Sudan’s executing chambers: Army found torturing people to death

After documenting hundreds of arrests in Khartoum, the Emergency Lawyers Group said that in the “worst cases” they had found some captives later on, dead, with evidence of torture.

Two years into Sudan’s brutal civil war between the Sudanese Army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), tens of thousands have been killed. The capital Khartoum, at one point held by the RSF was recaptured in March.

Throughout the war, the Emergency Lawyers group has documented atrocities by both the army and the RSF.

In a statement on X, Emergency Lawyers said it had seen a “dangerous escalation in violations.”

The group alleges that some of these captives were arrested at random, after which, they were taken to large detention centres.

“Their fates range from continued detention in inhumane conditions, trials conducted by security agencies that lack the most basic standards of justice, or release in poor health,” the statement read.

“In the worst cases, some are found dead after being killed or declared dead as a result of torture.”

Omar al-Bashir, the former President of Sudan, made significant use of torture during his rule.

In the latest conflict, the RSF have also greatly used torture in its practices, having been found to have abused and even executed prisoners.

Sudan’s people continue to endure severe crimes throughout the war, with refugees from the country’s non-arab majority reportedly being gunned down by the RSF indiscriminately, with refugee camps being repeatedly attacked in Western Sudan.

In march, the UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for the Sudan said that both the RSF and Sudanese Army and Security Forces were responsible for “a widespread pattern of arbitrary detention, torture and ill-treatment of detainees”.

They say both the army and RSF had used “rape and other forms of sexual violence, arbitrary arrest and detention, as well as torture and ill-treatment”.

12 million people have been forced from their homes, and famine has been declared in parts of the country. Having been caused by the country’s civil war, Sudan is now marked as one of the world’s worst ongoing humanitarian crises.

Médecins Sans Frontières- or Doctors Without Borders (MSF)-said the war has fuelled the worst cholera outbreak the country has seen in years. There have been nearly 100,000 cases of the disease and 2,470 deaths over the past year.

The ongoing crises in Sudan’s civil war has thrown the country into total disarray, with the US meeting with Army officials in Switzerland this week to discuss an end to the conflict.

The answer to wether these talks can find a realistic solution towards peace in the country, however, is unlikely. Both sides appear to be irreconcilable in their current states, but with several ongoing crises in Sudan, the need for peace could not be greater.

BBC News, Maghrebi.org