Following Visit to Darfur by Obama Administration Special Envoy Donald Booth, the Arrests Continue
Eric Reeves | August 4, 2016 | http://wp.me/s45rOG-7401 .
Some—though not all—of those arrested/detained in the wake of a trip to Darfur (Central Darfur and North Darfur) by U.S. Special Envoy for the Sudans have been released. But the arrests continue, and there is no guarantee that those who have been released—presumably in part because of U.S. pressure—will not be re-arrested when Booth’s visit is a more distant memory. We certainly know that the memory of the National Intelligence and Security Services is long, its records are fearsomely replete, and that re-arrests are a common phenomenon, both in Darfur and in other parts of Sudan, including particularly Khartoum.
Arrests/”detainments” followed by releases are meant by NISS and Military Intelligence to intimidate; if this tactic doesn’t work, the next arrests will become permanent.
The regime is fully revealed in this brazen, finally contemptuous arrest of those who courageously dared to speak with Envoy Booth about the acute suffering and privation of many hundreds of thousands of Darfuris in Jebel Marra (Central Darfur) and East Jebel Marra (North Darfur).
The makeshift Sortony camp for displaced persons (North Darfur) to which many tens of thousands of displaced persons fled following Khartoum’s brutal assault on Jebel Marra beginning in January 2016. Conditions have been horrific and at one point the UN was airlifting people from the camp to el-Fasher, surrounded by already vastly overcrowded camps for the displaced. On May 30, 2016 Radio Dabanga reported: “Sortony, that accommodates tens of thousands of displaced people in North Darfur, remains cut-off from transport by militiamen who have blocked the road to Kabkabiya for consecutive weeks. The UN has begun to operate flights from El Fasher to Sortony.” Such blockages of humanitarian assistance to vast numbers of vulnerable civilians are crimes against humanity (see “On the Obstruction of Humanitarian Aid,” African Studies Review, Volume 54, Number 3 (December 2011), pages 165 – 74 | http://wp.me/p45rOG-I6 )
The people who fled to Sortony displaced persons camp
Nierteti youth leader joins Central Darfur detainees | Radio Dabanga, August 4, 2016 | Nierteti, Central Darfur
The youth leader of Nierteti in Central Darfur, Mohamed El Tijani Seif, is the latest person to be detained by security services following the meeting last week between representative of the displaced and US Special Envoy Donald Booth.
Seif was detained by agents of the security services at Nierteti Grand Market on Wednesday morning. His arrest, preceded by that of Omda Eisa Mohamed Rashid, Adam Hamid Adam and Ahmed Abdallah Omer, brings the number of detainees following Booth’s visit to 11.
The coordinators of the displaced persons of Central Darfur appealed to the US administration, its special envoy in Sudan Donald Booth and its embassy to Khartoum to immediately intervene to release the detainees.
Obama administration Special Envoy for the Sudans, Donald Booth
Security services in Nierteti arrested eight people on Sunday, and released them later. Sources told Radio Dabanga that the security services released two people on Monday and Tuesday.