The International Press Institute (IPI) welcomes the release of journalists Ishraqa Abdelrahman, Mawahib Ibrahim, and Zahra Mohamed El Hassan after six months in detention by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). IPI calls on the RSF and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) to release all other detained or disappeared journalists and to stop harassing and attacking the press.
RSF fighters detained the three women at their homes in Nyala on February 28, 2026, days after they attended a workshop on women’s rights, and took them to an undisclosed location. The RSF gave no information about their detention or whereabouts.
Their releases follow a September 7 joint statement by IPI and partner organisations, which warned that the journalists’ health had deteriorated and called for their immediate and unconditional release.
Other journalists remain in custody or are missing. Sudan has been at war since April 2023, and both sides have detained, disappeared, and killed reporters. The RSF has held Darfur journalist Muammar Ibrahim since October 2025 and Adam Ishaq Manan since June 2026.
The Emergency Lawyers Group, a Sudanese legal advocacy organisation, says the SAF’s local security cell arrested Blue Nile Radio reporter Hassan Hamed Hamad at the station on May 13 and has held him incommunicado since. On August 2, the Sudan Shield Forces, an armed group affiliated with the SAF, seized journalist Al-Raih Essam Jaxa as he returned from an assignment at the University of Gezira’s College of Education in Al-Hasaheisa. He has been missing since.
Five members of the Sudanese Journalists Syndicate are also missing: Ashraf El Habr, Mustafa Fadl El Mawla, Magdy Youssef El Zein, Mohamed Hussein Shalaby, and Musab El Hadi. They were taken on different dates in 2024 and 2025. The syndicate says the disappearances place its members outside the protection of the law.
Journalists have also reported threats, including death threats, from the RSF, the SAF, and their affiliated armed groups. In July 2026, the RSF and the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM), a rebel group led by Abdul Wahid Mohamed Nour, threatened staff at Darfur 24 with death. An RSF drone strike killed freelance photojournalist Al-Shykh Al-Samany Saadaldyn in June 2025.
“Sudan’s journalists are being taken by both sides in this war, and only a few ever come back,” IPI Africa Programme Lead Nompilo Simanje said. “This release is welcome, but attention should now shift to the remaining abducted journalists. The RSF and the SAF should say where the rest are and release them.”
The SAF has accused at least 48 journalists of spreading false news or violating privacy in 2026 alone. No mechanism exists to hold either side to account for attacks on the press.
IPI has supported calls on the United Nations Human Rights Council to extend the mandate of the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for Sudan by two years as a critical accountability route for human rights and humanitarian violations.