RSF: ‘Truckload of contraband seized in North Darfur’

The Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia claims to have seized a truck loaded with large quantities of prohibited creams and cosmetics in El Baashim area in North Darfur on Tuesday.

A spokesman for the RSF said that the seizure was carried out as a joint operation with drug control forces.

The deputy director of the department of drug control, Lieutenant Mohamed Ali, estimated the value of the smuggled shipment at billions of Pounds.

He said that the truck was seized on El Tina road loaded with many types of creams and cosmetics that are prohibited in Sudan, and were seized term of violation of the Customs Law.

Prohibited cosmetics

Cosmetic products such as skin-bleaching creams are often smuggled as contraband, as they are banned in Sudan. The condemnation of dark skin in Sudanese society and its association with an unwanted “African” appearance has driven a large majority of the country’s women to bleach their skin, The Guardian wrote in an interview with Miss Nuba Mountains in 2016. In 2000, the dermatology section of the Khartoum hospital was pushed to open a “bio-clear” ward to treat the host of patients suffering from severe burns due to their use of whitening creams.