Targeted from all sides: Tupac detained and missing in Libya

27 May 2025

The famed Sudanese activist, Mohamed Adam –more commonly known as Tupac – faced more persecution by Sudanese authorities recently and his current whereabouts are unknown, relatives and friends told Ayin.

On 19 May, an eyewitness reported that Sudanese authorities interrogated Adam and severely beat him while he was attempting to renew his passport at the Sudanese embassy in Tripoli, Libya. According to the source, who requested anonymity for security reasons, four embassy staff viciously beat Adam and threatened the eyewitness after he protested against the attack. Since then, Adam’s whereabouts remain unknown.

Libya Crimes Watch, a civil society organisation, issued a statement on the unlawful one-day detention of Mohamed Adam at the embassy and stated that he had been unlawfully handed over to the Libyan authorities to be deported back to Sudan. The Sudanese embassy in Tripoli denied comment on the incident to Ayin. On 21 May, Adam’s defence attorney accused the Sudanese Embassy in Tripoli of violating international law and using its premises to conduct activities that did not align with the diplomatic mission mandate, according to a statement.

Adam’s housemate Mohamed* told Ayin that Sudanese embassy officers attempted to break into their house twice, on 19 and 20 May. Fearing for his safety, Mohamed had to leave Tripoli for another city within the country. Mohamed, who also requests anonymity, says Adam had been lured to visit the embassy after a staff member promised to issue his passport. Adam has held asylum seeker status in Libya since November last year.

Emblematic struggle

Adam, whose plight during Sudan’s revolution became emblematic of the struggles many Sudanese youth experienced during the pro-democracy movement, has become widely targeted by the army and their supporters, facing multiple arrests and torture. Only 20 at the time, Adam was an active member of the resistance committees, youth-driven movements that managed to oust former dictator Omar al-Bashir in April 2019. Adam has consistently advocated for civilian rule and the end of decades of military control, both before the war and up to the present day. 

It was possibly this sense of commitment that led Sudanese authorities to arrest Adam and three other activists in 2022, accusing them of killing a police brigadier. Adam had an alibi, but the prosecutors failed to present witnesses or evidence to support their claim. While on trial, he was tortured and sent to prison.

The judge suspended Adam’s trial in December 2022 when he appeared in court in shackles, clearly showing signs of physical assault. The police refused to follow the judge’s order to unshackle him, citing that the shackle keys were left in the prison. The police did not implement a court order to transfer Tupac from the murder convicts’ cells to the cells of those on trial. “I believe they wanted him killed. They placed him in a cell with murder suspects. The inmates attacked him multiple times,” his mother, Nidal Suleiman, told Ayin. 

In a Facebook post dated June 2023, Tupac talked about his torture and ill treatment while on trial. He believes that this treatment was ethnically motivated, as the other three protestors arrested with him in the same case did not face this cruelty.

Prison break

Upon the eruption of the conflict in Khartoum in April 2023 that pitted the army against the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, unidentified gunmen broke into the prisons of Khartoum and freed prisoners, including Tupac.

Tupac was re-arrested while internally displaced in Wad Medani in May 2023. He was released on bail and then re-arrested in River Nile State until he fled Sudan for Egypt and then Libya.

According to his mother, Nidal Suliman, the harassment from the authorities and personnel affiliated with them never stopped inside and outside Sudan. Adam’s mother can even recall one public incident in Wad Medani where security forces stopped her on the street and threatened her that they would kill her son. His housemate in Libya confirmed that Adam was receiving threats from pro-army Sudanese citizens, including a run-over attempt he witnessed just three days before his disappearance at the embassy.

The price for peace

The resistance committees were steadfast in their demands for civilian rule and rejected an army-controlled government prior to the outbreak of war on 15 April 2023. But the conflict affected the mindsets of civilians within these movements, says political analyst Mohamed Ibrahim. “This is likely one of the unstated goals of this conflict,” Ibrahim told Ayin. “The war gave both warring parties impetus to wipe away any revolutionary ideas of civilian rule.”

Once Sudan entered the conflict, many civilians sided with the warring parties, including those affiliated with the pro-democracy movement. Many members of Ghadiboon Bila Hudood, one of the revolutionary anti-coup protest movements, sided with the Sudanese Armed Forces and now fight alongside them.

To the dismay of some of his former colleagues within the resistance committees, Adam remains steadfast in his rejection of both warring parties, advocating for peace. “They will revert to negotiations eventually after killing innocent people and destroying the homes of Sudanese citizens.” Adam described the warring parties in a post on social media. “Neither the RSF will be dissolved nor will the army retreat to their barracks. The Islamists and the militias will rise again. Therefore, we need to be prepared for the final fight, demanding that the RSF be dissolved and the army retreat to the barracks,” he said in October 2023.

Adam’s rejection of war has even prompted attacks from his former colleagues at Ghadiboon, including accusations of being a traitor.

“We, those who stand against war and militarisation, are all being silenced by those holding guns, including our former friends and colleagues in the protest movement,” says Aisha*, a women’s rights activist and resistance committee member. “They are threatening everyone who does not support the Sudanese army and the so-called war of dignity. Their attitude towards any critical voice of the war is no different from the attitude of the government that they were protesting before the war,” she added. Some have joined the war and taken this stance out of fear, she said. “They have done so out of fear of getting arrested.”

Adam’s housemate Mohamed, now in hiding, says the harassment by pro-army affiliates stems from Tupac’s refusal to support the military and become another face for the revolutionaries who sided with the army.

“Tupac is not alone; I support him and his cause in spite of my fears for his safety,” his mother, Nidal Suliman, told Ayin. There are many young people like him, she said, who reject the ethnic and class discrimination taking place within the country. She added that such views are considered a threat by the military authorities, who desire Sudan to revert to the status quo in which the army had complete control. “We want equality for all people in Sudan; we want peace and prosperity. He and many others face threats, torture, and criminal charges and are paying the price of resistance.”

* The name has been changed to hide their identities for security purposes.