A Sudanese-American politician who organized recent anti-government protests in Sudan remained missing Friday, two days after disappearing on the streets of the capital, Khartoum, his wife said.

Rudwan Dawod, a political activist with the group Sudan of the Future Campaign, vanished hours before large protests were slated to begin Thursday, Nancy Dawod said.

Nancy Dawod, who lives in Eugene, Ore., said she learned of her husband’s arrest through a Sudanese lawyer who told her that he and Rudwan Dawod had been arrested together, but Sudanese authorities released the lawyer because he had no prior arrests.

Nancy Dawod said the U.S. Embassy in Khartoum was trying to call Sudanese authorities to confirm her husband’s whereabouts and that officials would go to the headquarters of the National Intelligence and Security Services on Saturday morning to request access to all American citizens being detained in Sudan.

Nancy Dawod said the lawyer, who prefers not to be identified for safety reasons, claimed he had been beaten around his head. She said she feared for her husband’s safety.

“I’m pretty worried about him. Because of his love for the people there, he just continues the struggle and is usually out in front,” she said, adding she was “hoping and praying” security forces would not harm her husband. “Because he is such a well-known public figure, I’m hoping he will be treated better.”

Nancy Dawod said she also hoped pressure from the United States would help ensure his safety.

Previous arrests

Rudwan Dawod was arrested shortly before Christmas in Sudan, then released. He was arrested on another occasion last year and detained for close to six weeks, Nancy Dawod said. He was never charged with a crime during either arrest, she added.

Rudwan Dawod returned to Sudan about two years ago.

Nancy Dawod said she, her husband and their 6-year-old daughter, Sudan, are U.S. citizens. Dawod said she spoke to her husband a few hours before his arrest but that he was being “very cautious,” knowing that his arrest was “something that we knew could happen.”

Nancy Dawod said her husband was a candidate for first vice president of Sudan until his Sudan of the Future Campaign withdrew from elections scheduled for 2020. She said they stood with other opposition political parties “to end [Sudanese President Omar al-]Bashir’s brutal regime and enter into a transitional government” until a democratic election is held.

Plea to U.S.

Nancy Dawod called on the U.S. officials “to pivot their policy on Sudan and to support freedom and justice there,” adding there is “no betting with this bloody regime. It needs to end.”

For nearly four weeks, protesters have been demanding the resignation of Bashir, who has said that will not happen.

The U.S. decided to remove economic sanctions on Sudan last October.

Sudan’s economy has been in crisis for several months, with inflation soaring and people struggling to survive.

The protests began over rising prices for bread and fuel and morphed into a demand for Bashir to give up his 30-year autocratic rule over Sudan. Bashir has withstood large-scale protests before.

Nadia Taha contributed to this report.
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The human rights issues of 2018 have spilled over into current events, particularly in two African nations, rights advocates said as they launched the annual Human Rights Watch Africa roundup Thursday in Johannesburg.

This year’s report was meant to be released in Nairobi, Kenya’s capital, but was moved after a terror attack on a luxury hotel this week that left more than 20 people dead.

The report raises concerns about violence and suppression in several African nations, including Burundi, Mozambique and eSwatini, the former Swaziland.

But two countries — the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zimbabwe, both of which had troubled elections in 2018 — stood out, experts said.

“We have received reports of serious human rights abuses, including beatings, abductions, torture and the involvement of ZANU-PF, the ruling ZANU-PF Party, groups beating up people in the high-density suburbs around Harare,” said Dewa Mavhinga, the rights’ group’s Southern Africa researcher.

Mavhinga said he’s disappointed to report that the new administration of President Emmerson Mnangagwa, elected last year, has not brought improvement to Zimbabwe.

“Initially, in terms of pronouncements and talks by the new president, Mnangagwa, there were promises that things would improve, that the new dispensation would be respectful of human rights. But that has not been with the case, beginning with the post-election violence of the 1st of August, 2018,” he said. “And there has been no accountability for past abuses and also, the serious abuses of the last few days involving the state security forces have really undermined any efforts at improving human rights in Zimbabwe.”

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, rights officials say a chaotic, delayed election has raised fears of politically motivated human rights abuses. Carine Kaneza Nantulya, the group’s Africa advocacy director, pointed to a recent U.N. report alleging nearly 900 people were killed in rural eastern Congo.

“So, you have an environment where elections were held but marred with, obviously, violence, voter suppression, etc., that has just heightened the tensions within communities which were, obviously, tense before the election,” Nantulya said.

These two African nations, the rights experts said, share certain worrying characteristics: Free speech has been clamped down on; citizens are angry; and politics are bitter, divisive and increasingly authoritarian. And this, they cautioned, is a worrying global trend.
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Kenyan security agencies are seeking further suspects over Tuesday’s al-Shabab-claimed terror attack in Nairobi that killed at least 21 people. Media reports say seven people were arrested since authorities Wednesday declared the assault on a hotel and office complex over. Security analysts say the Somali militant group is changing tactics, as Mohammed Yusuf reports from Nairobi.
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The African Union continental body issued a surprise last-minute demand late Thursday for Congo’s government to suspend the announcement of final results of the disputed presidential election, citing “serious doubts.” 

Congo’s constitutional court is poised to rule as early as Friday on a challenge filed by the election’s declared runner-up. Martin Fayulu has requested a recount, alleging fraud. Upholding the results could spark violence in a country hoping for its first peaceful, democratic transfer of power since independence in 1960.

‘Truly incredible’

The AU statement said heads of state and government agreed to “urgently dispatch” a high-level delegation to Congo to find “a way out of the post-electoral crisis” in the vast Central African nation rich in the minerals key to smartphones and electric cars around the world.

“This is truly incredible,” tweeted Jason Stearns, director of the Congo Research Group at New York University. “Usually, the African Union defers to the subregion … in this case they departed dramatically.”

Congo faces the extraordinary situation of an election allegedly rigged in favor of the opposition. There was no immediate government comment.

Fayulu accuses the administration of outgoing President Joseph Kabila of falsifying the results to declare opposition leader Felix Tshisekedi the winner after the ruling party candidate did poorly. Fayulu has cited figures compiled by the influential Catholic Church’s 40,000 election observers that found he won 61 percent of the vote.

Leaked data favors Fayulu

Two sets of leaked data show that Fayulu won the election by a landslide, according to an investigation published this week by Radio France International and other media working with the Congo Research Group.

In the first set of data, attributed to Congo’s electoral commission and representing 86 percent of the votes, Fayulu won 59.4 percent while Tshisekedi received 19 percent. The second set of data, from the Catholic Church’s mission, represents 43 percent of the votes. In it, Tshisekedi and ruling party candidate Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary each received less than 20 percent.

Fayulu, a lawmaker and businessman who is outspoken about cleaning up Congo’s sprawling corruption, is widely seen as posing more of a threat to Kabila, his allies and the vast wealth they have amassed. Tshisekedi, the son of charismatic opposition leader Etienne who died in 2017, is relatively untested and has said little since the Dec. 30 election.

The AU statement was issued after Congo’s foreign minister and deputy prime minister briefed “a number of heads of state and government” from across the continent on the crisis. It said some of the heads of state would join the AU Commission chair, Moussa Faki Mahamat, in the urgent mission to Congo.

Pressure from African nations is seen as having more of an impact on Congo’s government, which was annoyed by Western pressure during more than two years of turbulent election delays.

The AU statement reflects serious concern by states about the threat of more unrest in Congo that could spill across borders and destabilize its many neighbors. 

But countries have wavered on how to address the crisis. The AU statement came hours after the 16-nation Southern African Development Community backed off its earlier demand for an election recount, instead urging the international community to respect Congo’s sovereignty. It stressed the need for stability in a country where conflicts over the past two decades have killed millions of people. 

Election troubles reported

The AU statement noted that SADC leaders attended the wider continental talks.

Congo’s election had been meant to take place in late 2016, and many Congolese worried that Kabila, in power since 2001, was seeking a way to stay in office. Barred from serving three consecutive terms, Kabila already has hinted he might run again in 2023.

Election observers reported multiple problems, including the last-minute barring of some 1 million voters in the east, with the electoral commission blaming a deadly Ebola outbreak. That alone undermines the election’s credibility, some observers said.

All of the election results, not just the presidential ones, have been widely questioned after Kabila’s ruling coalition won a majority in legislative and provincial votes while its presidential candidate finished a distant third. 
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