Victims of police crackdown says they were arrested for potential recruitment into army

JUBA – At the end of 2023, exactly during the festive season, hope flickered in South Sudan’s capital, Juba, as newly appointed police chief Maj. Gen. Atem Marol Biar ordered a crackdown on gangs. But for many young men, the festive season took a dark turn.

The operation morphed into a wider sweep, ensnaring individuals across several states. Now, disturbing accounts from released detainees paint a picture of arbitrary arrests, extortion, and the chilling possibility of forced recruitment into the army.

Eighteen-year-old Wani (not his real name), his voice heavy with apprehension, recounted his ordeal. “They found me watching a football in the market,” he recalls. “They asked me Ask me saying ‘which [gang] group are you?’ I said, ‘I’m not in any group’. They said, ‘no, you are in a group’, and they said, ‘let’s go.’”

Wani’s release came at a steep price. He said security officers, wearing both South Sudan National Police Service and SSPDF uniforms were asking for money to buy his freedom. He said most of their belongings such as phones, jewelry and money found in their pockets during arrest were never returned upon release.

“They were asking for 20,000 [SSP], but we didn’t manage to pay 20,000. I only paid 15,000. We have some phones, they are lost,” he indicated. “The rest [of the detainees] didn’t get their money because when you are going to the jail, they first check your pockets. Many things in the pockets, at the time they are releasing you, you can’t recover them.”

He said he was detained for two days at Kemrou, a suburb of Juba and that some of his friends who were arrested on the streets were sent to Rajaaf training centre.

“I was detained for two days and there are other people who have been taken. There are some of my friends. They just found them on the roadside walking,” he said. “They just caught them and taken to the sector and in the morning they were transferred to Rajaf. They are now in Rajaf. Some have come back after paying money.”

He said some of his friends have returned from Rajaaf after paying a lot of money. Wani indicated that the ages of those arrested ranges between 18 and 30 and that if family members don’t follow up and pay, detainees never return.

“They are just kept there doing nothing. But the rest have come and for you to [be released], there must be someone to follow up on your case and they [police] have to be paid money,” he said. “There are some people who come, they paid money, something like SSP40,000 SSP80,000, and SSP70,000. But if you have no one who is following you, you cannot come back.”

“I am 18 and the people who are there are people in my age group up to the 30s. So, there are people who are 18, 19, up to 30. The people who are there, if their family don’t follow them, will sure be recruited into the army. They will be recruited. People are just seated. They don’t know what will happen next. They are just waiting,” he added.

He said the people arresting “are not police only. There are the police and the military. I can just simply call it a joint operation.”

Wani’s story is far from unique. A 19-year-old who doesn’t want to be identified for fear of reprisal, his face etched with fear, described a similar experience.

“One of them [joint security force operation] came and started calling the other members. Then we were arrested with a claim that we are gangsters of which we are not,” he said. “The next day my parents came, and they claimed that we were in an area of gangsters, but we were not. It was an open place but again they charged my parents SSP5,000 for a crime I didn’t commit, now my name is in the police record. Just like that. How will it be in future for me with a record as such.”

He asserted that those who were arrested are being recruited into the military.

“My fear was them telling us we would be taken to Rajaf.  And also, if they take you in and you try to speak too much or such, they will now take you straight, it doesn’t become a saying, but reality and your name will be registered as an army,” he said.

The specter of Rajaf, a military training center, hangs heavy in the air. Whispers of forced conscription send shivers down the spines of released detainees and their families.

The aunt of a missing 25-year-old choked back tears as she spoke. “His last known location was Rajaf,” she said, her voice trembling. “The rumors say they’re taking people for training, forcing them to join the army. I pray it’s not true, but it’s been a month since he disappeared.”

Sudans Post spoke to multiple family sources in Western Bahr el Ghazal. One of them is a 55-year-old charcoal vendor who said that his son was arrested in early January and was transferred to Upper Nile State before a relative in the United States offered to pay $170 for his release. “He was arrested in December and then he was taken to Juba. After that he was taken to an area in Upper Nile and was not released until when they were given 170 USD.”

Amira, a 45-year-old Sudan returnee who is now a resident of Wau, said her son, 20, is being kept in Rajaaf and is being trained to go into the army. “This is what I heard from some of them who came back to Wau. They are now in Rajaaf, and he is among those being trained for military recruitment,” she said.

While Maj. Gen. Justin vehemently denies these allegations, stating that detained youths remain in Juba, their whereabouts remain shrouded in secrecy as he could not locate the exact detention place. “They’re all here in Juba,” he insists when confronted by Sudans Post over their presence in Rajaaf, but his words fail to quell the rising tide of doubt. The detainees are not in any police jail in Juba nor in Central Prison. Families left searching for their loved ones, navigating opaque systems and extortion, find little solace in their pronouncements.

CRUCIAL QUESTIONS

For observers and civil society activists, a number of questions remains. Edmund Yakani, the Executive Director of CEPO, asked as to “What criteria were used to identify and detain them? Why are detainees transferred to a military facility like Rajaf? Are there documented procedures for release, or are families left to the mercy of an opaque system ripe for exploitation? Has an independent body investigated the allegations of forced recruitment?”

Yakani expressed deep concern and called on the South Sudan authorities to come up and speak to the public about the detention of the youth.

“CEPO is seriously concerned about the information been shared in the public space of forceful recruitment of youth into police services in Juba in Rajaaf police transiting center,” he told Sudans Post when approached in his office. “This practice is a violation of human rights which we rejected when by then government of Sudan before our independence do impose on us. Now it is taken over by our own government.”

He called on the Inspector-General of Police “to inform the citizens and families of those youth forcefully around up and taken to Rajaaf police station, what is going on or happening to those youth? Their respective families are asking questions why their children forceful taken to Rajaaf police training facility.”