Sudan: Arbitrary Detention by Army, Security Forces

Click to expand Image Soldiers of the Sudanese Armed Forces walk on the Shambat Bridge in Khartoum, April 27, 2025. © 2025 Photo by Giles Clarke/Avaaz via Getty Images Forces affiliated with the Sudanese Armed Forces have arbitrarily detained, tortured, and otherwise ill-treated civilians in areas under their control, and denied them due process rights.The military has led a campaign of fear and retaliation against people they label collaborators, because of their ethnic identity, humanitarian work, or political affiliation or for having lived under the Rapid Support Forces’ control.The authorities should take steps to end arbitrary detention, torture, and ill-treatment, and provide redress to detainees and their families. International and regional actors should make clear to the military leadership that they will be held to account.(Nairobi) – Security and military forces affiliated with the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) have arbitrarily detained, tortured, and otherwise ill-treated civilians in areas under their control, and denied them due process rights, Human Rights Watch said today.Security and army forces have detained civilians for allegedly collaborating with the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), in conflict with the military, particularly in areas over which the military has regained control, and often based merely on their ethnic identity, real or perceived political affiliation, or humanitarian work. Unlawful deprivation of liberty, ill-treatment, and torture of civilians may constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity.“The Sudanese Armed Forces and its allies have led a campaign of fear and retaliation against people they label collaborators, because of their identity, humanitarian work, or political activity or simply for having lived under the Rapid Support Forces’ control,” said Mohamed Osman, Sudan researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Accounts by former detainees, their relatives, and lawyers paint a grim picture of arbitrary abuses emboldened by a climate of impunity.”The Sudanese military and affiliated forces have held detainees incommunicado, leaving families with limited information about, or access to, their loved ones, and in some cases forcibly disappeared people, Human Rights Watch found. Prosecutorial and judicial oversight is inadequate, and detainees have no or limited access to legal counsel. Human Rights Watch was told about at least two deaths from torture and ill-treatment in custody. The authorities are presumed responsible for deaths in custody, creating an obligation to conduct prompt, impartial, and effective investigations.Human Rights Watch interviewed 28 people, including 7 former detainees, 9 relatives of detainees, 11 lawyers and activists, and a member of the security forces, between June 2025 and February 2026. They described abuses against men and women detained by the SAF and its affiliates in areas controlled by the army or that the army retook from the RSF since 2024, including Khartoum, Gezira, Gedaref, Red Sea, and Northern states. Click to expand Image Graphic © 2026 Human Rights Watch Human Rights Watch wrote to the office of the chairperson of the Transitional Sovereignty Council, and the Office of the Attorney General on March 18, 2026, about its findings. Both offices responded on April 2. In her response, the attorney general rejected the allegations of arbitrary arrests and custodial deaths with the exception of one case in which she acknowledged that criminal proceedings are ongoing but did not provide details on those accused.While reports suggest that some of the abuse has been reduced, abusive detention persists with weak prosecutorial or judicial oversight.Those interviewed said that multiple forces organized into so-called security cells have been involved in unlawful detentions. The security cells include the General Intelligence Service, Military Intelligence, and on occasion a military-affiliated militia, the al-Baraa Ibn Malik battalion.A police officer who had been integrated into a security cell in Omdurman, part of Greater Khartoum, the capital, said that in April 2025, he saw his fellow cell members ill-treat a woman, accusing her of collaborating with the RSF: “We rode in three vehicles [to her house]. Two men from al-Baraa Ibn Malik battalion barged into her house, armed, and soon brought her out half naked, beating her, slapping [her] on the face, before throwing her in the back of one of our pick-up trucks.”Rights groups have also documented the detention of hundreds of women on charges of collaborating with the RSF based on their ethnicity or residence, with at least 25 sentenced to death. In January 2026, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the military leader, visited Omdurman’s women’s prison and ordered the release of 400 women, including some accused of collaboration, and instructed officials to review the status of detainees’ case in prisons. However, lawyers and monitors said that many women remain in detention in Omdurman and other prisons without due process.A 35-year-old woman and her two brothers fled to Port Sudan from Gezira state, which in late February 2024 was controlled by the RSF. Security cell officers in Port Sudan detained them, accusing them of being collaborators. “I was beaten everywhere, despite pleading that I have diabetes,” the woman said. “They kept beating and slapping me with their hands and sticks and whips and insulting me. I felt so degraded, as if I was not a human anymore. They beat me until I involuntarily defecated on myself.” The woman was released after a week, without charge, and fled the country.Former detainees and lawyers said that security cells, as well as Military Intelligence acting alone, have unlawfully held people in military facilities, including military bases, as well as in homes converted into detention sites. The attorney general in her response denied both allegations, saying detainees are only held in police custody or prisons and subject to regular visits by public prosecutors to assess detention conditions in accordance with the law. Among those recently arbitrarily detained is a 25-year-old man who was arrested by armed men, some in military uniform, at his home in early February 2026 and then forcibly disappeared: “They came into the house and started beating him badly, accusing him of being a collaborator,” said his 40-year-old brother. “We asked where they are taking him, but they refused to say. One said: ‘You better move on; your brother is not coming back.’” He said he believed his brother was detained because he took part in protests during the military coup in 2021. The last time the family saw the 25-year-old was in custody of the local security cell as they took him away, and as of March 9, despite multiple efforts to establish his situation and whereabouts, he remained forcibly disappeared.The evidence indicates that the military has targeted individuals based on their identity, focusing on people from Darfur, western Sudan, whom they profile as collaborators since the RSF originates from Darfur. One detained man told Human Rights Watch that he and other Darfuris sheltering in Khartoum were beaten and detained by security cell members, who said: “You Darfuris are troublemakers; you brought the war to us here.”The military and affiliates have also appear to have targeted civil society members, including local aid responders, accusing them of collaboration. A responder working in east Khartoum said after the military regained control of the area in March 2025, security cell forces interrogated members of his volunteer group and forcefully evicted displaced civilians from their shelter. He said that in April, they detained him for 17 days, interrogating him about the soup kitchens the group ran and their funding sources. The attorney general denies such targeting.The Office of the Attorney General, working with the judiciary, should immediately release all unlawfully detained people and grant independent monitors and investigators access to formal and informal detention sites. With April 15 marking three years since the conflict’s outbreak, it is past time that authorities granted full and unfettered access to the country for the United Nations Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for the Sudan and the Joint Fact-Finding Mission on the Human Rights Situation in Sudan mandated by the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights. The attorney general has reasserted the position that there is no need for the Fact-Finding Mission as the office and local authorities are carrying out investigations and there is no need for any international investigative mechanisms.International and regional actors and entities should publicly call on the military leadership and affiliated authorities to end their discriminatory targeting of communities and categories of people, including local volunteers, ensure that any legal proceedings are based on credible evidence, and strictly follow due process.In late February, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Norway, Germany, and the Netherlands formed a Sudan atrocity prevention coalition. This body should take concrete steps to address the abusive detention practices, including ongoing arrests on the basis of ethnicity, humanitarian work, or political activism. They should support ongoing investigations and press for independent access to detention facilities, and support efforts to expand the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court to cover the whole of Sudan.“The authorities should end arbitrary detentions and provide redress to detainees and their families,” Osman said. “International and regional actors should make clear to the Sudanese Armed Forces leadership that they will be held to account for these abuses.”For more information on the Sudanese Armed Forces abuses against detainees, please see below.History of Abusive Detention, ImpunitySudan’s security forces have a long history of abusing detainees, especially those detained for their actual or perceived political affiliation, because of their association with pro-democracy and protest movements, or because they are from Darfur and perceived to be affiliated with Darfuri armed groups.In 2008, Human Rights Watch documented fair trial violations connected to ethnic targeting of Darfuris in Khartoum following a rebel group attack. In 2018, at the start of the protests that ended Omar al-Bashir’s presidency, security forces rounded up over 30 Darfuri students in Sennar state, accusing them of affiliation with armed opposition groups and reportedly tortured them.Reports of abusive detention by both the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have circulated throughout the three-year-long conflict. Human Rights Watch previously found that both warring parties have summarily executed detainees in areas under their control.Between January and June 2025, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights “confirmedv at least 10 deaths in custody of individuals detained by both RSF and SAF during the reporting period, including a well-known Sudanese football player, volunteer medics, and local humanitarian volunteers.”The UN Independent Fact-Finding Mission on Sudan reported in September 2025 that military arrests “were mainly based on suspicion of collaboration with the Rapid Support Forces.”‘Security Cells’Since the conflict began, and especially as the army began to regain control of territory in 2024, state governors in military-controlled areas have established “security cells,” consisting of members of the police, the General Intelligence Services, Military Intelligence, and in some cases, al-Baraa Ibn Malik Brigade. In May 2024, the Khartoum governor declared a state of emergency in the capital and announced the formation of a security cell to gather information, conduct raids, and detain people suspected of posing a security threat. The announcement did not clarify the legal basis on which the cells would operate, or any legal constraints such as compliance with human rights law including due process. The attorney general replied to Human Rights Watch that security cells are formed by state governors based on emergency laws.In most cases documented, those arrested by security cells and other forces were unlawfully held in housing used as ad hoc detention facilities, although some were held in official military sites. The attorney general, citing the law and claiming bias against the military, has denied housing is used as detention facilities or that civilians are held on military sites. Interviewees said that authorities transferred detainees between premises controlled by different security forces, making it harder for families and lawyers to track their whereabouts.AbuseThe abuses documented occurred in areas that have been under army control throughout the conflict – including parts of Omdurman, River Nile state, Northern state, Gedaref state, and Red Sea state – and areas previously under RSF control, including Gezira state and the south of Khartoum, after the military and allies retook them in January 2025, and Khartoum itself, where the military regained control in March 2025.Custodial Death, Torture, and Ill-treatmentHuman Rights Watch documented five cases of torture, inhumane, cruel, and degrading treatment by security forces affiliated with the military and two reported deaths in custody.A 39-year-old man said that soldiers stopped him at a checkpoint in the western part of Omdurman, one of Khartoum’s three sister cities, in December 2025. They accused him of moving supplies to RSF controlled areas, detained him, and beat him as they took him to an unofficial detention site.“They took me to a room and three SAF forces interrogated me, saying that as I work as a trader, I must be smuggling food to Kordofan [region, currently one of the conflict’s main front lines]. One of them kept punching me in the chest really hard. Another accused me of being a spy and a traitor and said I will never see the sun again. I was kept there for around 12 hours with no food then was released after they took my money – I had US$200 on me.”A local responder in Gedaref state, which has been under army control throughout the conflict, was detained for 55 days. He said armed men in civilian clothes arrested him on April 9, 2024, and took him to the town’s security cell premises. There, officers from both General Intelligence Services and Military Intelligence interrogated him about his activism and tortured him:In the corner of the office, there was a pit of sand; they dragged me there, tied my hands behind my back and covered my eyes with my shirt, and started beating me. Two were pulling my legs down and one was pushing my head down with his shoe and the other was beating me on my back. Every few minutes when I started to pass out, they would throw cold water on me. I was beaten so badly I started vomiting and bleeding. This continued for more than 30 to 40 minutes.He received no medical care during his detention.A humanitarian volunteer said that military forces stopped him at a checkpoint in October 2024 in a part of Omdurman then under army control. They drove him to a house where people who said they were from Military Intelligence interrogated him:Two men came to me, one with an iron rod and one with a hammer. The one with the iron rod asked me to raise my feet up and started beating me on my bare feet. The other man started to beat me with the hammer all over my body. He also hit me on the head with a wooden plank. They kept beating me until I lost consciousness.He said he was detained for five days and as of October 7, 2025, when he was interviewed, he continued to need medical treatment because of the torture.Salah al-Tayeb, a lawyer and opposition party member, reportedly died in Military Intelligence custody in May 2024. Intelligence services in al-Azazi village in Gezira state in central Sudan detained him on April 17, 2024, and held him at a school in the village. A former detainee who had been held in the same cell said he saw intelligence officers beat al-Tayeb and question him about his political activism: “I saw [him] being beaten for a long time, then he was taken to a separate room. [Officers] beat him from 10 p.m. to midnight. I heard him screaming. His screams stopped after midnight.” Al-Tayeb’s family was later told he died in custody on May 5, 2024, based on media and rights groups reports.The attorney general rejected allegations of custodial deaths resulting from ill-treatment and torture however said that in the case of the death of al-Tayeb, immunity of the perpetrators had been lifted and that a trial is ongoing.Security cell members detained a resident of East Nile district in Khartoum in April 2025, shortly after the military regained control of the area. He said he saw a detainee being severely beaten in a military intelligence facility in eastern Khartoum:Military Intelligence brought in someone who was already badly beaten … he was unconscious. He was bleeding from his back and his head. That day, a major or high-ranking officer visited. The soldiers and officers locked the detained man in the bathroom and ordered him not make any noise until the visit was completed. When they opened the bathroom a few hours later, he was in bad condition. He died in the morning.At least three former detainees said they were also denied access to adequate food, toilet facilities, or medical care. A 28-year-old man who fled the fighting in Khartoum to Gedaref state said he was detained for 15 days by military personnel. During this time, he said, “…[We] were given only one meal a day, consisting of lentils. We were denied access to the bathroom for 48 hours, so I avoided eating to prevent the need to use the bathroom.”Targeting Based on Assumptions about EthnicitySecurity forces have targeted people based on their ethnicity or for their real or perceived political activism, accusing them of collaborating with the RSF. They include rights defenders and local aid responders as well as political activists. The Attorney-General denied any targeting on such grounds, without specifically addressing allegations and findings shared by Human Rights Watch.A 44-year-old man originally from Darfur was in a house with other Darfuris in Omdurman, having escaped an area of Khartoum controlled by the RSF. He said armed men, who later identified themselves as security cell members, broke into the house in May 2025:One fighter said, ‘You Darfuris are troublemakers; you brought the war to us here.’ I said, ‘It is the [RSF] who killed my people in the past…. We have nothing to do with them.’ They started slapping us and hitting us with the butts of their guns. We were thrown like animals into the back of the trucks.Individuals taken from the house were held for over a week in a private house that the security cell had turned into a detention site, where they were beaten and denied medical care, then released.A woman from Darfur was on a bus from Northern Sudan to Khartoum in April 2024 when a group of military intelligence officers and local forces pulled her and her husband off the bus. She said that once the officers discovered she and her husband were Massalit [a non-Arab community from West Darfur], they “called a car, covered our eyes and took us to the 19th military division.” She was released the same day and left for Egypt shortly afterward. Her husband remained in detention. When she returned in April 2025, soldiers at the military base told her that her husband had died in detention.In April 2025, the African Center for Justice and Peace Studies reported an uptick in unlawful detention and torture by the military which they attributed mainly to Military Intelligence targeting women human rights defenders, aid workers, and displaced people from Darfur, in Sinjah town, following the army’s retaking of Sennar state in November 2024.The attorney general told Human Rights Watch that there is no targeting based on ethnicity, or affiliation with specific states.Targeting Based on Humanitarian Work, Political ActivismThree former detainees said that forces detained them because they were local responders or associated with pro-democracy groups. Since the outbreak of the conflict, humanitarian volunteers, many organized in Emergency Response Rooms, have faced attacks and reprisals from both warring parties.The local volunteer from Gedaref said: “The officers [his interrogators] said to me, ‘You are from the [Emergency Response Rooms], we know you send the reports and spy for the RSF, you are political supporters of the RSF.”The man detained in Omdurman in 2024, said he was targeted based on his activism. “A military intelligence officer took my phone and forced me to unlock it, he saw pictures from the June 3, 2019, sit-in [ in Khartoum] and pictures of protests the following years. He shouted at me: ‘You belong to the [political opposition]. Sit down.’ And he started to beat me with a machete.”The attorney general told Human Rights Watch that there is no targeting of humanitarian volunteers.Incommunicado Detention and Enforced DisappearancesFour former detainees and a detainee’s relative said the military has held detainees incommunicado, meaning that they are not allowed any contact with the outside, with lawyers, family, or friends. Two people whose relatives had been detained by security or intelligence forces said that the authorities refused to acknowledge the detention or provide any information on the detainees’ whereabouts or situation, constituting an enforced disappearance.One man said that in January 2025, he was unable to locate his 27-year-old brother who had fled to Atbara, River Nile state, from Khartoum. After days of searching, the family heard from officers that he had been arrested at a checkpoint controlled by Military Intelligence, and accused of being an RSF spy:The Military Intelligence told us my brother was with them and would soon be transferred to the police. Days after, the Military Intelligence denied having him. We have not heard anything further. We are fearing the worst.As of January 2026, the brother is still apparently detained, but the authorities have neither confirmed it nor provided information on his whereabouts or fate to his family or lawyer.Another man said in July 2025 that his family had informed him that army and security forces detained his father on January 14, 2025, in Wad Madani, the capital of Gezira state, central Sudan.For two months, the family had no information about the father’s whereabouts. Eventually, they received information from contacts in the security forces that the father had been detained by a security cell, had been seen in the General Intelligence Services office in a nearby town, and was then moved to a hospital as his health deteriorated. The family heard that he had developed a kidney infection due to detention conditions. The family said they heard that he was transferred to another detention facility in Madani on May 26. However, when interviewed in July 2025, they still had no confirmed information on his detention, his whereabouts or fate.Death Penalty Cases Involving Due Process ViolationsLawyers and human rights defenders said that the authorities have sentenced civilians to death following detention and trials that violated multiple due process and fair trial guarantees, including little or no access to legal counsel. The military and affiliated authorities have charged people with collaboration using two offenses from the 1991 Sudanese Penal Code, both punishable by death: article 50, undermining the constitutional system, and article 51, waging war against the state.Khadm Allah Musa, a 23-year-old woman, was sentenced to death by a court in Khartoum on August 18, 2025, for collaborating with the Rapid Support Forces. A lawyer who worked on her defense team said the authorities “interrogated her throughout without being allowed legal counsel.”The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights reported in June 2025 that Sudanese courts handed down at least 108 death sentences between January and late June 2025, predominantly for alleged collaboration with the Rapid Support Forces. It also raised concerns that people from Darfur and Kordofan were disproportionately prosecuted and sentenced, particularly on allegations of affiliation with the Rapid Support Forces.

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