AUDIO: Activist recounts torture during NSS detention in Bor

JUBA – South Sudan activist Bol Deng Bol has told Sudans Post that he was tortured on Monday by the country’s National Security Service (NSS) after he was arrested by security operatives while on the way for a visit to a police station.

In an exclusive interview with Sudans Post, Bol said he was arrested at Marol Market while on his way visiting a journalist who had earlier been arrested by the national security service and was put into a car where he was stepped on by the soldiers.

“There’s this joint force which is helping the, the Lord Mayor of Bor municipality to implement this order of paving the roads that includes demotion of those constructions that are perceived to be on the road. So, there were, there were like the hotels, you know, the shops, they were kind of being demolished,” he said.

“So, this force there was stationed there in the heart of Moral Market doing demolition and, and so forth. So, they, they saw me while I was going to, to visit a media personnel, a journalist who was arrested. I was told he had just been arrested. I was on my way going there,” he added.

Bol said three members of the national security approached him and asked him if he was the target and then begun beating him up before throwing him into a military pick-up vehicle where he was kicked at and stepped on.

“They saw me from afar and three people were sent from this joint force to bring me. They came very harshly and brought me and then to some guy from national security, who asked if I was Bol Deng Bol and I said, yes, I am. And so, all of them started bit me up very badly on my back, on my arms everywhere,” he said.

“I was down on my knees and they continued beating me like that. And then they tied my hands, both of my hands on my back with a rope. And then they put me in …. their vehicle, that Toyota with my belly down and face down and stepping on my bag, my head and all of that,” he added.

 

“Now I don’t know what they did to my head, was it the vehicle or the …. of the gun, I don’t know. It is too itchy all over my body. It’s really painting too much. So, the torture continued like that. They were driving me around in that Toyota, you know, by passing the office of the mayor up to the shores of the river, coming back to park palaces.

The activist further said that he was kept by the security forces from 9AM to 5PM and was being tortured throughout the day and said that he was nurturing wounds at a local hospital where he is being attended to by doctors.

“And again, from the roundabout by passing the office of the mayor like that, you know, three times in that Toyota, I was down there and the vehicle was full with these people who were very armed, the national security, the army were all inside stepping on me and all of this and so driving around very fast, and then they brought me back to the market where they first started beating me up, you know, it’s all torture throughout,” he said.

“I was then left there in the car, sited there. I mean in that Toyota siting there throughout the sun, you know, from 9:00AM to 5:00PM,” he added.