♦ This week’s news in brief ♦
A compact weekly digest of Dabanga Sudan’s highlights of the news from Darfur and Sudan
A compact weekly digest of Dabanga Sudan's highlights of the news from Darfur and Sudan
♦ Hundreds of Darfuris detained in Sudan prisons despite release order
April 17 – 2018 KHARTOUM Hundreds of Darfuris are still being held in detention by the National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) despite the order of President Omar Al Bashir to release all political detainees from the country’s prisons last week.
Kober prison in Khartoum and Port Sudan prison still hold 61 detainees of the Maaliya tribesmen who have been there for more than nine months, along with seven university students who were arrested after organising speeches at a market in Khartoum last year.
While the release was welcomed by people in Sudan and organisations such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, “the detentions should never have occurred in the first place”, they said. People were held in inhumane, cramped conditions, with more than 20 detainees kept in 5m by 7m cells, or smaller, according to Amnesty.
Yesterday activists listed 292 people who have been held in detention for months, allegedly because of their loyalty to militias that oppose the government. Among them are displaced people and activists from camps in Jebel Marra.
According to Sudanese human rights groups, the National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) is holding the political detainees as hostages “to prevent the Sudanese opposition from carrying out protests against the government”. “The political detainees from the leftist parties would be released if their parties stop demonstrating and behave themselves!” the NISS director had said in a newspaper interview in February.
♦ North Darfur, UNHCR welcome 53 Sudanese refugees from Chad
April 17 – 2018 TINA Fifty-three Sudanese refugees have returned to Sudan from camps in Chad where they have been staying for years. The UN’s refugee agency (UNHCR) and the Commissioner of Refugees (COR) welcomed the first convoy of voluntary returnees in North Darfur.
Some 300,000 Sudanese refugees currently reside in eastern Chad. Adam El Nour Abakar, who fled Sudan to Chad 15 years ago and returned home voluntarily, said: “I’m so happy to return back to my country with my family. I am eager to catch the agricultural season in my home area in Kabkabiya.”
After this first convoy, governments of Sudan and Chad, and the UNHCR expect to assist in the voluntary repatriation of 20,000 Sudanese refugees, all of whom fled to eastern Chad following eruption of conflicts in Darfur in 2003 and 2004. In February, Sudan’s President Omar Al Bashir instructed the acceleration of work on the voluntary repatriation of Sudanese refugees in Chad and the return of Chadian refugees in Sudan.
Throughout 2018 Radio Dabanga has received reports of attacks on people leaving the camps for displaced Darfuris to return home. Witnesses said that attacks are caused by roaming militias and armed new settlers in the home areas.
More news from Radio Dabanga:
April 17 – 2018 NEW YORK Sexual violence remains prevalent in the Darfur region, while the rate of displacement was lower in 2017 than in previous years, said the UN secretary-general in a report. The area is “awash with small arms and light weapons, criminality and sporadic…
Sudan cities succumb to fuel prices, power outages
April 17 – 2018 DARFUR / BABANUSA / KHARTOUM Cities in Darfur continue to suffer from severe fuel and drinking water crises, combined with power outages. “Nyala is in total darkness except for the hospital and government institutions.” A resident in Nyala reported to Radio…
More than 100 South Darfur camp homes destroyed by fire
April 17 – 2018 GIREIDA The number of fires in camps for displaced people in Darfur has flared up in the past two weeks, raising concerns for their strength and leaving dozens of families in the open. On Sunday, the camps in Gireida locality, South Darfur, saw another fire at Babanusa…
Gunmen assault three children in Central Darfur
April 16 – 2018 ZALINGEI Gunmen wounded three children near the Hamidiya camp for the displaced in Zalingei locality in Central Darfur on Sunday.Speaking to Radio Dabanga, El Shafee Abdallah, coordinator of the Central Darfur camps, reported that three gunmen attacked young…
Sudanese govt. 'keen on successful pre-peace talks' in Berlin
April 16 – 2018 KHARTOUM Khartoum has expressed its hope that the informal consultations that started today in Berlin between the government and two non-signatory Darfur movements will be successful. One of the two movements has announced the defection of a number…
Another elderly man ‘tortured to death’ in South Darfur
April 16 – 2018 MERSHING Mousa Mohamed Saleh (72) reportedly died this weekend after severe torture by members of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), Sudan’s main militia, in South Darfur’s East Jebel Marra. A relative of the victim told Radio Dabanga that a group of RSF…
Commander of Sudan’s main militia wants international recognition
April 15 – 2018 KHARTOUM The commander of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), Sudan’s main militia, has called on the international community to recognise the efforts of his troops to halt illegal immigration, human trafficking and cross border crimes.The official Sudanese…
Sudan inflation hits 55.60% in March; public transport ‘almost unaffordable’
April 15 – 2018 KHARTOUM / DARDIB / ABU JUBEIHA According to Sudan’s Central Bureau of Statistics the inflation rate in the country in March reached 55.60 per cent; up from 54.34 per cent in February. Public transport prices nearly doubled last week. In particular, the prices of…
Nubian stone tablets found in northern Sudan
April 15 – 2018 SEDEINGA A huge cache of stone inscriptions from one of Africa's oldest written languages have been unearthed in Sedeinga necropolis in the north of Sudan.The inscriptions are written in the Meroitic language, the oldest known written language south of the…
War remnant explodes, kills two children in Darfur’s Jebel Marra
April 13 – 2018 FEINA A blast coming from a detonating remnant of war in the area of Feina killed two children and cut the limbs of a third child on Thursday morning. The unexploded ordnance (UXO*) was lying in the open in Dolo, 15 km north of Feina in East Jebel Marra, a family…
Five Sudanese deported from Switzerland
April 12 – 2018 KHARTOUM Five Sudanese nationals who were deported from Switzerland for entering the country illegally, arrived in Khartoum on Tuesday and were received by Sudanese authorities. The official Sudan News Agency (Suna) reports that Hassan Mahmoud…
New call to withdraw Sudanese troops from Yemen
April 12 – 2018 KHARTOUM The Reform Now Movement has renewed its demand for the immediate withdrawal of Sudanese forces from Yemen, describing their stay there as unjustified and contrary to the Constitution. The government has confirmed its ongoing participation in the…
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