The solution in Khartoum .. details of the plight of six Sudanese in Libya

Ahmed Fadl-Khartoum

In 13 months of hostage-taking in southern Libya, the homes of detainees in remote villages in Sudan have turned into an open funeral marquee, with hopes of a breakthrough in their file under the leadership of the new government.

In November 2018, families in the villages of Umm Hajjar al-Makashfi, Umm Deghayna al-Makashfi, Elias, Shuweirif, Ghinwa and Hilla al-Bashir in western Jazira state were surprised by a video showing their children chained and at the mercy of gunmen in the Libyan desert.

The then Minister of Interior of the isolated regime, Ahmed Bilal, acknowledged the incident and promised to save the hostages.

In the midst of Sudan's protests, which erupted a month after the incident, the regime isolated from the release of the hostages was busy, and the file retreated after the success of the revolution until the kidnappers sent another video clip renewed grief and put the file again in front.

Now the whole case has turned to the new government to pose a challenge to them, according to the families of the hostages of the island Net.

Grieving villages
Al-Jazeera Net has reached three of the six villages of which the hostages are descended. It is located on the western side of Al-Jazeera agricultural project.

The villages of Elias, Shuweirf and Gnewa, which are about 15-20 km from the locality of al-Qurashi and 112 km southwest of the capital Khartoum, where young people do not know a source of livelihood except immigration to Libya.

The father of the hostage, Abdin Abbas, 22, said he hoped the new government, led by Sovereign Council Chairman Abdel Fattah El Burhan, his deputy Mohammed Hamdan Humaidti and Prime Minister Abdullah Hamdouk, could free the hostages.

The father, who lives in the village of Elias, that the demands of the kidnappers were more clear in the passage sent a few days ago, in which one of the hostages that their lives depends on the amnesty of the tribes of Fadniya and Osailat east of Khartoum than a young Libyan jailed in Sudan for murder.

Gunmen from the Libyan Tabu tribe had kidnapped eight Sudanese youths, before releasing two of them earlier as a gesture of goodwill, to bargain against them in exchange for the release of their son, "Mahmoud" student at the University of Niles in Khartoum, who was arrested by the Sudanese authorities on charges of murder. Three Sudanese, one of them from Fadniya, were killed.

Fathers in chains
In the village of Shuwairf, the situation was darker. The son of Hamza al-Fadl Ibrahim, 30, had two offspring (boy and girl).

His wife, Kassma, says that her son - who Hamza left as a baby - knows his father only through the humiliating videos that show him chained, while her five-year-old daughter watches these videos all over the phone.

Hamza's father relies on Mohammed Hamdan Humaidi, deputy chairman of the Sovereignty Council and commander of the Rapid Support Forces, to resolve the issue because of his ability to communicate with the tribes of Libya, Fadina and Osailat in the east of the Nile.

Surprisingly, the hostage-taking incident did not prevent the youths of Ghaniwa from going to Libya. One family told Al Jazeera Net that her son Moayad al-Fatih, 18, had been missing for months there.

He described the father of the hostage Babiker Abdul Muttalib - from the village of Gnawa - Libya as a "deadly" swallows all young people in the villages of the region, and even among the elderly hardly find someone who did not experience immigration to Libya, he said.

Government Communications
For his part, Ahmed Osman, head of the expatriate administration department in Sudan, said government efforts are still limited to diplomatic contacts.

Osman told Al Jazeera Net that contacts are still in the formal framework between embassies and consulates, and reassured the conditions of the hostages, although the detention, whatever its circumstances remains harsh because it is negative for freedom, he said.

He considered that there was a great challenge for the government of the revolution, and suggested that Hamdouk make contacts with the African Union, but that Humaidati initiates popular mediation between the tribes of Libya and the Fadina in eastern Khartoum.

Tribal Mediation
At the level of the committee formed by the families of the hostages, the committee member Moussa Yahya said that the committee sat down with the tribes of Fadina and Osailat, and suggested that the Council of Sovereignty and the Prime Minister intervene by launching an initiative whereby Fadania pardons the Libyan young offender.

He warned Yahya in an interview with the island Net that amnesty in the crime, which took place in the apartment Shambat in Khartoum North would write "a new age" for the six young detainees.

Al-Jazeera Net learned that a famous lawyer in Khartoum took over the case at the request of the security and intelligence earlier, with the presence of a Russian lawyer assigned by the family of the Libyan accused who recorded confessions of his participation in the crime.

According to Qanuni involved in the case with the famous lawyer's office, the request for INTERPOL's intervention is not beneficial because of the fragility of the situation in Libya and the absence of government control, but stressed that the legal parties believe that mediation between the tribes of the two countries can be an acceptable solution.