Sudan Islamist leader resumes hunger strike in protest at house arrest

KHARTOUM, Aug 29 (AFP) — Sudanese Islamist leader Hassan Turabi has gone back on hunger strike to protest his continuing house arrest just two months after being hospitalised following a four-week protest fast, aides and relatives said Sunday.

Turabi, 74, has barricaded himself in a single room inside the Khartoum North remand home where has been detained since his release from hospital on August 15, his son Seddiq confirmed.

“He has decided no longer to leave the room and asked his wife not to bring him any food,” another close aide told AFP, adding that the longtime power behind Sudan’s military regime was nonetheless still taking water.

Turabi, who is awaiting trial on a raft of offences against the state including incitement to sedition, sabotage and undermining the regime accuses the government of “breaking its promises,” the aide added.

The Popular Congress leader, who was detained in late March amid government allegations of a coup attempt by sympathisers of the ethnic minority rebels in Darfur, had been at liberty for only six months since being freed from three years of house arrest last year.

The opposition leader had been increasingly critical of the scorched earth policy adopted by the government in Darfur, where the United Nations says up to 50,000 have been killed and more than a million left homeless by clashes between the rebels and state-sponsored Arab militia.