Survivor reports have shed light on the growing medical care neglect prisoners of the putschist authorities in Port Sudan suffer from.
Port Sudan: AlTaghyeer
A source, a survivor of the imprisonment in Port Sudan, revealed to AlTaghyeer the deterioration of the health condition of three prisoners belonging the local Resistance Committees, after succumbing to “strange fevers” with no proper medical care.
According to a statement made by the Resistance Committees’ coordination, Muhammad Makkawi, Magdi Jaafar, and Abu Dhar Muddathir, the three members, were transferred to the hospital after their health conditions deteriorated, and returned to prison despite not having yet recovered.
The resistance committees held the coup authorities responsible for their health and safety, and emphasized that “the voices of resistance would not be silenced by prisons.”
Bad Situation
The health deterioration that befell the Port Sudan resistance members, however, is not the first of its kind.
According to the survivor’s testimonies, the health condition of a member of the Services and Change Committees, an elderly man (over 70 years), had deteriorated in lockup, and that when he was referred to the doctor, he found that his blood pressure was extremely high.
The survivor confirmed that the doctor warned the prison administration that the elderly prisoner should either be transferred to a specialized doctor after discovering he had incredibly high blood pressure, or that he should be released.
The elderly services committee member was eventually released the next day.
The living conditions faced by the political detainees have also deteriorated as with their health conditions, according to the survivor, who warned against the spread of “unusual fevers” to the rest of the prisoners.
The prisons are divided according to offenses, and each sector contains three rooms, each of them measuring 5 x 4 meters attached to an en-suite bathroom, and each room holding 13 prisoners.
Consistent power outages would also mean that the prisoners might suffer difficulty breathing due to the high humidity in the coastal city of Port Sudan these days, the lack of power to run fans due to the current electricity crisis, and the large number of people occupying the 5 x 4 meter holding.
Water War
Unfortunately, overcrowding is not the only problem facing prisoners.
All 39 inmates are given one barrel of drinking water per day, in addition to another barrel of highly saline sea water for bathroom use.
AlTaghyeer’s source, the survivor, noted that the authorities were deliberately not supplying them with drinking water, with the prison administration only dispensing salt water some days, forcing prisoners to buy water through prison guards and sharing it among themselves.
He pointed out that they had to manage the quantities of water to suffice them all throughout the day.
The survivor revealed that there were patients with diabetes inside the prison who require insulin injections, but have no refrigerators to store them in, forcing them to buy ice instead for cool storage.
Charity Food
“During Ramadan, we relied on food brought by do-gooders, which, had it not reached us, would have made us suffer greatly,” this is what the source had to say regarding detention during Ramadan.
The source said that detainees from the resistance committees reached agreements from their jailers so that their families could send money to them for food.
“Many prisoners’ health deteriorated due to malnutrition. They became more susceptible to diseases,” he said.
Torture Exhibition
At a time when the coup authorities imposed complete isolation on the detainees by depriving them of the means of knowing the news, the survivor said they were forced to watch the torture of other detainees.
“They would open the cell doors for us to watch them torture other detainees and threaten us with the same happening to us the next day.”
“The detainees were brought over from the protests to the part of the Al-Dara sector, where their hands were tied with chains and beaten with sticks and hollowed out pipes.”
The source said that the entirety of the prison staff joined-in on the torture chorus.
He noted that they regularly noticed newly-arrived detainees with plastic bags containing vegetables and bread, indicating that they may have been no more than passers-by who were unfortunately arrested during the processions.
Air Freight
After the Soba prison was overcrowded with hundreds of political detainee, and in anticipation of the April 6 million, the prison administration decided to distribute the prisoners among three state prisons: Dabek, Al-Houta in the White Nile, and the Port Sudan prison.
About 120 prisoners were flown by air in an attempt to make room for new detainees from the April 6 million, according to the source’s estimations.
He indicated that 39 detainees were deported to Port Sudan prison, without them knowing their exact destination, after being deceived into believing they had been released, and then surprised by buses carrying them to a military airport “inside the General Command”, where they were placed on a cargo plane towards their new destination.
“We were locked inside a plane designated for transporting goods about an hour before takeoff on a sweltering day in the month of Ramadan. Those who opted not to fast were not given drinking water, and the plane was devoid of air conditioning,” he said.
“It was a very bad trip, as if we were locked inside a tin can.”
He told AlTaghyeer that not one of the ten guards accompanying them moved to aid the cases that had fainted from the heat, uncaring to those with chest complications and crises.
Release
During the month of Ramadan and the first days of Eid, a number of members of the teachers’ committee were released, some prisoners were kept, and 28 others affiliated with resistance committees were kept.
According to the source, some of them suffer from a deteriorating health and do not receive adequate medical care.
Also, with a lack in allowed visits, there are no confirmed updates about their health conditions.
Politicians, activists and jurists denounced the inhumane treatment of detainees affiliated with resistance committees, calling on the coup authorities to release them.
The coup authorities have not yet issued any official statements about the date of the detainees’ release.
