After the October army takeover, security old Saber Ishaq and 47-year-old Arbab authorities arbitrarily arrested and detained Khamis. A third man, Abdulhafiz Yahia dozens of civilian political leaders, including Ismaeil, aged 53, was seriously injured. cabinet members, and Prime Minster According to the West Darfur State Doctors’ Hamdok who was held for two days before Committee, at least 144 people were killed being put under house arrest for almost a and 232 injured during the clashes. month. Other political prisoners, who were Also in West Darfur, 200 people died as a held for nearly one month in incommunicado result of intercommunal fighting between detention without access to their families or October and November, according to the legal counsel, were released after the 21 Darfur Bar Association. November accord. However, security forces RIGHT TO HEALTH continued to arrest and charge protesters. FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION Government expenditure on health was significantly greater than in previous years. The right to freedom of expression was The Ministry of Finance allocated SDG99 severely restricted. Internet and billion (about US$242 million) – 9% of the telecommunications were repeatedly budget – to the healthcare system for life- disrupted from 25 October, limiting people’s saving medicines; Covid-19 treatment; the ability to access timely and accurate rehabilitation and construction of rural information, infringing on their ability to hospitals, reproductive and other health express political views and restricting centres; and nutrition and health reporting on human rights violations. programmes. Military authorities also targeted press who However, in the midst of the third Covid-19 covered anti-army protests. On 30 December wave in the first half of the year, hospitals security forces attacked the offices of two TV faced multiple challenges, including a lack of stations in Khartoum, assaulting journalists medicine and oxygen, and a shortage of and firing tear gas into their offices after they doctors and other medical personnel due to broadcast footage of security force violations low salaries and poor working conditions. against protesters. Between March 2020 and May 2021, 89 UNLAWFUL ATTACKS AND KILLINGS Sudanese doctors, including 11 women, died after contracting Covid-19. The premature withdrawal of the United The country continued to face a shortage of Nations-African Union Hybrid Operation in Covid-19 vaccines. On 3 March, it received Darfur in December 2020, and the Sudanese over 800,000 doses of the AstraZeneca security forces’ repeated failure to protect vaccine from the COVAX initiative and began civilians, resulted in continued indiscriminate its vaccination programme on 9 March violence against civilians, particularly in the through the government’s National West Darfur region. RSF members Deployment and Vaccination Plan for participated in some militia attacks against Covid-19 Vaccines. The plan first prioritized civilians. frontline healthcare workers across Sudan In January 2021, at least 163 people, and older people with comorbidities. By the including three women and 12 children, were end of the year, Sudan had received 5.25 killed and 217 injured during a revenge million Covid-19 vaccine doses and 1.23 attack by militias on the Krinding camp in El million people had been fully vaccinated, Geneina, West Darfur State’s capital, and representing 2.8% of a population of around home to thousands of internally displaced 43.85 million people, according to 3 Massalit people. government figures. In 2021, there were On 3 April, armed men, said to be Arabs, 47,443 confirmed Covid-19 cases and 3,340 triggered four days of deadly violence when related deaths, according to the Ministry of they shot three Massalit men, killing 28-year- Health. Amnesty International Report 2021/22 349