A prominent Sudanese rebel group has released 127 prisoners it had captured in fighting with government forces, most of them soldiers, the military said on Sunday. The rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N) had captured the prisoners in Blue Nile and South Kordofan states, where the group has been fighting Sudanese government forces for years.

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The released prisoners include 109 soldiers and 18 civilians, army spokesman Brigadier Ahmed Khalifa al-Shami said in a statement.

“The Sudanese army recognises this as a positive step towards achieving peace in the country,” he said.

Ethnic minority rebels in Blue Nile and South Kordofan have been fighting government forces since 2011, accusing President Omar al-Bashir’s Arab-dominated government of politically and economically marginalising the two regions.

Fighting in the two areas and in Darfur have left tens of thousands of people dead and displaced millions.

Khartoum announced a unilateral ceasefire in June 2016 in all three conflict zones, which it extended by six months in January.

UN officials say that for years Blue Nile and South Kordofan have been no-go areas for aid officials, leaving thousands of people without access to humanitarian relief. </s> A Sudanese rebel group has freed 127 people it had captured in fighting with government forces, according to the country's army.

Those released by the Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N) included 109 soldiers and 18 civilians, Brigadier Ahmed Khalifa al-Shami, the army spokesman, said in a statement on Sunday.

"The Sudanese army recognises this as a positive step towards achieving peace in the country."

The SPLM-N had captured the prisoners in Blue Nile and South Kordofan states, where the group has been fighting Sudanese government forces for years.

It was not clear how long the prisoners spent in captivity.

In 2011, South Sudan gained independence from Sudan following a 2005 peace deal that ended Africa's longest-running civil war.

Excluded from deal

After a referendum, in which an overwhelming majority of South Sudanese voted to secede, Africa's newest country came into being, the first since Eritrea split from Ethiopia in 1993.

But South Kordofan and Blue Nile, whose residents predominantly wanted to become citizens of the new nation, were excluded from the deal.

The SPLM-N, the northern affiliate of SPLM in South Sudan, consequently took up arms against the Sudanese government of President Omar al-Bashir, and fighting has continued on and off ever since.

Fighting in the two areas, and in Darfur, have left tens of thousands of people dead and displaced millions.

Khartoum announced a unilateral ceasefire in June 2016 in all three conflict zones, which it extended by six months in January.

UN says that for years Blue Nile and South Kordofan have been no-go areas for aid officials, leaving thousands of people without access to humanitarian relief. </s> Sudanese prisoners of war queue to board an International Committee of the Red Cross plane to Uganda after being released by the rebels in South Kordofan. MOHAMMED AMIN | NATION MEDIA GROUP

Sudanese rebels Saturday announced the release of more than 130 government soldiers captured in the battles in South Kordofan.

In a press release extended to the Africa Review, the rebels of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/ Northern sector (SPLM-N) confirmed that the prisoners of war had been received by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and transported by a helicopter belonging to the international organisation.

SPLM-N further pointed out that South Sudan and Uganda had facilitated the transportation of the war prisoners.

"SPLM-N has handed over more than 130 prisoners of war to the Red Cross in line with the goodwill announced by the SPLM-N leadership,’’ the statement read.

"They have been transported today to Uganda through South Sudan and they will be handed over to Sudan,’’ it added.

The statement said Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni had appreciated the gesture and the facilitation by Sudan and South Sudan to enable ICRC to transport the war prisoners to Uganda through the international corridors.

A handing over proposed by SPLM-N last year did not materialise.

SPLM-N last year announced an initiative to hand over government prisoners of war, but the two sides have traded accusations over the failure of the process.

The Sudanese army did not immediately react to the rebels’ unilateral move.

However, the rebels have repeatedly decried the ceasefire violations by the government forces.

The warring parties have failed to achieve any breakthrough in the negotiations in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, under the mediation of the African Union. </s> Sudan Peoples Liberation Movement-In Opposition (SPLM-IO) rebels have released Kenyans they detained as retaliation after Nairobi handed over their spokesman James Gatdet Dak to the Juba government.

“Following the order of our commander in chief and leader Dr Riek Machar, we have released all Kenyan nationals in our territory. They are now free to move within our territory or even go to another country,” said Goanar Gordon Yien, an SPLM-IO official in Ethiopia.

“Even though the delivery of our spokesperson to the Juba government by the Kenyan government is against the Geneva Convention, our chairman has ordered the release of all civilian Kenyans detained following that incident.

"If the Kenya government did not want our spokesman in its territory, it could have sent him to our headquarters – Pagak, instead of sending him to the Juba regime which is known for torturing and killing civilians. Or if they found him doing harm, the Kenyan government could also have [charged him in] their own court,” he said.

Mr Yien said sources had informed the SPLM-IO that Dak was still alive and urged the international community to put pressure on the Juba government to release him.

“I hope what the Kenyan government has done to our spokesperson will not happen to another person again. We value the positive role the Kenyan government has been playing to end the conflict in South Sudan and hope that it continues to do so,” he said by phone. </s> Sudan’s deposed ruler Omar al-Bashir who was held at a ‘safe location’ since last week has been transferred to Kobar maximum security prison.Family sources said Bashir 75, was moved to the maximum security prison in the capital Khartoum where he is being kept under solitary confinement.

Witnesses say the Kobar prisons has seen a heavy security presence shortly before Bashir was moved their after his detention in one of his former palaces.

Kobar is one of the biggest prisons in the country where Sudan’s most important prisoners are held.

Bashir lost power after the army intervened last Thursday following four months of street protests which began over the rising price of foodstuffs.

It soon morphed into a movement calling for his head as demonstrators came under heavy crackdown from his security forces, resulting in the death of over 100 people.

The former army officer came to power in a military coup in 1989. </s> CAIRO (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 12th June, 2019) The biggest Sudanese opposition movement Forces for the Declaration of Freedom and Change declared on Tuesday an end to the civil disobedience campaign after calls for a return to dialogue, the movement's member, Moataz Mohamed Saleh, told the Al Hadath broadcaster on Tuesday.

Last week, the Forces for the Declaration of Freedom and Change announced a permanent disobedience campaign, which paralyzed the country for three days. Currently, Ethiopian special envoy for Sudan Mahmoud Drir is in Sudan, attempting to revive dialogue between the opposition and military authorities.

At the same time a special representative of the Ethiopian prime minister said at a press conference that the Transitional Military Council (TMC) had agreed to release political prisoners in exchange for the opposition's decision to stop the disobedience campaign.

Long-standing popular protests in Sudan culminated in a military coup on April 11, when then-President Omar Bashir was overthrown and detained. TMC took over and pledged to organize a new presidential election within two years. The protesters have meanwhile remained in the streets demanding that the military yield power to a civilian authority. </s> Armed men have abducted three UN refugee agency staffers, including two foreigners, from Sudan's strife-torn Darfur region, a local government official told AFP on Monday.

Two Nepalese and a Sudanese national working for UNHCR were abducted Sunday in Geneina, the capital of West Darfur state.

"A group of armed men kidnapped yesterday three UNHCR workers, two Nepalese and a Sudanese, from Geneina," Abdelah Mustafa, spokesman for the state government of West Darfur told AFP.

UNHCR officials were not immediately available for comment, but its spokesman in Khartoum told AFP by text message that a meeting was underway to discuss the "urgent incident".

Darfur has been engulfed in a deadly conflict since 2003 when ethnic minority groups took up arms against President Omar al-Bashir's Arab-dominated government, which launched a brutal counter-insurgency.

At least 300,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million displaced in Darfur since then, the UN says.

Bashir is wanted by the International Criminal Court on war crimes and genocide charges related to Darfur, which he denies.

Sudan insists that the conflict in Darfur has ended, and that it wants UN peacekeepers who have been deployed in the region the size of France since 2007 to leave. </s> KHARTOUM - Sudan’s deposed President Omar al-Bashir has been moved to Kober prison in the capital, Khartoum, family sources told Reuters news agency, but officials disputed the account. Citing a source at the prison on Wednesday, Reuters reported that al-Bashir was being held under tight security in solitary confinement since Tuesday. The ruling Transitional Military Council has yet to confirm the report.

Al Jazeera’a Hiba Morgan, reporting from Khartoum, said officials disputed the report that al-Bashir was being held in the prison. “They said al-Bashir was being held in a safe place under house arrest until he is taken to court,” Morgan reported.

“The protesters who are conducting a sit-in at the defence ministry in the capital say that they will not end their action until they see al-Bashir in court to be held to account for crimes committed when in power,” she added. “They’re also saying they will not end their sit-in if the government does not hand over power to an independent civilian government.”

Witnesses said there was a heavy deployment of soldiers and members of the paramilitary Rapid Support Force outside the Kober prison in north Khartoum. “There are troops in vehicles mounted with machine-guns near the prison,” a witness told a private news agency. Kober prison was built by the British during the colonial period and is located on the east bank of the Blue Nile in a northern district of the capital where al-Bashir grew up.

The area was previously known as Kober, taking its name from the prison, but al-Bashir later changed the name to Omar al-Mukhtar after a hero of Libya’s struggle against Italian colonial rule. The brick-built prison, which is surrounded by a high concrete wall, holds hundreds of inmates at any one time, many of them crammed in tiny cells.

It has a special wing for political prisoners where several opposition leaders and activists were held during the four months of protests which led to al-Bashir’s overthrow. The wing is run by the feared National Intelligence and Security Service rather than the police.

Since his removal by the military last Thursday, al-Bashir had been detained under heavy guard in the presidential residence inside the compound that also houses the defence ministry, the family sources said. The military removed al-Bashir after months of protests against him that culminated in a sit-in outside the defence ministry compound that began on April 6. Protesters are still camping there demanding the end of ‘deep-state’. Al-Bashir, who ruled Sudan since 1989, is facing arrest warrants by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes and crimes against humanity in connection with the conflict in the western Darfur region. Meanwhile, Uganda said on Wednesday it would consider offering asylum to al-Bashir despite his indictment by the ICC. “Uganda would not be apologetic at all for considering an application by al-Bashir,” Okello Oryem, Uganda’s state minister for foreign affairs, told Reuters. Oryem said al-Bashir had yet to contact Kampala for possible refuge, but added that there was no harm in considering the fallen Sudanese leader for political asylum.

There was no immediate comment from the ICC in The Hague. ICC member states, which include Uganda, are obligated to hand over indictees who enter their territory.

Though al-Bashir is under ICC indictment for suspected genocide in Darfur, the military council in Khartoum has said it will not hand him over and instead may try him in Sudan.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has in the past criticised the ICC, describing it as a tool of Western justice against Africans, and he once vowed to mobilise African countries to pull out of the court’s founding treaty.

Relations between Sudan and Uganda, where Museveni has been in power since 1986, were frosty in the 1990s and early 2000s.

Uganda accused al-Bashir-led Sudan at the time of supporting strongman Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), while Sudan alleged Uganda was offering assistance to an anti-Khartoum rebel group, the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA). The SPLA later led South Sudan to independence from Khartoum while the LRA, still undefeated but mostly dormant, is believed to be hiding out in a patch of jungle between the borders of Uganda, South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

After South Sudan’s independence in 2011, Museveni and al-Bashir gradually reconciled and have since jointly championed efforts to end fighting in the newest African country.

Meanwhile, Sudan’s military council ordered the central bank to review financial transfers since April 1 and to seize “suspect” funds, state news agency SUNA reported on Wednesday.

The TMC also ordered the “suspension of the transfer of ownership of any shares until further notice and for any large or suspect transfers of shares or companies to be reported” to authorities. </s> Sudan’s military rulers have transferred ousted president Omar al-Bashir to prison and also detained two of his five brothers Abdallah Hassan al-Bashir and Al-Abbas Hassan al-Bashir.

Following the dramatic end to Bashir’s rule of three decades last week, he was moved late Tuesday to Kober prison in the capital, a family source said without revealing his name for security reasons.

Witnesses near the prison in north Khartoum said there was a heavy deployment of soldiers and members of a paramilitary group outside.

The 75-year-old’s whereabouts have been unknown since a military takeover on Thursday, when the country’s new rulers said he was being held “in a secure place”.

The army council said it has also decided to integrate the Popular Defence Force into the army. The PDF is a type of reserve unit frequently used to support units of the regular army.

Amnesty International called for Bashir to be “immediately handed over to the International Criminal Court” in The Hague where he faces charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity relating to the conflict in Darfur. He denies the charges.

“His case must not be hurriedly tried in Sudan’s notoriously dysfunctional legal system. Justice must be served,” said Amnesty’s Joan Nyanyuki.

Bashir’s detention has failed to pacify protesters, who launched anti-government demonstrations in December and have for days been camped out in front of Khartoum’s army headquarters.

Scores of doctors in white robes marched from Khartoum’s main hospital towards the sit-in, carrying banners and chanting: “freedom, peace, justice.”

Journalists held a separate rally, along with university students and scores of women from a Facebook group who call themselves “the Information Network of the Revolution”.

The women — who include doctors, lawyers and teachers — are renowned for monitoring security agents who target protesters and publishing their information online in order to hold them to account.

Later in the evening crowds of protesters flocked through Khartoum to join the sit-in chanting “revolution, revolution”, an AFP correspondent reported.

Sudan’s military rulers have made some concessions, including the sacking Tuesday of prosecutor general Omer Ahmed Mohamed, but demonstrators fear their uprising could be hijacked.

“We faced tear gas, many of us were jailed. We have been shot and many have died. All this because we said what we wanted to,” Fadia Khalaf told AFP.

Khalid Mohamed, a medic, said: “We got Bashir out, but we still have to get rid of the regime”.

Officials say at least 65 people have been killed in protest-related violence since December, with some of the dead memorialised in a Khartoum mural.
The Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North releases 127 prisoners from captivity, mostly troops of the Sudanese military.