In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful
El Haqeeqa
The first electronic magazine specializing in documenting and monitoring the violations of the rebellious Rapid Support Forces militia – issued in three languages –
“Issue 7, October 2023.”
“1”
The Most Dangerous Testimonies from Survivors of Kidnapping, Forced Disappearance, and the Conditions of Detainees Inside Militia Prisons.
Exclusive Details from El Haqeeqa
- 350 detainees in crowded zinc-roofed cells.
- There is no clean water in the detention facility, and the stench of filth and sewage fills the air.
- On the upper floor, the sounds of a woman being tortured, who goes by the name “Shams.”
- An intelligence officer was kidnapped from his home in Al-Ma’mura, known as “M.”
- Several retired and active-duty army and police officers were abducted from their private residences.
- Enemies of the abducted women are increasing in the adjacent building.
Details
On May 2, 2023, while searching for the treatments prescribed by the doctor for my father, may he be granted good health and well-being, after I had rushed him to Al-Fouad Hospital in Al-Sahafa – he had suffered a health crisis in late Ramadan, and I was unable to reach him during that period due to the war conditions – on that day, after successfully bringing my father back home, I started looking for the prescribed treatments. I was detained by two members of the dissolved Rapid Support Forces militia on Kanar Street, which is densely populated by members of the dissolved militia because they have taken over the headquarters of the National Congress and the former Popular Defense Headquarters in that area.
They asked me for identification (my ID card), and I did not have it with me. I informed them that I am a civilian, but one of them claimed that I am a military officer and part of military intelligence affiliated with the armed forces, and that I was impersonating a civilian. I tried to convince him otherwise, but he was not convinced. Afterward, he called some of his colleagues, and they came, telling me, without any preamble, “You belong to the Islamists (remnants), you are from State 1956, and you…” They spoke a lot of words that were of no use, and they took me under the threat of weapons to a larger gathering near Al-Nahda College. This is where the most severe torture began, with my hands and feet bound, and brutal beatings with rifle butts, and they demanded that I stop and dismantle the aircraft communication device they believed was in the car.
They conducted a thorough search of the car, which led them to find my national identity cards that I had lost a few days earlier. After reviewing the information on the cards, which confirmed that I was a diplomat, they still insisted that I was a military intelligence officer (and considered diplomats as military personnel). After that, they transported me in my car, driven by one of them, to a building south of the National Congress building, south of Kuwaiti Hospital.
Here, I encountered one of the junior leaders who was not in a normal state, and he ordered a personal search. They removed my wristwatch and placed it between my bound legs, filling it with Kalashnikov ammunition, which caused injuries to my legs. Four soldiers pointed their weapons at my head and began to execute me, at the command of one of the soldiers who kept saying to them, “Kill him; he is a military intelligence officer from State 1956.”
Afterwards, I was handed over to two leaders of higher ranks who proceeded to inspect my phone. They found some names that they considered as confirmation of their claims. This is where the bargaining process began between helping them capture some military leaders and political figures or imprisoning me. They decided to imprison me, but at that time, I did not know where they would take me. Then, they blindfolded me and threw me into a box, similar to ammunition crates and artillery belts, until we reached the place of detention, which later turned out to be the former General Intelligence Service’s Operations Unit, located southeast of the airport. Here, I was interrogated by a militia intelligence officer and some other officers.
I tried my best to prove to them my diplomatic profession as an ambassador from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. They asked me questions about the role, functions, and structure of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in an attempt to verify my claim, which they did not believe. The interrogation place was filled with the abducted individuals who had been and were still being brutally beaten to the extent that you couldn’t distinguish some of them from the blood covering their faces. The place consisted of offices and zinc-roofed cubicles, and nearby were anti-aircraft guns that were firing shells intensively and frighteningly every time an aircraft passed overhead. I accidentally learned that the soldiers operating these anti-aircraft guns had been killed in an aerial bombardment the previous day.
They confiscated and documented all my belongings. I was then taken to the detention cell after sunset, which is located in the northern part of the camp. It consists of zinc-roofed cubicles with several rooms. As I entered the detention area, one of the abducted brothers passed away, forcing them to sit me on the ground in front of the entrance gate while they removed the deceased’s body, which they placed next to me. One of the volunteers among the abducted placed some cotton on his ears and nose, and the detainees in the camp began chanting and praying loudly, which disturbed the guards who tried to restore calm by using their weapons.
There is another detention area in the same camp, which is a meeting hall. The total number of detainees in both areas is approximately 350 abductees.
When my feet stepped inside the detention center, I couldn’t see anything due to the extreme darkness. Many people were bare-chested, wearing only what covered their modesty. The temperature inside the detention center was extremely high. Most of them held a piece of cardboard (a fan) in their hands, using it to move the hot air. I started to feel around and touch bodies and legs of those lying on the ground. The detention area was long, and I couldn’t find a place to stand, so I had to sit down.
Those around me tried to make room for me, allowing me to sit next to them. Soon, my body started sweating profusely, and I began to feel the intense heat and the tightness of the place. The smell inside the detention center was extremely dirty, a mixture of human waste and the sweat of the abductees. I took off my robe, and one of the brothers kindly gave me a piece of cardboard to fan myself with. It wasn’t long before the call to Fajr (dawn) prayer was announced. I went to the bathrooms, preparing for prayer, and found the toilets overflowing with a foul smell. I couldn’t find any water, so everyone here performs dry ablution for prayer inside the detention center, congregating and shortening their prayers.
After we prayed Fajr prayer in congregation and raised collective prayers for deliverance from this ordeal, as the sun began to rise, allowing its light to enter the interior, I started to get to know the detainees, their various backgrounds, and the reasons for their detention.
The first individuals I got to know were a judge from the Court of Appeals, who had been abducted on the day of Eid from his home in East Nile. Another was a retired officer from the intelligence service who was taken from his house in Khartoum. There was also a pharmacist who had left his pregnant wife bleeding at home and had gone to get some medical supplies for her. He was locked inside his apartment by the Mujahideen before being abducted while searching for medical help.
A large number of General Intelligence Service officers were captured on the same day the war broke out. Among them were military intelligence personnel, a significant number of armed forces officers, including some who were wounded, and a few Central Reserve Forces soldiers, along with some officers of the diplomatic missions’ police.
A vast number of civilian citizens were also among the detainees. This included a former presidential candidate, mechanics, drug dealers, and mentally ill individuals, indicating the randomness of the abductions.
Regarding the meals, we are served two meals consisting of an undercooked porridge (known as “kuja”) along with lentil water. Detainees sit in groups, and a representative from each group collects the food trays. As for water, it is provided in barrels, and a barrel is consumed after each meal.
During my tour inside the detention center, I found that some detainees had been here for more than two weeks. There are also detainees from foreign countries.
The sick, injured, and wounded detainees do not receive proper medical care. Some volunteers among the detainees who have medical backgrounds cooperate with the medical unit to provide medicines from outside the facility, sourcing them from looted pharmacies. When I needed ongoing medical treatment, these volunteers managed to provide me with some essential medication. However, the heat and lack of oxygen inside the facility forced me to repeatedly request a way out, along with the provision of the necessary medicines for my deteriorating health.
After a week, I was summoned by the camp officer and taken out of the facility, with the claim that they would transfer me to a more suitable location considering my health condition. Indeed, I was taken in a vehicle after my eyes were blindfolded to a place not far from the Operations Authority camp. I was brought to a basement in a new camp, which was later revealed to be inside the building of the Open Arab University on Obaid Khatim Street, across from the Criminal Evidence department.
After being brought into a narrow room in the basement, my blindfold was removed, and the room was locked. A soldier handed me a dirty bottle of water for drinking and a gallon for relieving myself. The place was dark, hot, and desolate, with no air, no oxygen, and no companions except for the occasional sound of rats and the chirping of birds outside, which I envied for their freedom.
I couldn’t initially cope with this situation and realized that I might die here. So, I pounded on the door vigorously. The guard came and I explained to him my illness and deteriorating health, which had led to my removal from the previous facility, only to find that this new detention center was even worse. He coldly told me not to worry, that they had prepared graves ready for burials if I died, and then he closed the door.
I knocked on the door a second time and asked him to shoot me with his weapon, as it would be better than dying suffocated. He replied with indifference, “When the orders come, I will do it.” At that moment, I entrusted my fate to God.
In the evening, I heard a female voice in the basement lobby talking to the soldiers. I couldn’t make out her words except for her name, “Shams,” as one of them was calling her. Later, I learned that she was a fellow detainee who was defending herself. The next day, her voice disappeared, and two individuals, who seemed to have suffered torture, were brought in by the guards to deliver some food to me. They were placed in the adjacent room, and I could hear their moans throughout the night.
The basement began to receive an increasing number of abductees, one every hour, until the space became cramped despite its size. At that point, they transferred one of those in the adjacent room to my room, revealing that he was an officer from the intelligence agency who had been abducted from his home in Al-Ma’moura (M. A.). The soldiers referred to him as “Al-Ba’shoom.” He told me that he had been tortured to force him to lead them to leaders. The number of abductees continued to grow in the hall and in our room, where more army officers (active-duty and retired), intelligence agents, economists, and police officers were brought. It became known as the “Officers’ Room.”
My health deteriorated, and I was treated twice, which required them to move me, along with a retired army officer, to the ground floor, where we spent a day before they relocated us to the third floor, designated for the officers. Some of them had been abducted from their homes in Al-Sahafa East, the police officers’ residential complex in Abu Hamama, Al-Maiquma, and Haj Youssef. Some were captured during the conflicts (Air Defense S-61 and Strategic…). Our rooms overlooked Obaid Khatim Street, and some shells hit the windows due to the mutual shelling.
Being on this floor allowed us to observe and witness what was happening around us, including the new abductees being brought to the detention center, their torture, and the humiliation they suffered. They were blindfolded, handcuffed, and forced to crawl on the ground under a rain of lashes and gun butts on their bodies, causing blood to flow, regardless of age.
We also saw female abductees being brought in and taken to the adjacent building. I was released after a month in this camp due to a severe health issue that nearly cost me my life. Despite the investigations, interviews, and interactions with the rebel leaders, it was proven that the accusations of me being part of an army faction were false, thanks to God’s care and mercy.
Reflections and observations on the militia’s behavior to understand the reasons for their rebellion and engagement in this war…
Through our experience with this terrorist militia, their behavior, and practices in other areas of Darfur, it became clear that they engaged in the most heinous acts of ethnic cleansing, genocide, and forced displacement in their war against the state. They targeted the Zaghawa, Fur, and Masalit tribes, as well as the Eranga in Western Darfur in particular, and anyone who identified as Nubian or had African heritage, ethnicity, and color, to eradicate them from their land and erase the traces of their ancestors. They did all of this in the Darfur region in general.
Furthermore, they fought with the goal of eliminating and displacing the “Jallaba” and the people of the Nile Strip from one end to the other, along with all their tribal components. This was evident through the interrogations they conducted with the abductees. Woe to you if they discovered that you were from Ja’ali, Shaiqiya, or Dongolawi. Therefore, we pretended to be Nubians, despite the hostility the militia held towards them. The militia gathered all its elements, both soldiers and leaders, to declare war on what they call the “1956 state,” which is a fundamental slogan for them.
The destruction of knowledge, sciences, documents, and museums, as well as the targeting of historical and national symbols, cannot be justified. Their actions were not driven by the pursuit of evidence, democracy, or a civil state. These slogans are not achieved through the massacres in Darfur, the exclusion of all Sudanese people, the rape of women, the abduction of civilians, the looting of citizens’ homes, and the destruction of civil institutions such as hospitals, universities, and civil records.
The history of Sudan, ancient and modern, has never witnessed such a rebellion and war against the state. All of this confirms without a doubt that this militia is nothing more than a tool for an alternative cultural and ideological project with beliefs and visions aimed at erasing Sudanese cultural identity and the Sudanese character. It follows a regional plan to monopolize the country’s wealth and resources.
The crimes committed by this terrorist militia against the Sudanese people and their state, along with the interference of cross-border criminal gangs and regional support, justify President Burhan’s call to the international community to classify this militia as a terrorist group.
Sincerely,
Ambassador Kamal Ali Osman,
September 22, 2023
