nationals currently reside in Libya.