Umma Party resumes internal political struggle

The government on Wednesday returned to the opposition Umma Party its headquarters in Omdurman which were confiscated when President Omar al-Bashir seized power in a coup in 1989. Siddiq al-Mahdi, the son of party leader Sadeq al-Mahdi, said the party would “immediately resume political activities” from the offices, Agence France Press (AFP) reported. Party leaders, headed by Omar Nour ed-Daem, would return to Khartoum on 6 April, the report stated. The move follows Umma’s recent withdrawal from the NDA and its declaration that its leaders would resume political activities inside Sudan.

Mahdi did not say when he would be returning to Sudan from his self-imposed exile, AFP stated. Meanwhile, the leading opposition activist Ghazi Suleiman, leader of the National Alliance for the Return of Democracy, was arrested in his home on Sunday night, the Associated Press agency (AP) quoted the Sudanese Association for Human Rights as saying. The human rights group had noted that Suleiman’s arrest followed a press conference earlier on Sunday in which he accused Bashir’s government of curbing political freedoms and systematically abusing human rights, the report added.