Sudan lawyers ‘outraged’ as three human rights defenders slain

The Darfur Bar Association (DBA) released a statement condemning the murder of prominent human rights defender Ahmed ‘El Lord’ Abdallah and advocate Adam El Rab in Nyala on Friday. Sudan’s Emergency Lawyers expressed outrage over the death of lawyer Mohamed Mirsal after his house in Omdurman was shelled on Friday.

According to the DBA statement, human rights defenders Ahmed Abdallah, also known by his nickname ‘El Lord’, and Adam El Rab “were kidnapped by armed men in Nyala, capital of South Darfur, on Friday”. As reported by Radio Dabanga yesterday, their captors demanded a major ransom for their release before they were murdered.

When the families of the Abdallah and El Rab inquired at the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) headquarters in Nyala to ask on their whereabouts, the RSF attributed responsibility to ‘unaffiliated rebel groups’. The families reportedly later “found the two corpses on the side of the Nyala – El Fasher road”, Eisa Defallah told Sudan Tribune.

Sudan’s Emergency Lawyers condemned the killing of three lawyers in Khartoum and Nyala since Friday. The group said in a statement that lawyer Mohamed Mirsal was killed when his house in Omdurman was bombed.

Community leaders and human rights defenders, in Darfur and throughout Sudan, are subjected to constant threats and arrests by both sides of the fighting. Just yesterday, the DBA appealed to both sides of the conflict to release all civilian detainees, following the detention of another senior lawyer by Military Intelligence in Omdurman on Friday.

Radio Dabanga previously reported that both the Sudanese army (SAF) and the RSF are accused of having detained hundreds of activists and volunteers in Khartoum state since the start of the war.

Since the outbreak of war on April 15, Nyala witnessed violent clashes between the army and the RSF, which left countless civilians dead. On Thursday, Radio Dabanga highlighted various reports from Nyala of killings, rapes, looting, and “the complete breakdown of the region’s infrastructure and security apparatus”.