Sudan: Medics sacked, doctors assaulted, professors detained

The West Darfur authorities have dismissed 30 health-care workers for carrying out a political strike during the civil disobedience actions between 10 and 12 June.

A health official told Radio Dabanga from El Geneina, capital of West Darfur, that the director of the state’s Health Insurance, Hamid Mousa, has notified 30 staff members (10 doctors, 15 lab technicians, and five other health workers) of their dismissal.

They heard that they have been removed from their posts at health centres in El Geneina. They have not received a written confirmation so far.

The source said that the Health Insurance hired medical assistants and laboratory students to fill the vacuum created by the dismissal.

He added that paramilitaries of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) detained two striking health workers on June 12. They were released on the same day.

Hundreds of employees in Sudan have been arbitrarily dismissed because they participated in the general strike more than a week ago.

Attacked

Doctors working at Ibrahim Malik Hospital in Khartoum stopped working on Thursday evening, after have been assaulted by militiamen.

An RSF member, accompanied by another, beat a doctor when he refused to write a false report. They then attempted to force other doctors at gunpoint to write the report.

In a statement on Friday, the United Doctors Office called the attack “barbaric”. It strongly condemned “the systematic violence used against doctors and medical staff in public and private hospitals”, and demanded the removal of the military from residential areas.

Detained

The Sudanese Professionals Association (SPA) reported the detention of three university professors. One of them, Hamid Suleiman, is a lecturer at the University of Sudan, the two others are working for the University of Delling in South Kordofan.

In a press conference held by the SPA in Khartoum, the representative of “the group of professors of universities and higher institutes”, Mohamed Mustafa also reported the detention of teaching assistants living near El Mualim Hospital in downtown Khartoum on Thursday. They were humiliated and beated before being released on the same day.

Mustafa apologised for the lack of accurate statistics regarding the correct number of detainees because of the shut-down of the internet.

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