Sudan detainee El Agar needs eye surgery

Relatives of Farah El Agar, legal consultant of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North, detained since 6 December last year, have accused the National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) of attempting to conduct an eye surgery on him without his consent.

El Agar was held by NISS officers a day after his return from Addis Ababa, where he had attended the signing of the Sudan Appeal, a political communiqué calling for regime-change, by the allied opposition forces. His office manager, Mohamed El Doud, as well as Sudan Appeal signatories Faroug Abu Eisa, head of the opposition parties’ coalition, and Dr Amin Mekki Madani, chairman of the Civil Society Initiative were detained on the same day.

El Agar’s family said in a statement on Tuesday that when they visited him in Kober prison, Khartoum North, last Friday, they were they were surprised to hear that the security authorities had forced him to undergo an eye operation at NISS’ El Amal hospital without informing them.

His eyes have been affected by continuous lighting in his prison cell, they explained.

The legal consultant had been taken to the security service's hospital, where he was anaesthetised without preliminary checks. Yet, the specialist, who was summoned from outside the hospital, refused to perform the complex operation, as the required medical tests had not been done.

In February, the family had requested the NISS to allow El Agar to undergo the surgery on their own expenses, by a specialist he trusts, but they had not received a reply.