Killings of Massaleit Intellectuals and Civilians Continue in Western Sudan (5/4/2002)

The killings of intellectuals and civilians of African groups in western Sudan continue. The latest victim is the respected Massaleit intellectual, Ustaz Ahmad Abdul Frag, who was killed at his home in El Geneina town on the night of 8 April 2002. As with past murders, his killers escaped, remain unidentified and unpunished. However, government complicity in the crime is suspected. In the past, government agents have eliminated many Massaleit leaders including Omda Ibrahim Yacoub, Ustaza Azza Deifa, Dr. Ahmed Dina, Omer Barrah Sherif, and Mowlana Hissein Haroun.

Ustaz Ahmed Abdul Farag might have been killed on the suspicion that he passed information to groups, including the Massaleit Community in Exile, trying to draw attention to the massive violations of human rights in western Sudan by the government security forces and allied Arab militias. We received information from our people back home that he was among those suspected of supporting and communicating with the Sudanese opposition abroad.

Ustaz Ahmad Abdul Frag was a teacher by profession and a politician. During Gaafar Nimeiri's leadership of the country, he was elected as a representative of western Sudan in the 1980s. After the overthrow of Nimeiri, he was elected as a member of National Parliament in the democratic era that followed. Following the coup of Omer Bashir, he returned to teaching and later served with a UN agency in Darfur for sometime. Before his death, he was the head of a committee overseeing the construction of the road linking El Geneina and Zalengei.

The government arrested a number of Massaleit civilians in connection with the death, clearly to deflect attention away from the killers. Surely, Massaleit have no reason to kill their own intellectual who has devoted his life to their service. The killers are either in the government security services or the Arab militias, who have murdered other civilians recently. Our people clearly state that the government planned and ordered the killing.

The same day that Ahmad Abdul Frag died, four Massaleit civilians, from the village of Gokar, situated south of Geneina, were murdered. They were killed in the bush while collecting firewood without the notice of the local people. The deaths were realized when the donkeys of the dead returned alone. A search was initiated and the bodies, with bullet wounds, were found. The names of the dead are: Hassan Kamis (commonly called Asili), Mohamad Daiya, Nuraldeen Abdulkarim and Ibeed.

The international community should pressed the Sudanese regime, which claimed to have gained some sanity recently, to stop the killings of intellectuals and the murders of innocent people by the Arab militias, which it supports and supplies with deadly arms.