Unlawful detentions and extrajudicial killings of activists continue in war-torn Sudan

A new wave of unjustified detentions of unarmed Sudanese who are not a party to the more than 11-month-old armed conflict is taking place these days. Obituaries posted on social media and statements condemning the torturing and killing of Sudanese activists and volunteers by elements of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the Sudan Armed Forces’ (SAF) Military Intelligence, increased last week.

The detention of lawyers, members of resistance committees and emergency rooms, other activists, and volunteers who were helping out shelter centres is continuing.

The Sudanese Congress Party (SCP) on its Facebook page on Friday condemned “the torturing to death” of Salah El Tayeb, lawyer and one of its cadres in El Gezira, last week. El Tayeb was detained last month by “the Islamists who have the armed forces in their grip”.

The Darfur Bar Association (DBA) and partners also reported on the detention. El Tayeb was held from his house “after blindfolding him and thrown into a vehicle loaded with men equipped with weapons and pointed sticks”. A number of El Azazi youth were detained together with him. Some of them were later released and said that Salah was beaten up until his clothes were soaked in blood and he lost consciousness.

The DBA stated that SAF and security officers conveyed to his family that he died as a result of being exposed to insect bites and was buried outside El Azazi.

The Joint Emergency Room of Halfayat El Mulouk in Khartoum North on Friday mourned the death of Gais Younes and Talab Hammad inside RSF detention centres.

The Democratic Lawyers Front and the Southern Khartoum Resistance Committees reported that on Tuesday, RSF paramilitaries detained Muawya Abdelrahman, member of the El Ashara neighbourhood resistance committees in southern Khartoum, and took him to an unknown location.

Thousands of people are still languishing in RSF detention centres. Several of them have died as a result of torture, diseases, and hunger in Khartoum, El Gezira, and Darfur, for no particular clear reason.

‘Sleeper cells’

The practices of Military Intelligence and the General Intelligence Service (GIS) concentrate more on “preventive detentions”. These are done in a systematic manner, as the MI officers are usually well informed about their targets, mostly activists and politicians.

In Wednesday, the authorities in El Fao in El Gedaref detained Mumin Mubarak and Omar Ali, members of the emergency rooms and the Emergency Street initiative, before releasing them late at night. Activists reported from El Fao that all emergency rooms members in the area are subject to surveillance and prosecution by the security apparatus.

In En Nehoud in West Kordofan, joint forces consisting of army troops, policemen, GIS agents, and the Central Reserve Police forces launched a massive detention campaign this month.

A political activist told Sudan War Monitor from the town that the forces are detaining anyone whom they suspect of being connected to the RSF. 

In Nile River state, Northern State, El Gedaref, and North Kordofan, the authorities have been and are still carrying out detention campaign on an ethnic basis. Youngsters from the western parts of the country are suspected to be pro-RSF.

Hundreds of people rejecting the war and refuse to side with the army, face charges of spying for the RSF or being “sleeper cells”. These charges are punishable by death, Radio Dabanga reporter Suleiman Siri explains.

Military Intelligence in Berber, River Nile state, last week held Khaled El Farjabi and Ahmed Hasan on charges of supporting the RSF, though it is well-known they are against the paramilitary group, “like the rest of the revolution’s youth”.

In April, a joint force from Military Intelligence and GIS held six members of the El Gedaref Resistance Committees. Some of them were released and others are still being detained at the SAF General Command in El Fao.

Emergency Lawyers reported at the time that at least 48 so-called “sleeper cells” were detained in Sennar after the RSF took control of neighbouring El Gezira in December, and that the illegal detention by Military Intelligence and GIS were continuing.

Several volunteers were detained in Singa in Sennar in December on while they were providing meals to displaced people passing through the city. 

In March this year, eight Sudanese human rights and civil society organisations, operating under the banner ‘Wadeitum wein’ (Arabic for ‘Where did you take them?’), provided vital data on enforced disappearances to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva.