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“Schools That Trap Children” … This BBC report brings to light what is happening in the tens of thousands of Islamic schools operating in Sudan whose teachers use torture, wood and rape, to the detriment of even five-year-olds.
Journalist Fateh Al-Rahman Al-Hamdani, for 18 months, sneaked into 23 of these schools, known as “khalwas”, and recorded horrifying images of children and older students being abused.
Two of them, Ishmael and Mohammed, were imprisoned for 5 days without food or water and were beaten by the “sheikhs” in charge, so brutally that they lost consciousness and woke up in the hospital.
Mohamed, 14, had wounds so deep that his spine could be seen. Doctors say he was surprised to have managed to open his eyes again.
His family, after overcoming the danger, took an oath, to be better known about the tortuous suffering of the children in these schools, in order to memorize the Qur’an.
Today, there are around 30,000 khalwas in Sudan. If a child expresses a desire to leave, or worse, if he tries to leave, he faces torture. “If I say I want to leave, they will tie me up and beat me,” confessed a child.
Torture, however, is part of everyday life. The children appear to be in pain, lying on the floor, and without medical attention. Others are chained to 6 and 7 and forced to run. “We get tangled, we fall, they clean us off the ground and force us to do it over and over again,” says one student.
The horror doesn’t stop there. It is not only the sheikhs who carry out these punitive acts. Even older students beat or rape younger ones. “If we don’t hit them, they won’t memorize the Koran,” admits one of them.
While filming the BBC documentary, a coup in Sudan took place that led to the overthrow of the previous regime. In New Sudan, child abuse does not appear to be on the regime’s agenda, which says it is taking the issue very seriously.
The sheikh against whom Ismael’s family took legal action, after five postponements, was finally acquitted.
In his statements to the chamber, he defends these methods, saying first that religion itself says that believers enter paradise in chains.
“It just came to our knowledge then. We had a prison for children who smoked marijuana, used drugs, stole or committed other sins.” Their parents brought them to us to chain us, “he says, while as soon as the discussion reaches rapes, he marches in a state of rage, to return hours later for new statements, now calm and denying everything.
Watch the BBC video
CAUTION! HARD IMAGES!
Sudan, the 16th largest country in the world with two civilians, hundreds of thousands of deaths and millions of displaced
Sudan is a country in Africa, with an area of 1,861,484 square km. and a population of 43,849,000, according to the United Nations average estimate for 2020. It is the third largest country on the African continent, the second largest Arab country, and the 16th largest country in the world. It borders Egypt (north), Eritrea and Ethiopia (east), South Sudan (south) and the Central African Republic (southwest), Chad (west) and Libya (northwest) and borders the Red Sea. Sudan crosses the Nile River. Its capital is the city of Khartoum.
Sudan has suffered two civil wars, the first between 1955 and 1972 and the second between 1983 and 2005, between the north and the south, which eventually led to the independence of the southern part of the country in 2011. Both in the east and in the West. to the west it has open fronts. In particular, Darfur is well known for its tragic situation.
There are an estimated 1.2 million displaced people in the Darfur region of Sudan and around 2 million people are in urgent need of food. International humanitarian organizations are in the area to alleviate the suffering of refugees and residents.
Sudan’s recent history: the conflict between the north and the south
Sudan was occupied by Egypt and the British colony until its independence. Its independence was granted and guaranteed by both countries at the same time, when Egypt renounced its claims in 1954. However, the differences between the Islamic North and the animated and Christian South, harbingers of various influences, were profound and rapidly visible. the attempt of the Islamic element to become regulator of the situation.
The first violent clashes broke out in the mid-1950s, shortly after Sudan’s independence, and the latter officially gained independence in 1956. The first clashes took place between insurgents in southern cities and British administration forces. . .
The overthrow of the military regime of President Aboud on October 21, 1964 did not lead to a normalization of the situation, as the two political coalition governments under the Caliphate collapsed due to disagreement between the conservative parties and the Muslim Brotherhood on the one hand, and the communists on the other. mainly in terms of operations in southern Sudan.
Finally, in April 1965, elections were held in which the right-wing UMA party won, without an absolute majority. The electoral process was marred by the People’s Democratic Party’s attempt to disrupt the vote, which killed 15 people in late April in clashes with police in a city near the Ethiopian border.
In June a new coalition government was formed under Mohammed Ahmed Mahgoub, which took on the separatist Ania Nia movement in the south. In July, hostilities began between government troops and rebels (First Sudanese Civil War), with the result that, in addition to numerous casualties, the locals suffered famines and epidemics. Precursors of future situations, 20,000 followers of the Muslim sect, from remote areas of the country, marched in Khartoum with the slogan “Communism is the only enemy of Islam”, following a call from Imam Al Mohdi to defend the heritage of October 21, 1964 “.
The conflict between North and South Sudan ended in March 1972 with the Addis Ababa Peace Treaty and is estimated to have killed more than 500,000 people.
In 1983, new conflicts broke out between the north and south of the country (Second Sudanese Civil War). The Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) and its political branch of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) were founded in the area at that time.
Disputes between the Government of Sudan Army and the SPLA will last until 2005, when the two sides sign the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA, also known as the Naivasa Agreement) in Kenya on July 9.
The victims of this second war are estimated at around two million, while it is estimated that around four million people in the area have been forced to flee. This armed conflict was the longest civil war in African history.
Since 2003, in the Darfur region of western Sudan, conflict has raged between local Africans and nomads from the north. Due to the decline of pasture areas in the north as a result of climate change, large numbers of nomads, under the protection of the Sudanese government, have decided to move to Darfur, forcibly displacing the local population. The reaction of the neighbors came with the creation of armed guerrilla groups.
On May 5, 2006, a group from one of the largest rebel forces in the region at the time, the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA), led by Mini Minaoui, signed a peace agreement with the government of Khartoum in the capital of Nigeria, Abuja. which became known as the May Agreement. None of the Darfur rebels reached a peace agreement, and Minaoui himself said in 2011 that the agreement had completely failed and he resumed new struggles against the government.
In May 2008, Sudan severed diplomatic relations with Chad, accusing it of assisting the Darfur-based Equality and Justice Movement (JEM) guerrillas to launch an attack on Khartoum (11 May 2008). The two countries signed a reconciliation agreement in Doha on May 3, 2009, which provides for border control, among other things, to prevent the infiltration of Chadian rebels from Sudan and Sudanese rebels from Chad. The talks were started by Libya and Qatar.
Tribal fighting in Darfur continued until the end of 2008, despite the presence of peacekeepers. In March 2009, 750 people were killed in tribal clashes between the Nuer and Murle tribes in Jongley County after gunmen raided villages to steal cattle.
Under the Naivasa Accords, a referendum was held in January 2011 in which the people of South Sudan decided to become independent from the Republic of Sudan.
On July 9, 2011, South Sudan separated and became an independent country.
Governance
He was president of the country for 30 years, from 1989 to 2019, when Omar Besir was overthrown in a military coup.
Following an agreement and based on the Provisional Constitutional Declaration of 2019, the head of state will be held collectively from August 21, 2019 by the Sudan Sovereignty Council, headed by Abdel Fattah Al Burhan.
Since April 2019, the legislative power has been exercised by a Transitional Military Council. On July 5, 2005, a provisional Constitution, based on a peace agreement, was ratified, which was suspended in 2019.
In December 2005, the Constitution of South Sudan was signed, which separated from Sudan on July 9, 2011 and became independent. Sudan has recognized the new state.
Historic peace agreement of the government with five rebel organizations
The Sudanese government, politically and militarily, signed a peace accord in late August 2020 with the country’s five main rebel groups, an important step toward resolving deep-rooted conflicts under former leader Omar al-Besir.
Political and military leaders sharing power after Besir’s overthrow said, commenting on the signing of the agreement, that ending the long-running internal conflict is the first priority for a 39-month period of political transition.
The agreement, signed in South Sudan’s capital Juba, offers political representation and transfer of power to rebel groups, allowing them to join the security forces, as well as financial and land ownership rights and return of displaced people.
Organizations that signed the agreement include the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) and the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) from Mini Minawi, both in West Darfur, and the Sudan-North People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM- N). under Malik Agar, with a presence in South Kordofan and the Blue Nile.
With information from BBC, Wikipedia, ΑΠΕ / ΜΠΕ, BBC / Youtube Photos, AP Images
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