By – Dr. Abdelnasser Soloum Hamid

Seven people walked out of Dagris Prison, each carrying his own account of the place he had left behind. I interviewed them separately , Their experiences differed, as did the lengths of time they had spent in detention, but certain details recurred across their accounts: shortages of water, limited access to some medicines, difficulties obtaining treatment for those who were ill, and detainees who were released only after their health had deteriorated. Some of those I interviewed also spoke of money they said had been paid in cases connected to the release of detainees.

These seven accounts do not, on their own, provide a complete picture of what is happening inside Dagris, nor can they be taken as representative of the experiences of all detainees. But they offer a glimpse into a place where independent verification of conditions is difficult, Their significance is heightened by the fact that some of the details described by former detainees are consistent with reports by human rights and medical groups about overcrowding, illness, deaths and conditions of detention.

Dagris is located southwest of Nyala, the capital of South Darfur State, on the Ad al-Fursan–Nyala road. According to the Committee for Justice, the prison was established in 2015 to replace the old Nyala Federal Prison. Its role changed, however, after war broke out between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in April 2023 and the RSF later took control of Nyala, amid reports that detainees from different parts of Darfur were being transferred there.

Behind the walls of Dagris, the questions begin with the most basic information that should be available about any place of detention: How many people are being held there? Who are they? When were they arrested, and why? Have they been questioned? Have they been brought before a court?

For families, these are not abstract legal questions. They are questions about a son, a father or a brother who has disappeared from contact, about someone whose family does not know whether he is still being held in the same place, has been transferred elsewhere, has fallen ill, has been released, or has died.

On March 25, 2026, the Committee for Justice said, based on accounts from people released from the prison, that an estimated 19,500 people were being held at Dagris, while the prison’s capacity was estimated at around 4,500. The organization also said that some detainees could wait about 70 days after being taken into custody before being questioned.

If those estimates are accurate, Dagris would be holding more than four times its estimated capacity—roughly 15,000 people beyond that figure. But the number requires context. The estimate of 19,500 is not based on an independent count conducted inside the prison. It was published by a human rights organization on the basis of testimonies and other information it collected, and should therefore not be treated as a definitive figure.

Even as an estimate, however, it raises an obvious question: How can sufficient water, food, sanitation, medicine and healthcare be provided to such a large number of people in a facility estimated to have capacity for around 4,500?

This is where the numbers intersect with what I heard from former detainees.

In the seven interviews I conducted separately, several former detainees described water shortages and difficulties obtaining enough to meet their needs. Others spoke of shortages of certain medicines and difficulties accessing treatment for those who were ill.

Their accounts were not identical, and the seven men did not all tell the same story. That distinction matters. Each had spent a different amount of time inside Dagris and may have been held in different sections or experienced different conditions. What stood out, however, was that certain details resurfaced even though I interviewed each person separately. Water was one of them. Medicine was another.

Inside a prison, a shortage of water or medicine has consequences that are different from those outside. A detainee cannot look elsewhere for water or simply go to a pharmacy or hospital when needed. In a severely overcrowded facility, access to water is closely tied to hygiene, sanitation and the spread of disease, while delays in treatment can pose an even greater risk to people who are ill or have chronic conditions.

One of the cases I examined involved a detainee who was released in 2025 after his health had deteriorated. He was suffering from severe kidney failure. According to the information I gathered about his case, he left Dagris in poor health and died a few days later.

I do not have a medical report that would allow me to conclude that the conditions of his detention caused his death, nor can such a conclusion be drawn simply because he died shortly after his release. But his case raises difficult questions: When did his condition begin to deteriorate? Did those responsible for his detention know how serious his illness was? Did he receive the treatment he needed? Should he have been transferred to a medical facility sooner?

Some of the former detainees I interviewed said that others had also been released after their health deteriorated. I do not have enough information to determine how many such cases there were or what illnesses were involved, so these accounts cannot be turned into a statistic.

But they changed the way I thought about the question. It was no longer simply: How many people died inside Dagris? It also became: In what condition did some of those who made it out alive leave the prison?

That question becomes more urgent in light of figures reported by medical and human rights groups.

On June 24, 2026, the Sudan Doctors Network said that more than 215 civilian detainees had died at Dagris during May and June. The network said its information came from sources on the ground and linked the deaths to disease outbreaks and deteriorating health conditions, alongside allegations of torture and ill-treatment.

On July 8, the Committee for Justice also said it had documented the deaths of more than 215 detainees over the same two-month period. It reported worsening detention conditions and the spread of disease and epidemics. The organization also said that 31 detainees, including children, had been transferred from Dagris to a hospital in Nyala and that their fate remained unknown based on the information available to it when the report was published.

The figure of 215 is large enough to dominate the story, but it must be treated with considerable caution. Based on the published information used for this article, there is no independently verified list naming everyone included in that figure, nor are there independent medical findings establishing the cause of each death.

I therefore treat the figure for what it is: a number reported by medical and human rights groups, not a death toll that I was able to verify independently, name by name. Establishing the final number of deaths and determining their causes would require access to medical records, lists of those who died and an independent investigation.

There are, however, individual cases in which human rights organizations have published the names of people reported to have died. In May, the Committee for Justice said it had documented the deaths inside Dagris of Ezzeddine Mohamed Adam Al-Hassan, known as “Al-Dish,” Adam Ali Othman, and Tijani Abu Bakr Al-Mahdi, citing local sources and the families of detainees. The organization has also reported other deaths individually and called for investigations into them.

In some cases, the tragedy does not end with the death itself. It extends to the way a family learns what happened.

The Committee for Justice said it had documented cases in which families learned of relatives’ deaths from detainees who had been released, rather than through official notification from the authority that had held them.

That made me think about what it means for someone to leave prison carrying more than his own story. He may carry news of a sick man he left behind, the name of someone who remains in detention, information about someone who has been transferred elsewhere, or perhaps news of a death that a family has spent weeks or months waiting to hear about. With so little information emerging from inside Dagris, a released detainee may become the only link between a family and someone who disappeared behind its walls.

But illness and water shortages were not the only issues raised in the seven interviews. One of the most sensitive subjects mentioned by some of those I interviewed involved money allegedly connected to releases.

Some former detainees said money had been paid in cases linked to the release of people from Dagris. The details varied from one account to another, and I do not have enough information to conclude that the practice affected all detainees or amounted to a general system within the prison.

Each case would need to be investigated separately: How much was paid? Who asked for the money? Who received it? And was payment actually a condition for release?

What makes these accounts worthy of further investigation is that they do not stand alone. In a report published in May 2026, the Committee for Justice said it had documented cases in which families of some detainees were required to pay money in exchange for their release. The organization described the practice it documented as financial extortion.

This overlap does not mean that everything the people I interviewed told me automatically becomes established fact. But it makes their accounts difficult to dismiss. When similar stories emerge in separate interviews and comparable allegations appear in a human rights report produced independently of those interviews, the obvious question is: What is actually happening in the process by which detainees are released?

If it is established in individual cases that money was paid as a condition of release, the issue goes beyond the amount involved. Who has the authority to decide whether someone remains in detention or is released? What is the legal basis for that decision? And what process does a detainee go through from the moment he enters Dagris until the moment he leaves?

At the same time, the story of Dagris cannot be told from one side alone.

The Rapid Support Forces deny that abuses have taken place inside the prison. Media reports have quoted an official from the RSF media office as saying that a committee was formed to review the situation of detainees and found no violations, and that those being held receive food and medical care. The official also said that the prisons were open to human rights organizations wishing to verify conditions.

Dagris has also seen detainees released. In March 2026, the release of 260 detainees was announced. Media reports described those released as civilians, while the RSF said the releases were linked to a review of detainees’ cases.

After listening to seven former detainees in separate interviews, I did not come away believing that the story of Dagris can be reduced to a death toll or a detainee count. What stayed with me most was the recurrence of certain details in accounts given independently of one another: water, medicine, illness and the fear of an unknown fate.

For me, these everyday details conveyed the weight of detention more powerfully than large numbers alone. A number can tell us the scale of a problem, but it cannot tell us how a sick person spends the night without access to medicine, what it means to wait for water when you cannot leave, or what a family goes through when it does not know whether its son is alive, ill, or has been transferred somewhere else.

The central issue at Dagris is not only the seriousness of the allegations against those running the prison, but also how difficult it is to verify them independently.

If the RSF denies abuses and says detainees are being provided with food and medical care, then allowing an independent body access to the prison—and enabling it to interview detainees safely and in private, examine medical records, and review lists of detainees and those who have died—would provide the clearest way to test the competing accounts.

In a case of this magnitude, the truth should not be left caught between the testimony of a former detainee and the account of the authority responsible for the detention facility.

Throughout my work on this article, one question kept returning: What does it mean for a family to search for someone without knowing for certain whether he is alive, ill, or has been transferred somewhere else?

Numbers are essential to understanding the scale of the issue, but they can sometimes obscure the people behind them. When we speak of an estimated 19,500 detainees, or of more than 215 reported deaths according to the organizations that published those figures, we are not talking about abstract numbers. We are talking about names, families and individual lives.

That is why publishing verifiable lists of detainees, those who have died and those who have been released is not simply an administrative matter. It is about the right of families to know what has happened to their relatives.

What Dagris needs today is not another number or another allegation so much as a record that can be independently verified: Who is being held there? When and where was each person arrested? Why were they detained? Have they been questioned? Have they been brought before a court? Who needs medical treatment? Who has been transferred to hospital? Who has been released? And who has died?

For those who have died, families need more than an overall figure. They need the name of the person who died, the date and cause of death, whether a medical examination was carried out, and when and how the family was informed.

For those who were released in deteriorating health, questions remain about the treatment they received before leaving the prison. Accounts of money being paid also need to be investigated case by case to establish who paid, who received the money, and under what circumstances.

After seven separate interviews and a review of medical and human rights reports, I do not believe the story of Dagris needs harsher language to make it appear serious. The facts and questions, if substantiated, are grave enough.

A witness recounts what he experienced or saw. An organization is responsible for what it publishes. The authority controlling the prison presents its own account. Somewhere between these accounts lies a truth that still requires independent scrutiny.

For families, however, the questions may be much simpler: Who entered Dagris? Why were they detained? Who is still there? Who was released, and in what condition? And who died?

Behind every number is a name, and behind every name is a family waiting for news.

Until the records of Dagris are made available for independent verification, the most important part of its story will remain hidden behind its walls.

Documentation Note

This article is based on seven separate interviews conducted by the author with former detainees released from Dagris Prison, as well as published reports and statements from human rights and medical organizations and media sources. Figures and allegations have been attributed to their respective sources, and individual testimonies have not been treated as sufficient grounds for generalizing those experiences to all detainees. The death of the detainee who suffered from kidney failure has not been causally attributed to the conditions of detention in the absence of independent medical evidence.