The death of two people, reportedly under torture by security and military agencies, sparked outrage in Sudan.
The Rapid Response Forces and the police announced that a number of their members have been arrested on suspicion for their involvement in the deaths.
Bahaa el-Din Nouri, 45, was taken on Dec. 16 from the Kalakla neighborhood in the southern part of the capital, Khartoum, by men wearing plain clothes and riding in a vehicle without license plates, his family has said.
Five days later, his body appeared at a hospital morgue in the city of Omdurman, just across the Nile River from Khartoum. The family refused to take the body for immediate burial after seeing signs of apparent beating and torture, according to Nouri’s brother, Yasser.
A report by Sudan’s Monti-Caroo news website, which extensively covers RSF activities, said Nouri was being interrogated over allegations of belonging to a “terrorist group trading in explosives.”
Culture and Information Minister Faisal Mohammed Saleh said the family met with the general prosecutor on Thursday and asked for an autopsy to reveal the cause of death.
Saleh, who is also the government spokesman, said an initial investigation showed that Nouri died while being interrogated by the RSF.
Brig. Gen. Gamal Goma, the RSF spokesman, said the head of the RSF's intelligence unit as well as officers involved in Nouri’s detention and interrogation have been suspended or detained, pending an investigation into his death. The statement did not give further details.
The RSF is led by Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, who is also the deputy head of the ruling sovereign council. Dagalo was appointed to lead the RSF by former longtime leader Omar al-Bashir.
The Sudanese Professionals’ Association, which helped spearhead mass protests against Bashir, called for the closure of all detention centers run by the RSF. The association also called for the release of the RSF's detainees or for detainees to be turned over to the police.
Another Sudanese man died on Saturday, a day after his release from police custody in Omdurman, according to a police statement Sunday.
Ezzel-Din Ali Hamed, 22, was arrested on Dec. 17 as part of an investigation into charges of robbery. On Friday, prosecutors had ordered his release pending the investigation.
However, police say his health deteriorated after his release and he was taken to a hospital where he was pronounced dead. The police statement didn’t say what was wrong with him, but said security officers implicated in Hamed’s arrest and death were being detained and investigated.
The statement was released amid public outcry over his death. Hamed’s family held a protest Saturday outside a hospital in Omdurman, accusing police of beating and torturing him to death. An autopsy revealed that he was beaten.
In a satirical tweet, Sudanese analyst and the editor of the daily newspaper al-Tayar, Osman Mirghani, suggested that Sudanese drivers ought to remove their car license plates “to force the government to ban” security forces from doing so.
