SalaaMedia Report
It has been proven throughout the long history of human experience that violations that occur among civilians are the most prominent feature of many wars. Violations vary and take tragic forms, manifested in their most extreme form by depriving a person of his right to life. The current war in Sudan remains a strong testimony to the horror of these violations, especially in Darfur. The practices of both sides of the war, such as detention without legal support, torture that degrades human dignity, and even murder, have constituted one of the greatest disasters that humanity has witnessed recently. There is no doubt that the longer the war lasts, the more the rates of violations increase, the more diverse their forms become, and the more complex the ways to resolve them become. Civilians in Darfur had the largest share of violations compared to the rest of the regions of Sudan, due to the prolonged war there since 2003 AD. Arbitrary arrests, unlawful detention, kidnapping and enforced disappearance; It has become part of daily life in Darfur. These crimes committed by the parties to the war were accompanied by torture and starvation, which led to the death of a significant number of victims inside prisons and detention centers.
In previous reports, the SalaaMedia team monitored more than 271 arrest crimes committed by war parties against civilians in the states of North and South Darfur. Later, the number of detainees in South Darfur rose to 353 people as a result of the application of the emergency law imposed by the civil administration in the state. This report particularly highlights the torture and death accompanying detention by warring parties.
Torture to Death
The torture and killing of detainees were not limited to the states of Darfur only but rather included a wide range of areas to which the conflict spread. Starting from the capital, Khartoum, Al-Jazira, Sennar, Greater Kordofan, and parts of Gedaref and Blue Nile states, based on what Human Rights Watch reported, “The Sudanese Armed Forces, the Rapid Support Forces, and their fighters summarily executed people while in detention without trial, tortured them, ill-treated them, and mutilated the bodies.” For example, and not limited to, these violations included the liquidation of more than 462 citizens at the hands of the armed forces after they regained control over the city of Dinder in Sennar State, in addition to the death of petroleum engineer/Musaed Mohamed Ahmed, inside the Armed Forces Intelligence detention centers in West Kordofan State as a result of his torture along with his colleague. Habib Adam Dabba, who was released in critical condition as a result of torture. As a result of the arrest in the offices of the General Intelligence Service in the city of Kassala last March, the young man, Al-Amin Muhammad Nour, was killed due to torture, after he was arrested in one of the state’s villages while coming from Al-Jazeera State, which was controlled by the Rapid Support Forces. There are also claims that the Rapid Support Forces detained 20 girls, along with children and the elderly, for five months in a limited area in the Umbada area of Omdurman. According to the government unit for combating violence against women and children, the detainees were deprived of the most basic needs, prevented from communicating outside, and lived in humanitarian conditions that the unit described as difficult. As for the states of Darfur, they had a large share of death and torture in the detention centers of the war parties.
West Darfur
During the intensification of battles in West Darfur state between the armed forces against the Rapid Support Forces and groups supporting both, the state witnessed widespread violations. Hamada Abdullah Haroun, one of those who was arrested on the same day that the Rapid Support Forces took control of the Armed Forces Command in the city of El Geneina, narrates that he managed to escape after being arrested along with seven others. He revealed that there were about 100 detainees in the place where he was detained, including 64 children. Haroun pointed out that some of the detainees died inside the detention center as a result of torture, while some of them were released through the International Committee of the Red Cross, while some of them managed to escape to the Chadian border. Hammadi Ahmed Adam (36 years old) said that he was arrested among 20 others in November 2023, by the Rapid Support Forces, noting that 17 of them were liquidated, leaving him and three others, including a doctor, remaining. He added, “We were subjected to physical assault to the point that some of the detainees lost the ability to speak due to the severity of the pain.” Hammadi says that he saw soldiers from these forces gouging out the eyes of a detainee with a sharp object. According to a report issued by the Sudanese Archive, verified by the Beam Report website, the Rapid Support Forces detained citizens in the Erdamta area of the city of El Geneina on November 4, 2023, AD, and some of them were subjected to torture with beatings, kicks, verbal insults, and death threats. The report indicated that some of them were killed and buried in mass graves. The report issued by Relief web, citing the government Humanitarian Aid Commission, also indicated that 80 children were identified among more than 700 detained by the Rapid Support Forces in West Darfur state. Later, sources reported the death of a woman who was detained in the detention centers of the Rapid Support Forces in Abu Shajar village in Sirba locality, West Darfur state, after she was subjected to torture, after two of her sons were accused of joining the joint force of the armed movements.
South Darfur
A day before the Rapid Support Forces imposed full control over the city of Nyala, they revealed that they were able to liberate 15 citizens who were detained at the command of the Corps of Engineers, affiliated with the 16th Infantry Division Command, and stated that they found the detainees deprived of food and drink. Three of the released detainees confirmed that they were tortured by the armed forces and deprived of food and drink. Dr. Fadel Al-Ghali, a professor at Nyala University, who was arrested by Armed Forces Intelligence and spent 20 days moving around in several detention centers within the Division Command, said in a video recording obtained by the SalaaMedia website that he was with about 68 detainees in one room; Eight of them died in detention because of torture. While the citizen, Abdul Latif Idris Karakaj, was killed due to torture inside the detention centers of the Rapid Support Forces, in the Al-Radom border area with South Sudan.
North Darfur
Radio Tamazuj published a report on the arrest of dozens of civilians by the Rapid Support Forces in the city of El Fasher, but it documented 18 detainees, three of whom died as a result of the torture they were subjected to, and the harsh conditions inside the detention centers. A police officer who was arrested with two of his family members said that he was forced to confess that he was an officer, after seeing him cutting off his older brother’s ear during interrogation, searching for the identity of the officer among them. He pointed out that detainees receive one or two cups of water and one meal during the day, which caused a number of them to die from hunger, thirst, and chronic diseases. Voluntary activist Abd al-Rahman al-Hadi Adlan was killed in the Rapid Support detention centers in the city of Kabkabiya in North Darfur. His brother said that Adlan was subjected to types of torture during detention, such as stabbing with a sharp object, flogging with whips, and breaking his neck. Survivors told horrific stories about the detention centers of the Joint Force of Armed Movements in El Fasher, and a man released after 47 days of detention stated that he witnessed the death of seven detainees inside the room in which he was held as a result of torture, hunger, and disease. A police officer revealed that policeman Abdel Moez Jamal al-Din also died in the movement’s detention centers as a result of torture. A video clip circulated on social media showing members of the Joint Forces interrogating two people (hanging them by their legs) and beating them with sticks to force them to speak. Although the video lacks any information about the place of arrest, Sudan War Monitor suggested that it was from the city of El Fasher.
Central Darfur
The African Center for Justice and Peace Studies monitored the arrest of four people in the city of Zalingei, the capital of Central Darfur, by the Rapid Support Forces. They are (teacher Adam Hassan, 28 years old, secondary school teacher, Mr. Othman, 49 years old, human rights defender Naji Al-Din Al-Zubair Khamis, 45 years old, and Al-Mahi, the defender of… Human Rights: Musa Ahmed Bush, 29 years old. The center expressed concerns about the physical safety of detainees and noted that it documented cases of torture and ill-treatment against detainees.
SalaaMedia’s monitoring of the torture and killing of civilians in the Darfur states remains a small point of light in the darkness of various violations, with the difficulty of monitoring them all. But despite this, what was revealed alone makes us describe the violations that are occurring as amounting to war crimes and crimes against humanity. These violations exceed the limits of legal and constitutional frameworks, and over time become mines remaining in the soil of Darfur communities for many generations. All parties to the conflict are condemned for committing a number of atrocities, without exception. They may differ in quantity and size, but in quality they remain the same.
Various international institutions have issued many useless decisions regarding prosecuting the perpetrators of crimes. Today, as the war progresses toward its third year, the volume of violations has doubled, and displacement operations have increased as a result. We reiterate our appeal to the international and regional community, based on humanitarian responsibility, to the necessity of pressing by all means to protect civilians in Darfur and Sudan.