SUDAN NEWS ALERT: Radio Dabanga - Sudan authorities detain Empowerment Removal Committee members

10/2/2022: Radio Dabanga - Sudan authorities detain Empowerment Removal Committee members

Radio Dabanga reported on the arrests of three members of Sudan’s Tamkeen committee, an anti-corruption body that aimed to dismantle the deep-state linked to ousted dictator Omar al-Bashir – Wajdi Saleh, former Cabinet Affairs Minister Khalid Omar Yousif and committee secretary-general Tayib Osman Yousif.

Adel Khalafallah, a leading member in the opposition Forces for Freedom and Change (FFC), described the measures as “political, illegal, and immoral”, adding that the goal of holding the members was to only prolong their detention.

The Sudanese Professionals Association (SPA) condemned the campaign of arrests carried out by coup authorities against political leaders and resistance committees, and said they were an effort by the coup authorities to defame the committee’s actions with reports and criminal cases, to conceal the return of ousted regime members and cancel the committee’s progress in recouping assets.

SUDAN INSIGHT ALERT: Radio Dabanga - Lawyers: ‘Govt fails to collect weapons in Darfur’

10/2/2021: Radio Dabanga - Lawyers: ‘Govt fails to collect weapons in Darfur’

 Radio Dabanga report that the Darfur Bar Association (DBA) alleges that the government fails to collect weapons in Darfur despite multiple attempts.

DBA head Saleh Mahmoud said the government has not dealt with the recent violence in Jebel Marra region and in al-Geneina, capital of West Darfur, with “criminals are still at large and needing to be brought to trial”. Mahmoud added that civilian protection, the return of refugees and the displaced to their villages of origin and justice must be the main challenges for the government following its reconciliation with armed rebel movements.

Nafisa Hajar, head of human rights at DBA, said 85% of the population in the camps in Darfur are children and women and that children are being forcibly recruited by armed groups.

SUDAN INSIGHT ALERT: AP - Ethnic clashes in Darfur could reignite Sudan’s old conflict,

10/2/2021: AP - Ethnic clashes in Darfur could reignite Sudan’s old conflict, by Samy Magdy

 AP’s feature piece reports on the “latest burst of violence” after the joint U.N.-African Union peacekeeping force that had been in Darfur (UNAMID) for a decade ended its mandate, and was “replaced with a much smaller, political mission [UNITAMS]”.

AP attribute fighting in South and West Darfur that killed around 470 to “a familiar scenario: a dispute between two people or a minor crime turning into all-out ethnic clashes”. Mohammed Osman, a Sudan researcher at Human Rights Watch, said witnesses said the government forces’ response was too little, too late. “Anyone could have predicted that as soon as the UN troops departed, some of these militias would begin attacking,” said John Prendergast, co-founder of The Sentry.

A UN experts report covering March to December said tribal clashes and attacks on civilians increased sharply “in both frequency and scale,” with acts of sexual and gender-based violence committed daily and going unaddressed.

SUDAN INSIGHT ALERT: Al-Jareeda – New Hamdok

10/2/2021: Al-Jareeda – New Hamdok, by Ashraf Abdulaziz

 Ashraf Abdulaziz, the editor of al-Jareeda, calls for Prime Minister Hamdok to be more assertive and transparent in resolving controversial matters his new government faces, namely: normalisation with Israel and reforming civilian and military institutions.

Abdulaziz suggests that Hamdok should hold his ministers responsible for what they do and that she should not allow a repeat of the “chaos” of the previous government, which was argued to “waste time on the discussion of policies and controversies, causing the government to look inharmonious, thus impeding the mechanisms of implementation and drowns the Sudanese people in harmful differences”.

SUDAN NEWS ALERT: AP - Sudan’s new Cabinet sworn in amid protests over dire economy

10/2/2021: AP - Sudan’s new Cabinet sworn in amid protests over dire economy, by Samy Magdy

 AP report that Sudan has sworn in a new cabinet that includes rebel ministers violent protests in several Sudanese cities over dire economic conditions, forcing authorities to impose a curfew and close schools temporarily. In South Darfur, people took to the streets of Nyala, the provincial capital. Security forces used tear gas to disperse the protesters after alleged attempts to storm shops in the city’s main market.

Authorities in North Darfur and South Darfur declared a state of emergency, suspended school classes and imposed a nightly curfew to contain the situation. There were also protests in East Darfur province and the Red Sea city of Port Sudan.

In North Kordofan province, authorities arrested more than 100 people after protests turned violent in the city of al-Obeid, the provincial capital.

SUDAN INSIGHT ALERT: Africa Report - Sudan needs US support – both diplomatic and economic

10/2/2020: Africa Report – Sudan needs US support – both diplomatic and economic, by Jihad Mashamoun

 Jihad Mashamoun, a doctoral candidate at the University of Exeter, identified three immediate measures that align US and Sudanese interests in guiding Sudan’s democratic transition.

For the US to help the transitional government manage popular expectations, Mashamoun calls for the US to appoint an ambassador to Sudan that communicates clearly to key Sudanese political stakeholders what the US expects.

Secondly, Mashamoun suggests that the US can help address Sudan’s security problems by working to handover Salah Gosh and other members of al-Bashir’s regime to Sudanese prosecutors.

Finally, Mashamoun calls for the transitional government and the international community to cooperate in retrieving the billions that al-Bashir’s regime stashed outside Sudan, rather than following the unpopular “narrow economic agenda” of the World Bank and IMF.