Scores of people demonstrated in Khartoum, Sudan, on Thursday to demand the closure of illegal detention centers.

The protests followed the alleged torturing and killing of a man by a paramilitary force, which, according to Africa News, once ‘formed the backbone of a militia’. Rights groups say the group committed war crimes in Darfur.

Bahaa el-Din Nouri, was snatched last month from a coffee shop. His death has revived the controversies around the mandate of Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces. According to Africa News, activists have long held the RSF responsible for human rights violations.

Protestors forming a human chain from the office of Sudan’s general prosecutor to the cabinet’s building, held Nouri’s photo captioned: “Why was Bahaa killed?”

The Sudanese Professionals’ Association, which spearheaded the uprising that resulted in the overthrow of Omar al-Bashir in 2019, were the organizers of the rally. Ammar al-Baqer, of the SPA, said that the protest demand was “to close all illegal detention centers” and “grant the Sudanese police the exclusive authority to arrest and detain people”.

Meanwhile, the RSF said that the head of the it’s intelligence unit as well as officers involved in Nouri’s detention and interrogation had been suspended or detained, pending an investigation into Nouri’s death. Public Prosecutor Taj al-Ser Ali al-Hebr said that an autopsy had confirmed that Nouri had died of injuries consistent with torture.

Umm Muhammed Umar