Those forcibly disappeared in the Sudan war – an open wound for thousands swallowed by absence

Report by Azza Mohammed/ World Media Network for Sudan Media Forum

Waleed has returned after a forced disappearance that lasted more than two years since the beginning of the Sudan war between the Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). He returned but he is no longer the same, he did not recognise his child and his family. He returned lost and knows nothing but to repeat the words of distress from torture. Waleed appeared in the lists of detainees who were freed after the Sudanese army recaptured the city of Khartoum. His family did not recognise him because of his changing features and malnutrition, like all forcibly disappeared people. The family got to know their son’s features at the police hospital in Barbak, among hundreds of survivors who do not even know their names and family addresses, so that service providers can communicate with their families.

Waleed. He came back but he didn’t come back

Walid is one of the few lucky people who survived the scourge of torture, beatings, and deprivation of food and drink inside the Rapid Support Detention Centers. While many families continued to search for those who went missing in vain. The family of Mr. Abdel Halim is still knocking on the doors to search for their son, Al-Moallem, who has been detained by the Rapid Support Forces for more than two years due to a false accusation of belonging to the military intelligence of the army. Although Abdel Halim’s family has proven his innocence of that charge and confirmed his disappearance, they do not They know something about his whereabouts. They ask everyone who was released from the detention centers, and there are conflicting accounts about his vision between the detention centers of Riyadh, Soba, and Jabal Awliya. His family’s hopes of finding him among the survivors were pinned after the armed forces entered Khartoum, but those hopes were dashed after he did not show up and they learned that the RSF had used a large part of the forcibly disappeared as human shields to ensure their exit from Khartoum. The family’s suffering is compounded by their falling into the traps of brokers, taking advantage of their eagerness to search for their missing person as a way to earn money and make money, extorting and demanding huge sums of money in exchange for his release, and then disappearing.

Shocking numbers – Thousands of forcibly disappeared

Despite the large numbers of forcibly disappeared since the start of the war in 2023, those who have been reached are not equal to 10% of their total, and the fate of thousands remains unknown. Human rights defender Amir Suleiman from the African Center for Justice and Peace Studies referred to a previous statement by the United Nations expert on human rights in Sudan, Radwan Nuwaiser, in which he said that the number of cases of forcibly disappeared is more than (3177), including (500) cases of women and (300) cases of children. He continued: “In other reports, the number exceeds 50,000 people.” “The Sudan war has shown new patterns of enforced disappearance of thousands of civilians,” Amir said. He stressed the need to pay great attention to the issue of enforced disappearance in Sudan, to achieve justice for thousands of families who lost their members.

New styles of post-war concealment

Speaking at the workshop of the African Center for Justice and Peace Studies on building a national strategy to combat enforced disappearances, human rights defender Shawki Yacoub pointed out that they at the African Center for Justice and Peace Studies are interested in the issue of enforced disappearances since before the war, and they have many activities that have been implemented in the same direction. He added: “We gathered the families of the victims in groups and called on the government to reveal the fate of the missing.” He continued: “The pattern of enforced disappearances is different after the war.” He pointed out that the current cases of enforced disappearances involve the government and its affiliated armed groups in government-controlled areas, in addition to cases of enforced disappearances of civilians in areas controlled by the Rapid Support Forces. He stated: “In some cases, an astronomical financial ransom is demanded for the release of the victim.”

Shawky said that the Rapid Support Forces left behind dozens of secret detention centers in the capital, Khartoum, after turning houses and government facilities into security and military headquarters. There were also reports of people being arrested by the joint force in El Fasher. “There are cases of enforced disappearances in the state of Gezira and the city of Sinja at the moment the Rapid Support took control of them in the middle of last year, and the fate of the disappeared is still unknown, including children and women,” Shawki Yacoub said. The number of cases in Sinja was estimated at about three thousand.

The Sudanese Group for Victims of Enforced Disappearances revealed in a report that the rates of enforced disappearances during a year of the war have risen to 1,140 people, but the numbers exceed 5,000, and explained that the Rapid Support Forces are demanding ransoms from some families of the missing in exchange for their release.

Othman Basri, a member of the Sudanese Group of Victims of Enforced Disappearances, said that many of those who were liquidated inside the Rapid Support Detention Centers, but only two cases were documented, as the first case was documented of forcibly disappeared people who were forced to work and were killed in the airstrikes. The second case is of a citizen who was arrested, killed, and buried in the detention yard.” He pointed out that a report of the second case was opened in the face of defendants in the Red Sea state, and revealed that it is difficult to reach the families of the victims due to the current situation.

Documented war crimes against civilians

Human Rights Watch accuses the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) of liquidating people in detention without trial, torturing and ill-treating them, and mutilating their bodies, which constitute war crimes. It urged the commanders of the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) to order an immediate halt to these abuses, conduct effective investigations, and cooperate with international investigators, in particular the UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission in Sudan, whose scope of investigations will include these violations that constitute war crimes.

The report of the UN fact-finding mission, released on September 6, noted that both sides of the conflict had “arbitrarily arrested, detained, and tortured civilians because of the victims’ ethnicity or opinions. The report concluded that both parties to the conflict arbitrarily detained civilians because of their political affiliations, work, or alleged cooperation with the other party to the conflict. Detainees were often detained without adequate food, sanitation, or medical care. Survivors described RSF detention centres as “slaughterhouses”, where detainees were in some cases beaten to death and summarily executed. Some were forced to work or some were held for ransom, and families were forced to pay a ransom to be released.”

This report by Azza Mohammed/ World Media Network is published via the platforms of the Sudan Media Forum and its member institutions to reveal a human tragedy for those forcibly disappeared in Sudan since the outbreak of the war in 2023, thousands whose fate is still unknown in the event that it represents an open wound for their families lost between hope and despair. Or those who return from them suffering from psychological and physical problems. And how some of them have been used as human shields, and others have become tools to extort money for families. In the emergence of new patterns of enforced disappearance shared by the parties to the conflict, which makes it a crime War.

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