Military Intelligence ‘detains, tortures Darfur citizens’

Members of the Military Intelligence (MI) held a shoe vendor in Nierteti in Central Darfur on Friday. Earlier last week, a man was detained and reportedly tortured by Military Intelligence agents in West Darfur’s Sirba.
Speaking to Radio Dabanga, a colleague of displaced shoe vendor Abdelnasir Eisa Daoud said that Military Intelligence officers seized him at his shop in the Nierteti Market on Friday afternoon and took him to an unknown destination.

Members of the Military Intelligence (MI) held a shoe vendor in Nierteti in Central Darfur on Friday. Earlier last week, a man was detained and reportedly tortured by Military Intelligence agents in West Darfur's Sirba.

Speaking to Radio Dabanga, a colleague of displaced shoe vendor Abdelnasir Eisa Daoud said that Military Intelligence officers seized him at his shop in the Nierteti Market on Friday afternoon and took him to an unknown destination.

The market vendor added that the reasons for the detention are “entirely unclear”.

On Tuesday, MI agents held El Nur Anwar Abdallah from within his house at El Shati district in Sirba town in West Darfur.

His neighbour told Radio Dabanga that Abdallah was charged with the possession of weapons. “He was subjected to beating and tortures. Some people actually saw him buried into a sand hole, except his head, in order to get a confession,” he said.

Detentions

Reports about detentions by MI agents in West Darfur reached Radio Dabanga several times last year. In April, a resident of Sirba camp for the displaced in West Darfur was reportedly beaten up and his head shaved with glass shards in MI detention.

On 18 August, a group of MI agents searched a number of homes at the Armankul camp in El Geneina locality, and detained a man and a woman on charges of cooperating with the rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM).

Two residents of Sirba camp were taken by MI officers to the Sirba military garrison on 15 October. Two other Sirba camp residents were summoned daily to the security office in Sirba and questioned about rebel activities in the area.

In Gireida, South Darfur, MI officers held a secondary school teacher on 4 October. “They questioned him about his political views, whether he was active in an organisation, or had contacts with one of the Darfur rebel movements,” a colleague told Radio Dabanga. He was released the same day. The following day however, an MI force raided the teacher's home and detained him again.