Sudanese Baath Party condemns ‘targeting of Darfuri students’

The Sudanese Baath Party has strongly condemned the “systematic targeting of Darfuri students” in Khartoum.

“The resumed attacks by the security apparatus against Darfuri students this month confirm that the government will not end its racist and exclusionary policies and practices,” Mohamed Diaa, the spokesman for the party, told Radio Dabanga on Thursday.

On 10 October Darfuri studying at the Holy Koran University in Omdurman organised a sit-in in protest against the university's management decision not to exempt new Darfuri students from paying tuition fees. The third day of the sit-in, policemen and security agents, backed by militant student members of the ruling National congress Party (NCP), stormed the campus and violently dispersed the gathering. Dozens of Darfuri students were wounded and several were detained. Two weeks later, a new sit-in was broken up in the same way. At least 55 students were detained.

The Baath Party spokesman denounced the use of violence against the students, “who were peacefully and lawfully demanding their rights stipulated in the Darfur peace agreement signed by the government in 2011”.

He demanded the “immediate release of the detained Holy Koran University students and treatment of those injured”, and stressed the importance of a “radical solution to the Darfuri students’ problems at the universities”.