Rights group urge to probe abuses against female students
October 15, 2014 (KHARTOUM) – Human Rights Watch (HRW) urged the Sudanese authorities to investigate abuses, including sexual abuse, against female students from Darfur region during a forcible eviction form university barracks in Khartoum.
On 5 October security agents stormed the Zahra dormitory complex in Khartoum, and forcibly evicted about 70 female students from the building.
The authorities said they asked the female students to vacate the ramshackle residence since last September in order to conduct maintenance works, adding the students refused to leave it despite offering an alternative accommodation.
According to HRW, Darfurian students “protested, saying they had nowhere else to go”.
The rights group condemned the violent intervention of security forces to evict the female students. In a statement issued on Wednesday HRW said the officers beat and interrogated students before transferring them to the Omdurman women’s prison .
The statement further said the security agents “groped (the students), taunted them, and threatened to assault them sexually”.
“A women’s rights group, No to Women’s Oppression, reported that security officials raiding the dorms forced some women to undress in the dorms, photographed them, and threatened to use the photos against them” the group further stressed.
There are 15 students still held without charges and without access to lawyers or family visit in Omdurman prison, while the whereabouts of 20 others are unknown.
“The unacknowledged detention of individuals or the concealment of the whereabouts or fate of those detained by state agents constitutes an enforced disappearance, which are absolutely prohibited under international law, said Human Rights Watch.
In a press conference held on Saturday the alliance of Darfur university students associations slammed the lack of action by Darfur Regional Authority saying it has turned into a tool to implement the policies of the ruling party.
The pro-government General Union of Sudanese Students on Sunday accused Darfur rebel groups and opposition parties of instigating the students to refuse leaving the building in order to “provoke chaos, inciting demonstrations and vandalism”.
(ST)