Sudanese Minister denies Nierteti detentions

The displaced in Darfur have criticised Sudan’s Foreign Minister, Ibrahim Ghandour, after the Minister denied the arrest of anyone by the security apparatus in Nierteti, following the visit of the US Special Envoy Donald Booth to Darfur last month.

El Shafie Abdallah, Central Darfur camps coordinator, likened Foreign Minister Ibrahim Ghandour to Musalyimah El Kazab (a false Muslim prophet also known as ‘the liar’).

Abdallah said that “the evidence that the Foreign Minister is lying is that a number of the residents of Nierteti are still detained, after being arrested immediately following the US envoy’s visit”.

He added that the security service in Nierteti forced two of the detainees to leave Nierteti and live in exile for good following their release.

He stressed that the security forces are still pursuing some of the displaced to arrest them, and invited the US Embassy in Sudan to visit Nierteti and witness the facts first-hand.

Minister Ghandour denied the existence of detainees in Nierteti after the US envoy's meeting with the displaced in the town. He had contacted the security and intelligence services which confirmed that they have not detained anyone.

Ghandour said that his government has nothing to hide, and “it would not have coordinated the visit nor supported the envoy’s travel to Jebel Marra in these circumstances”.

He accused “unnamed parties” of “seeking to sabotage the envoy's visit to Darfur”.

US statement

The USA and the Darfur Bar Association have called on the Sudanese government to release all the displaced who were detained in Nierteti in Central Darfur over the past two weeks.

In a press statement last Friday, Elizabeth Trudeau, Director of the Office of Press Relations of the US State Department, said that the US “is gravely concerned about the Sudanese government’s ongoing detention of at least 15 Darfuri individuals, including one Sudanese national employee of the African Union-United Nations Hybrid Operation in Darfur (Unamid)”.

The detentions followed a visit by US Special Envoy to Sudan and South Sudan, Donald Booth, to North and Central Darfur in late July. Booth met and spoke with a number of displaced in Nierteti on 27 July. Consistent reports reached Radio Dabanga that a total of 15 people were arrested, five of whom were later released.