Prosecutor rejects former investigation into Port Sudan massacre

The prosecutor handling the case of the ‘2005 Port Sudan massacre’ has refused to add the files of the previous investigation into the incident.

On 29 January twelve years ago, 21 demonstrators of the Beja tribe were killed, and at least 400 were injured, among them women and children, in Port Sudan's Deim El Arab district, when government forces quelled a peaceful demonstration calling on Khartoum to allocate more resources to the marginalised region. Hundreds of protesters were detained.

For years, Beja leaders called for the prosecution of the forces who killed the demonstrators to no avail. The annual commemoration of the massacre and the honouring of the 21 killed, popularly referred to as “martyrs” was sometimes banned as well.

However, after the Constitutional Court decided positively on the lawyers’ request for a new investigation in late 2015, the authorities in Port Sudan agreed in October 2016 to reopen the file. The prosecutor agreed to request the Defence and Interior Ministers to lift the immunity enjoyed by members of the regular armed forces. 

The lawyers of the martyrs’ families consider the refusal of the prosecutor to include the outcomes of the former investigation into the killing “a clear violation of the Constitutional Court's decision on the massacre that allowed the addition of those files”.

According to lawyer Najla Mohamed, the rejection is not only abusive but also a clear violation of the right to litigate. “We consider the prosecutor’s rejection of the former investigation outcomes a refusal to bring the perpetrators to justice,” she told Radio Dabanga.

“The prosecutor tried to justify his rejection by saying that the administrative files are confidential, but it is most important to include the files because they contain evidence about the perpetrators.”

She indicated that the lawyers team will return to the Constitutional Court again if the appeal filed by them will be dismissed. “We expect the decision on our appeal to come within the next days.”

According to Saidi Oshkur, Chairman of the High Committee for the Martyrs of Port Sudan, the Beja lack confidence in Sudan’s judicial institutions. “We are not surprised about the prosecutor’s rejection of the former investigation. They will try by all means to sweep the case under the carpet again.”

He further reported a Beja committee is preparing to commemorate the 12^th anniversary of the massacre in Port Sudan “with more activities as before, to attract the attention to the rights of the families of the martyrs”.