♦ 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
♦ ‘Sudan lacks political will to implement HRs obligations’
September 23 – 2016 GENEVA / KAMPALA Sudan’s failure to accept key recommendations made during the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) this year has confirmed the lack of political will to take concrete steps to implement its international legal obligations with regards to fundamental human rights, the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and its member organisation, the African Centre for Justice and Peace Studies (ACJPS) said in a report on Thursday.
“Sadly, Sudan failed to accept many of the key recommendations made by Human Rights Council member states that simply correspond to its existing international legal obligations,” said Mossaad Mohamed Ali, ACJPS Executive Director. “Critical issues, such as the need to repeal laws that grant immunity from prosecution for officials, and to cease aerial bombardments of civilian areas, were side-stepped by the government delegation”.
FIDH and ACJPS state that during the review, “the government of Sudan failed to accept nine recommendations to reform Sudan’s notorious National Security Act of 2010 which grants the National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS) wide powers of arrest, search and seizure, allows detention for up to four and a half months without judicial review, permits incommunicado detention without prompt unequivocal access to a lawyer of one’s choice or the right to medical care, and grants immunity to officials.
“Sudan failed to accept similar recommendations made during its first UPR, and has failed to implement recommendations made by the UN Human Rights Committee and African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights to the same effect,” the report reads.
♦ ‘Watery diarrhoea’ outbreak leaves 57 dead: Health Ministry
September 26 – 2016 KHARTOUM / KASSALA The Sudanese Ministry of Health issued an update about the ‘acute watery diarrhoea’ outbreak in the country on Saturday. 57 people died from the disease. 3,084 are affected in eastern Sudan’s Blue Nile, Sennar, and Kassala, and in the northern Nile River state. However, a civil initiative to combat the epidemic spoke of cholera. In a statement on Sunday, the medics who set up the initiative reported the death of 475 people in the period between mid-August and 22 September. 10,215 people are reportedly affected. The disease spread in Blue Nile, Sennar, Kassala, El Gedaref in eastern Sudan, El Gezira and Khartoum in central Sudan, and Nile River in the north.
In Khartoum, medical doctors and health care workers, political opposition parties, and civil society organisations held the government responsible for the epidemic. In a joint statement on Sunday, they demanded the declaration of a “health emergency” in the country, and the provision of the necessary aid in the affected states. They called on the Health Ministry to immediately intervene in order to prevent the disease from spreading to other regions.
Meanwhile, hoteliers in Kassala and traders returning from Eritrea reported that the Eritrean authorities closed the borders with Sudan on Saturday.
More highlights from Radio Dabanga:
World Bank report: Sudan needs economic diversification
September 26 – 2016 WASHINGTON DC In its newest Country Economic Memorandum (CEM) for Sudan on Sunday, the World Bank urges Sudan to accelerate its economic diversification. The country’s economy contracted severely following the secession of South Sudan in 2011 and the loss of 75 per cent of its…
Girl killed, man maimed in Darfur’s Jebel Marra bombing
September 23 – 2016 JAWA A girl was killed and a young man maimed in an air raid targeting the area of Jawa in East Jebel Marra on Thursday. “An Antonov of the Sudanese Air Force dropped 13 barrel bombs on the area of Jawa around half past noon,” a listener reported to Radio Dabanga from a neighbouring village. …
Herders continue to attack farmers in Darfur
September 23 – 2016 TABIT / DELEIG / KENDEBE A number of farmers in Darfur complained about repeated attacks by armed herders on their lands this week. A farmer told Radio Dabanga from Tabit in North Darfur’s Tawila locality that a group of militant Abbala tribesman wearing military uniforms drove…
Khartoum University reinstates suspended students
September 22 – 2016 KHARTOUM The Chancellor of the University of Khartoum has issued a decision reinstating 11 students who were suspended following protest actions in May this year. The University has reduced the penalty of final dismissal for two women students to dismissal for two school years. It has maintained…
US welcomes Sudan counterterrorism cooperation, sanctions remain
September 21 – 2016 WASHINGTON D.C. The United States has welcomed Sudan's recent efforts to increase counterterrorism cooperation with the US in recent months, but says highlights human rights and advancing freedoms remain issues of contention. In a statement on Tuesday, Assistant Secretary and…
Empty roads after hijacks in North Darfur
September 20 – 2016 TAWILA / KUTUM Members of a paramilitary group hijacked vehicles in Tawila locality, North Darfur on Monday. A hijack attempt in Kutum resulted in the driver being wounded. Drivers of commercial vehicles in Kutum refuse to take the road. The paramilitaries, riding camels, fired …
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