Students in Sudan gather in solidarity with Palestinian hunger striker 

Dozens of Sudanese and Palestinian students and national union members held a sit-in outside the United Nations Headquarters in Khartoum yesterday in support of Palestinian hunger strikes which who are entering their 24th consecutive day.

In a show of strength organised by the Palestinian embassy in Khartoum in cooperation with the Federation of Sudanese Students, the ruling National Congress Party, the National Umma Party and the Sudanese and African Students Society, the Ambassador to the Palestinian Authority, Dr Samir Abdul-Jabbar, said:

This latest effort is the least that can be done to support the brave families who fight the battle for Palestine on empty stomachs.

He appealed to the United Nations and international community to intervene immediately and urgently to reach a reasonable solution to put an end to the suffering of prisoners in Israeli jails.

The effort to free the Palestinian people and bring about freedom and independence similar to the rest of the world begins with the freedoms of the families of these prisoners.

Ambassador Abdul-Jabbar urged the United Nations to respect its own resolutions particularly those that relate to human rights. He praise the Sudanese government, its people, students’ unions and the generations of Palestinians that stood together in solidarity to highlight the issue of the prisoners which, he said, was a priority for the Palestinian Authority led by Mahmoud Abbas.

For his part, the Chairman of the Sati Medical Charity Foundation, Abdul-Moneim Al-Satti, stressed that the Palestinian prisoners had a right to live in freedom and dignity and that Sudan would stand firm in support of them. He also said the Sudanese people supported what he called “the brave strikers” held in the jails of the occupying Israeli forces. He renewed the call on the United Nations to put pressure on the occupying forces to act within international law and to respect human rights.

Read: Hundreds of Palestinians in Israeli jails begin hunger strike

The gathering ended with the presentation of a formal letter to the United Nations representative in Khartoum addressed to the secretary-general on behalf of the Federation of Sudanese Students, the Afro-Arab Council, the African Students Union, the General Union of African Students, Sudanese Women’s Federation, the International Students Union and a number of Sudanese political parties.