Egyptian inmates' ordeal in Sudan prisons
Arrested two months after the country's civil war began in April 2023, Egyptian traders suspected of spying for the regular army were stripped, tortured and starved, and watched as other inmates died from cholera and malaria.
'You couldn't go two weeks without falling sick,' said Emad Mouawad, 44, who was held at the notorious Soba prison in southern Khartoum after paramilitary forces raided his home in the city.
At night, swarms of insects crawled over the prisoners. 'There was nothing that made you feel human,' he said.
Ahmed Aziz, who was detained with Mouawad, said: 'They would bring us hot water mixed with wheat flour. Just sticky, tasteless paste.' Water was either polluted from a well or muddy from the Nile. 'If you were sick, you just waited for death,' Aziz said.
Another trader, Mohamed Shaaban, 43, said: 'They stripped us naked as the day we were born. Then they beat us, insulted and degraded us.'
Back home in Egypt, the former prisoners are struggling to recover physically and mentally. 'We have to try to turn the page and move on,' Shaaban said. 'We have to try and forget.'
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