At a time when Sudan is being torn apart by war, famine, and mass killing and displacement at the hands of both Sudanese militias – the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) – the case of Lawyer Abo Bakr Mansour Mohamed Hamza shows exactly who pays the price for their struggle for power: ordinary people who try to keep their communities alive.
When SAF withdrew from Sinja in June 2024, they chose to leave the city wide open for RSF’s terror. What followed echoed the horrors we are now seeing in El Fasher and across Darfur—war crimes, attacks on civilians, looting, and the destruction of entire neighbourhoods. Abo Bakr’s home was stormed, his brother beaten so badly he lost his sight in one eye. Yet he stayed, not out of loyalty to either militia, but out of loyalty to his family and community.
As the health system collapsed and basic supplies disappeared, just like everything else in Sudan, Abo Bakr did what neither SAF nor RSF would do. Using medicine from his family’s small pharmaceutical agency, he helped turn his home into a makeshift clinic. Alongside a volunteer doctor, nurse, and lab technician, he provided free treatment to the sick and displaced. While SAF and RSF poured their resources into war—and foreign powers continued to fuel the conflict with arms—Abo Bakr poured his energy into saving lives.
But when SAF returned to Sinja months later, they “rewarded” him with arrest, torture, and a sham trial. They charged him with a list of fabricated offences under Sudan’s Criminal Act (Articles 50, 51(1–2), 26, 21, 65 and 186) and the Drugs and Poisons Act (Articles 15 and 39) — accusations invented to hide their own failures. This is the same SAF whose withdrawal allowed RSF to commit atrocities in Sinja in the first place. After weeks of disappearance and brutal mistreatment, he was sentenced to 20 years, then to death, without a fair hearing or credible evidence.
His health is now in serious danger. The torture he endured has left him with lasting injuries, chronic pain, and hearing loss, yet he has been denied even the most basic medical care. This is not a favour or a privilege—it is a fundamental human right. And that right is being deliberately withheld from him, putting his life at immediate risk.
Abo Bakr is not alone. His case is one among tens of thousands. Across Sudan, ordinary people with no connection to this war have been arrested, kidnapped, forcibly disappeared, or murdered by both militias. Civilians are being crushed between two armed forces that see any form of community self-organisation as a threat.
Both the SAF and RSF fear people like Abo Bakr—not because he held a weapon, but because he represented the spirit that toppled al-Bashir: the spirit of collective care, neighbourhood organisation, and popular resistance. The 2018 revolution showed that when ordinary people come together, they can challenge every general and every militia leader. That is exactly the spirit both militias fear more than they fear each other, and the spirit they want to crush.
Abo Bakr’s only “crime” was solidarity. And solidarity is precisely what can save him now.
What you can do:
- Write to David Lammy and Keir Starmer urging them to call directly on the Sudanese Armed Forces to release Abo Bakr Mansour Mohamed Hamza.
- Contact MPs and government officials demanding they condemn his imprisonment and call for his immediate release.
- Send letters of protest to the Sudanese embassy in your country demanding the release of Abo Bakr Hamza and all political prisoners.
- Share Abo Bakr’s story widely—in your workplace, union branch, and on social media—to build pressure and awareness.
Take action:
- Access our Stop the War in Sudan toolkit and sign the postcard addressed to Prime Minister Keir Starmer, urging the British government to support the Sudanese people.
- Share this motion with your union branch and advocate for its adoption: Model Motion – Stand with Sudan: Stop the War, Support the People
- Read our analysis, “The Illusion of Choice: Why People Should Reject Both Sides of the War in Sudan”, for essential background on the warring factions and the revolutionary alternative.
- Download / order our newly released “Sudan’s Revolutionary and Popular Movements: a research report”.
- Book your ticket for the new film “Sudan, remember us” at a screening near you.
Download resources:
- Sudan Update July 2025 – download the leaflet >>here
- ‘Sudan’s Militia War on the People’ Sudan Update April 2025 – download the leaflet >>here
- ‘Reject both sides in Sudan’s war’ Sudan Update February 2025 – download the leaflet >>here
- ‘Famine is the new war’ Sudan Update September 2024 – download the leaflet >>here
- ‘Stopping Sudan’s hidden war’ Sudan Update March 2024 – download the leaflet >>here
- ‘Why is there a war in Sudan?’ Sudan Update May 2023 – download the leaflet >>here
- ‘Stop the war in Sudan’ Sudan Update April 2023 – download the leaflet >>here
- Stop the war in Sudan / Refugees welcome A4 poster – download >>here
MENA Solidarity Network 