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ICRC offers neutral role
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Sudan said it stands ready to act as a neutral intermediary to facilitate the safe and dignified release and transfer of detainees held by the parties to Sudan’s conflict, if requested to do so.
““Our role is purely humanitarian and neutral,””
ICRC spokesperson Farid El Humaid told Radio Dabanga that the organisation remained in close contact with the United Nations and that “Our role is purely humanitarian and neutral,” as it does not participate in establishing selection criteria or publish lists of detainees.
El Humaid said the ICRC’s sole objective is to facilitate the safe, dignified and voluntary transfer of individuals whose simultaneous release has been agreed by the parties concerned.
The Sudanese government welcomed what it said was a proposal by UN secretary general’s personal envoy for Sudan, Pekka Haavisto, to facilitate a prisoner exchange between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), with Ambassador Mohi El-Din Salem saying the government remained committed to protecting lives and conducting any prisoner exchange in accordance with legal procedures, international humanitarian law and the relevant Geneva Conventions.
The Sudan Founding Alliance (Tasees) described the UN envoy’s initiative as an important humanitarian step but said it should form part of a broader political process aimed at ending the war, with spokesperson Ahmed Taqad Lisan calling it “very strange” that the “Port Sudan authority” had previously rejected initiatives including proposals for humanitarian truces.
UN pressure and detention figures
Sudan Tribune reported that Sudan urged the United Nations to intervene to secure the release of more than 20,000 prisoners held by the Rapid Support Forces in prisons in the states of South and North Darfur.
In a letter sent by Sudan’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Al-Harith Idris, to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and Security Council President Leonor Zalabata Torres, Idris said the RSF was detaining 19,800 detainees and prisoners in Daqris Prison in Nyala, including 5,434 civilians and 690 women.
Idris said the letter should be treated as a Security Council document and circulated to member states, and he called on the UN and its human rights mechanisms, the Security Council, the ICRC and other international bodies to demand the immediate release of all civilians arbitrarily detained by the RSF.
The Sudan Tribune account described Daqris Prison, located about 25 kilometers west of Nyala, as a scene of horror where RSF elements commit harshest forms of torture and widespread abuses, with the prison hospital lacking adequate medical staff and basic medical supplies.
Idris also said the government received reports of systematic torture and harsh, cruel, and inhuman treatment, including “electric shocks, and extinguishing cigarette butts on their bodies,” and he added that the RSF had ignored prior human rights reports about deaths of detainees due to hunger and mistreatment and lack of medical care.
Prison conditions and alleged abuses
Sudan Tribune said Idris’ letter discussed the RSF’s detention of large numbers of civilians and military personnel in Shala Prison, located west of El Fasher in North Darfur, after it seized the city on October 26, 2025.
“the RSF is holding in Shala 881 military captives and 407 civilians”
The report stated that the RSF was holding in Shala 881 military captives and 407 civilians, including 113 children, and that some detainees suffered from chronic illnesses without adequate medical treatment.
It added that reports indicate many detainees were civilians injured by indiscriminate shelling that the RSF carried out on El Fasher, with many not receiving any medical treatment.
Idris said the humanitarian situation inside Shala Prison had reached catastrophic levels, with daily deaths due to severe shortages of food, medicines, and healthcare, and he spoke of around 300 detainees who died in the past two months from infected wounds, untreated injuries, and severe infections resulting from lack of medical care.
In the same broader context of detention and rights, OHCHR published a report describing “the arbitrary, prolonged, and secret detention of thousands of Palestinians,” and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said “Prolonged and secret detention can also constitute a form of torture.”
