The Journalists Syndicate and the Journalists Network in Sudan revealed that a number of their members were assaulted and detained by the Rapid Support Forces, and expressed their refusal to target and intimidate journalists.
A statement by the Journalists Syndicate stated that an armed force belonging to the Rapid Support Forces stormed the apartment of colleague Ahmed Fadl, a journalist at the Al-Jazeera channel office in Khartoum and a member of the Sudanese Journalists Syndicate, in Shambat neighborhood in Khartoum North, and beat him and his family and one of the photographers cooperating with Al-Jazeera at gunpoint.
The statement added that the force looted their mobile phones and all their money and clothes, as well as the private car of journalist Ahmed Fadl.
The statement indicated that the colleague, Fadl, had been detained, earlier in the last incident, by an inspection force affiliated with the Rapid Support Forces, and spent a full night in one of the Rapid Support Centers in the Kafouri neighborhood of Khartoum North, before he was released.
The Sudanese Journalists Network also condemned what it described as the grave violations that press institutions and journalists are exposed to, including assault, terrorism and intimidation at gunpoint.
In a statement, the network revealed that members of the Rapid Support Forces stormed the studios of the Sudanese radio “Hala 96”, under the pretext that the activist Ahmed Kassala uses the radio as a media platform to attack the Rapid Support Forces.
The network’s statement stated that some members of the force appeared, via a video clip, from inside the radio studios, tampering with its equipment, indicating that these actions are threatening messages to anyone who tries to criticize them, according to the statement.
The network said that journalist Muhammad al-Madina was looted at gunpoint by a group affiliated with the Rapid Support Forces while he was returning to his home in the Kalaka neighborhood, south of Khartoum, from a medical center in the neighborhood, with his wife, two sons and two brothers, according to the statement.
The statement stated that the force looted their phones and a sum of money and tried to confiscate the car he was traveling in, and when it failed to do so, it fired heavy fire everywhere inside, until his two children fainted, as stated in the statement.
Journalist Issa Dafa Allah was also attacked and beaten, and his phone and sums of money were looted in his possession by a group affiliated with the Rapid Support Forces, in the Malaga market in Nyala, western Sudan, while he was working documenting shops that were looted and burned, according to the statement.
A shell fell on the house of the Sudanese Radio correspondent in South Darfur, journalist Khaled Sharaf El-Din, wounding him in the leg and hand.
Since last April 15, several states in Sudan have witnessed large-scale clashes between the army led by Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the Rapid Support Forces led by Muhammad Hamdan Dagalo (Hamidati), following disputes between them, which resulted in many deaths and injuries, and caused an acute humanitarian crisis.