Khartoum — The Committee for Prisoners and Missing Persons working to gather more information on those who went missing during battles between armed rebel movements and Sudanese military forces before the 2020 Juba Peace Agreement officially commenced its work in its office in Khartoum yesterday and is now open to receiving complaints and information from stakeholders.

In a press conference on Sunday at the premises of the Sudan News Agency (SUNA), Head of the committee Suleiman Hajjana said that the committee deals with those who went missing or were captured during battles between the Sudanese government and armed rebel movements between 2002 and 2020, before the signing of the Juba Peace Agreement.

The committee was formed by decree of the Senior Public Prosecutor. Amongst its members are representatives from the various military and security authorities of Sudan: the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF), the Rapid Support Forces* (RSF), the General Intelligence Service (GIS), and the Sudanese police forces.

On the side of the rebel movements, the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), the Sudan Liberation Movement faction headed by Minni Minawi (SLM-MM), the Sudan Liberation Movement-Transitional Council (SLM-TC), the Sudanese Alliance, and the Sudan Liberation Forces Gathering.

The tasks of the committee are to count and classify the prisoners and missing persons, investigate facts about their whereabouts, and to determine what their fate has been.

* Officially, the RSF militia, set up by the ousted Al Bashir regime in 2013, was integrated into the Sudan Armed Forces in August 2019. At the same time, however, the militia stays a force unto itself. The RSF, which grew out of the Janjaweed who fought for the Sudanese government in Darfur, is widely believed to be responsible for atrocities in the country in the past seven years. Many Sudanese hold the paramilitaries also accountable for the violent break-up of the Khartoum sit-in on June 3, 2019.