'Anti - Bashir' Missing Sudanese Journalist Found

somayahundosa — Vocal Sudanese Journalist Somaya Ibrahim Ismail Hundosa

Somaya Ibrahim Ismail Hundosa, a critical Sudanese freelance journalist was found on the side of a road in Khartoum on Friday after being reported missing on October 29.

She had been tortured and her head shaved while she was held captive, the reports said.

Her family said that she had been subjected to “physical torture and beating with whips” and that she had been told her head was shaved because “it looked like the hair of Arabs while she belonged to the slaves in Darfur,”

The journalist is now recovering at home with her family.

Hundosa was abducted near her home in Khartoum and taken to an unknown location according to her family members.

Hundosa later told her family she believed her captors were indeed National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS) agents. The NISS has not publicly confirmed or denied any involvement in the attack.

Her captors showed her articles she had written and accused her of opposing and disrespecting President Omar al-Bashir’s regime, according to Hundosa’s family.

The scribe had covered human rights violations in the western Darfur region and the Nuba Mountains in the South Kordafan region, subjects that are said to be off-limits for journalists in Sudan.

The journalist, who is of Darfurian origin, a group that has suffered much persecution under the regime, lives in Egypt, but was visiting her family in Sudan for the Muslim holiday of Eid Al-Adha, news reports said.

Her family is now planning to file a criminal complaint against unspecified members of the NISS for the attack against the journalist

This incident follows a series of journalist detentions, newspaper confiscations, raids by security forces, and the blocking of critical websites to silence coverage of protests that began in mid-June in Khartoum in which citizens demonstrated against austerity measures.