Student demonstrators threatened with arrest in Sudan

The National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) in Atbara in River Nile state has threatened the students of the Faculty of Medicine of the River Nile University to dismiss them from the university and implement the emergency provisions against them if they refuse to sit for the examinations.

The current mass public protests across Sudan demanding the unconditional step-down of Al Bashir and his regime from power, originally sparked by bread and fuel shortages in Atbara on 13 December 2018, have entered their fourth month.

The latest NISS threat came after the security forces released 18 university students on Tuesday night. The had been arrested the same day for refusing to sit for the examinations in solidarity with the street demonstrations.

Students told Radio Dabanga that the NISS released the detained students and forced them to pledge to lift the strike, sit for the examinations, and not to demonstrate.

The students also said that the security apparatus threatened women students in the dormitories of the university with dismissal, and implementation of the provisions of the emergency against them, in the event of participation in the marches planned for Thursday announced by the forces of the Declaration of Freedom and Change.