Sudanese doctor ‘abducted’ after smear campaigns, say family
In the early afternoon on Saturday, 10 armed men stormed Dr. Alaa Nogod’s house in Khartoum and took him away, while his younger brother and mother looked on helplessly.
According to his family, the men claimed to belong to Sudan’s military intelligence service and seized Nogod’s laptop, notebooks, passport and mobile phone. They then drove off without saying where they were taking him.
“They kicked Alaa between his shoulder and his neck,” Nogod’s mother, Alawia, told Al Jazeera. ‘I want news about him. I’m really scared because I know they don’t treat people right.”
Nogod has long been an outspoken critic of former President Omar al-Bashir and his National Congress Party (NCP).
A spokesman for the Sudanese Professionals Association — an umbrella union instrumental in the 2019 downing of al-Bashir — he has long blamed remnants of the former regime for attempts to sabotage Sudan’s transition to democracy.
But since leading NCP figures last month showed their support for the military in its conflict with the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, Nogod and other prominent al-Bashir critics have become targets of threats and smear campaigns.
An al-Bashir-era officer from the army, Tariq al-Hadi, uploaded a video on Facebook and YouTube accusing Nogod of being an “infidel”.
Friends and colleagues of Nogod have also alleged that unknown people fabricated a May 24 Facebook conversation between him and the RSF.
While Al Jazeera was unable to verify the authenticity of the Facebook conversation, Nogod accused members of the former regime of using photo-editing software to make it look like he was colluding with the RSF. He was taken away three days later.
“Just yesterday, [Nogod] spoke to his brother about a smear campaign against him. He told him, “I am not afraid,” said Alawia.
Al Jazeera has attempted to contact army spokesman Nabil Abdullah for comment on the detention of activists, but no response has been received.
‘He always told the truth’
Despite his medical career in Sudan, Nogod, according to his friends and family, had a greater ambition to bring about democratic change in the country.
In 2019, he joined a loose bloc of political parties and civil society groups that formed what is now known as the Forces for Freedom and Change – Central Command (FFC-CC).
The FFC-CC was heavily criticized by grassroots pro-democracy groups for agreeing to work with the military and the RSF to form a transitional government in the months after al-Bashir was removed from power.
Nogod’s close friends said he kept their respect after he joined the Federal Ministry of Health in 2020. One of his former colleagues at the ministry, who did not reveal her name for fear of reprisals, said Nogod had dared to look into past misconduct in the health sector.
She didn’t elaborate for fear of putting him in further danger, but added that Nogod ruffled a few feathers.
“If everyone was in a room and there was one opinion that no one wanted to express, he would always tell the truth no matter what,” she told Al Jazeera. “He was politically outspoken and not everyone liked that about him.”
Nogod continued to speak out against the military following the October 2021 military coup which shook Sudan’s transition to democracy.
In the months following the coup, top army commander Abdel Fattah al-Burhan restored NCP figures to powerful positions in the state bureaucracy.
“I was always afraid he would speak out. I told him to please stop, but he always said he was not afraid,” Alawia told Al Jazeera.
Try to stay neutral
When war broke out on April 15, Nogod was one of dozens of members of the Sudanese Doctor’s Union who remained in Khartoum to help the wounded.
“Dr Nogod always exposes himself to danger for the sake of the Sudanese people,” said his close friend Mohamed Sigeir, a pharmacist and fellow FFC member.
Within days, the city’s emergency rooms were overwhelmed with patients in need of life-saving help. Yet the crumbling healthcare sector made it increasingly difficult – often impossible – to save them.
The RSF often raided hospitals, evicted healthcare workers, and turned healthcare facilities into military outposts. The army has also indiscriminately shelled the few hospitals in the capital that were still operating, hitting them in airstrikes as well.
However, Nogod continued to talk to the media and condemned the attacks. On May 24, he told Al Jazeera that the army had seized aid shipments from the World Health Organization that were supposed to go to hospitals in Khartoum.
Nogod also explained to Al Jazeera that he refrained from definitively identifying the perpetrators of raids and attacks on medical facilities, in an effort not to provoke a backlash from either side.
However, he was subjected to smear campaigns and threats alleging that he supported the RSF. Since his detention, some supporters of the Sudanese army have made similar accusations against him on Twitter.
“Last time I spoke to him, I told him that the previous regime set a trap against you,” Siegir said.
“Personally, I kept warning him… and I was amazed [learn] that he was in his house and that he was not hiding anywhere,” added Abdelmonem el-Tayeb, a close friend of Nogod. “When I asked him if he was hiding, he said, ‘I’m in a safe place.'”
While Nogod’s whereabouts remain unknown, his detention has prompted a number of activists and trade unions to demand his immediate release. But others feared they would suffer the same fate if they publicly advocated for his freedom. The nature of Nogod’s detention and the lack of information surrounding it have also contributed to the feeling that Sudan is becoming increasingly lawless as the conflict in the country continues.
“No one should be punished for criticizing anything SAF or NCP did or for having an opinion,” said Nogod’s former Health Ministry colleague.
“Dr. Nogod is a role model [to me]. He’s a father figure,” she added.