The Sudanese government of president Omar al-Bashir literally held a gun to South Africa\u2019s head to secure his safe return to Khartoum.<\/p>\n
Netwerk24 can reveal that about 800 South African soldiers in Darfur were held \u201chostage\u201d by Sudanese troops when the drama around Al-Bashir\u2019s possible arrest in South Africa escalated.<\/p>\n
According to military experts, this effectively means Sudan blackmailed South Africa and the soldiers\u2019 lives served as a guarantee for Al-Bashir\u2019s safe return.<\/p>\n
Only after Al-Bashir safely touched down in Khartoum on Monday, were Sudanese troops withdrawn. President Jacob Zuma is the commander-in-chief of the defence force.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were so scared \u2013 we were surrounded by soldiers. We handed out extra ammunition to all our troops in case they needed it,\u201d said one South African soldier in Sudan on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am so thankful that South Africa did not arrest Bashir. The battalion commander said after Bashir touched down safely in Khartoum, all the [Sudanese] troops were withdrawn. The calamity has returned to normal,\u201d reads a message sent by a soldier in Darfur to his friends in South Africa.<\/p>\n
About 1 400 South African soldiers are serving in Darfur as part of a combined African Union\/United Nations peace mission (Unamid). The current group are from 8 SA Infantry Battalion in Upington.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur nerves were shot and we were very relieved when the militants withdrew on Monday evening. We knew we were sitting ducks,\u201d said a South African soldier.<\/p>\n
Unamid said it was unaware of the situation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Sudanese government of president Omar al-Bashir literally held a gun to South Africa\u2019s head to secure his safe return to Khartoum. Netwerk24 can reveal that about 800 South African soldiers in Darfur were held \u201chostage\u201d by Sudanese troops when the drama around Al-Bashir\u2019s possible arrest in South Africa escalated. According to military experts, this … Continue reading “SA troops ‘held hostage’ in Sudan”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2961,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[11922,11923,4676,11921,772,1125,11924],"class_list":["post-19409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-south-africa","tag-al-bashir","tag-arrest-warrant","tag-icc","tag-peace-keepers","tag-sandf","tag-sudan","tag-unamid"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2961"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19409"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19409\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19410,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19409\/revisions\/19410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}