نـداء لحصـر أسـماء الأسـرى طـرف الحـركـة الشـعـبـيـة ..

Quote: Last batch of Sudanese soldiers previously held by former southern rebels return to Khartoum -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [ Latest News From Sudan At Sudan.Net ] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- News Article by AP posted on October 19, 2005 at 22:53:35: EST (-5 GMT) Last batch of Sudanese soldiers previously held by former southern rebels return to Khartoum KHARTOUM, Sudan (AP) -- The final group of Sudanese soldiers who had been imprisoned by a former rebel group in southern Sudan and neighboring Eritrea were reunited with their families in this country's capital, Khartoum, on Tuesday. Brig. Gen. Elias Waya, of the one-time rebel Sudanese People's Liberation Army, said the 176 soldiers were the last remaining Sudanese army troops in custody. The SPLA had held the men, including government army officers and soldiers, for up to seven years in prisons in neighboring Eritrea, which has allowed Sudanese opposition groups and refugees live there. Eritrean authorities handed the POWS to the International Committee of the Red Cross, which transferred them to the Sudanese military. "ICRC delegates held private interviews with all the released detainees prior to their transfer to establish that each was returning home of his own free will," the ICRC said in a statement. "The ICRC also offered them access to medical services." In two previous releases conducted since March, the SPLA handed over about 370 Sudanese soldiers. The releases were arranged under a January peace settlement between the rebels and the government. The deal also led to the formation of a unity government comprising members of the since disbanded rebel movement. One of the freed officers, Capt. Ibrahim Mohammed el-Senousi, said he was captured in May 1999 in the eastern Sudanese town of Toqan before being taken into neighboring Eritrea and imprisoned. "I was among about 60 prisoners of war captured at once and we were taken to Eritrean prisons," el-Senousi told The Associated Press after arriving in Khartoum. "Some of us died through disease and malnutrition, but there were no executions." But prison authorities punished any POWs who tried to escape by whipping them 30 to 40 times, he added. The SPLA had several training bases in Eritrea, which the Sudanese government accused several times of providing weapons and finance to southern rebels during the late 1990s. The January peace deal ended the 21-year civil war, which claimed over 2 million lives, mostly through war-induced famine and disease. It began in 1983 and pitted Islamic-dominated Khartoum against rebels seeking autonomy and a greater share of the country's wealth for the Christian and animist south. Tuesday's hand-over ceremony was held in Khartoum's armed forces club and attended by about 500 relatives of the POWs, some of whom wore military uniforms. A mother of one of the freed soldiers, Omar Abdel Karim, said she had thought her son was dead. "We lost hope to see him alive again until we received a message from the Red Cross telling us about his whereabouts and that he will be back," said the mother, who only identified herself as Kaltom. The ICRC first registered the detainees in 2002 and visited them to monitor the conditions they were being held in and to allow them to communicate with their families through the Red Cross message service. Both Sudan's government and the SPLM had requested the ICRC's services as a neutral intermediary.