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Eritrea opposition figure feared abducted in Sudan

Eastern Sudan is home to tens of thousands of ethnic Eritreans (AFP/File, Ashraf Shazly)
Eastern Sudan is home to tens of thousands of ethnic Eritreans (AFP/File, Ashraf Shazly)

(AFP)

KHARTOUM — An Eritrean opposition party official has been missing for two days in eastern Sudan and there are fears he may have been kidnapped by Asmara’s security agents, the party alleged on Thursday.

Mohammed Ali Ibrahim, a member of the People’s Democratic Party central council, left his house in Kassala town at 8:00 am (0500 GMT) on Tuesday and has not been seen since, the party said in a statement emailed to AFP.

Sudanese police and the Kassala hospitals had no word on him, it said.

“The big fear prevailing in Kassala is that he might have been kidnapped by security agents of the Eritrean regime, who enjoy free mobility in the region,” it said.

Eastern Sudan is home to tens of thousands of ethnic Eritreans.

The United Nations refugee agency in Sudan says about 2,000 asylum-seekers, mostly Eritrean, cross the border monthly, many to escape the Asmara regime’s compulsory military service.

There are around 80,000 people living in refugee camps near the border, some of whom began fleeing to Sudan four decades ago during their country’s independence war with Ethiopia.

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