Senior Sudan opposition figure freed

Mariam al-Mahdi is greeted by supporters in Khartoum yesterday.

Sudanese authorities yesterday released a senior member of the opposition Umma Party who was detained last month after the party reached a deal to co-operate with rebels.

Mariam al-Mahdi, deputy leader of the party led by her father Sadiq al-Mahdi, “has been released”, Umma’s youth leader Mohamed Mahdi said on his Facebook page.

The official Suna news agency, in a brief despatch, confirmed that Mahdi has been freed.

In May, Sadiq al-Mahdi himself was also detained by the National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS), spending a month in custody.

Security agents arrested Mariam al-Mahdi on August 12 at Khartoum airport after she arrived from talks in Paris between Umma and the Sudan Revolutionary Front (SRF), an alliance of anti-regime armed movements from Darfur, South Kordofan and Blue Nile states.