Sudan's Brutal Crackdown on Anti-Government Protests
CYRIL VANIER, CNN ANCHOR: Ok. Welcome back to the NEWSROOM. I'm Cyril Vanier.</s>NATALIE ALLEN, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Natalie Allen. Here are our top stories for you.</s>VANIER: The U.S. Homeland Security Secretary has resigned and a source says Kirstjen Nielsen did not go willingly. President Donald Trump announced her resignation Sunday on Twitter. Nielsen defended the administration's hard line immigration policies but the President has been angry over the influx of migrants at the southern border.</s>ALLEN: Voting begins Tuesday in Israeli elections and the latest poll shows a tight race. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu facing a major challenge from his former military chief of staff Benny Gantz. Mr. Netanyahu says he will annex the West Bank settlements if reelected. That move is seen as a bid to win over more right wing voters.</s>VANIER: Uganda says its security forces have rescued kidnapped American tourist Kimberly Endicott with intelligence support from the U.S. military. Endicott and her tour guide were taken hostage at gun point April 2nd while on a game drive at Queen Elizabeth National Park.</s>ALLEN: American Airlines says it will continue to ground its fleet of Boeing 737 Max planes through June 5. The flights were set to resume later this month but the airline says it's waiting for more information about the aircraft from regulators. This is comes almost one month after the crash of a second Boeing 737 Max jet.</s>VANIER: As anti-government protests in Sudan grow larger and louder the country's security forces are taking extreme measures trying to stop the world from finding out. Demonstrators are calling for the country's longtime president to step down and they're accusing the government of using violence against them.</s>ALLEN: At least six people died in protests over the weekend and that is not counting how many have died since protests began December. It is hard to get information from there because as we learn in her exclusive report CNN's Nima Elbagir takes us inside the uprising to expose the government's brutal crackdown on people.</s>NIMA ELBAGIR, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): This is my hometown Khartoum, for months now in the grip of pro- democracy protests. Much of it brutally hidden from the world by the Sudan government and yet people here are still risking everything for change. Even as the United States works through diplomatic relations with Sudan's government. Khartoum -- Sudan's capital. As I was growing up here the government's grip on its people was all-encompassing. But a rise in the cost of living in recent years has triggered protests against one of the world the longest serving dictators. President Omar al-Bashir. The Sudanese government doesn't want the world to know what's is happening. Any journalist caught reporting on the demonstrations risks life imprisonment and the death penalty In the crowd I try to stand back and film with secret cameras and smart phones and hope that I am not spotted. (on camera): And I smell the tear gas that they'd been releasing on the demonstrators a little bit further away. The people here are starting to get tense. (voice over): Some of the demonstrators start shouting that national security agents are on their way. Operatives infamous for their brutality, we have to leave. A family agrees to hide us in what people had called a safe house. It really is just someone's home. (on camera): The national security agents have arrived, they'd broken up the demonstration. They're going from house to house. We've been brought into the safe house. We don't know how long we're going to wait here. They're trying to figure out how they get us out of here.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: God protect us.</s>ELBAGIR: I just saw their cars. They're going from door-to-door trying to figure out who was out there. (voice over): That sound you hear? Tear gas cannons. We are trapped. Hours pass we can only watch and listen through a gap in the window. Just next door to us, security agents are slapping and kicking a protester as they drag him out, their neighbor's son. In the end we leave our equipment behind and take the risk to run. We got lucky but so many others did not. CNN gathered detailed testimony from former detainees held in Sudanese government facilities. Of the over 3,000 people who have been arrested since the demonstrations began almost all say they have been abused. One of them agrees to speak to us.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They were all masked armed and holding batons. As soon as we stepped out we were beaten with batons. One man slapped me on the left side of my face. It became numb. And he struck me with the butt of his gun in my back. It's not even an official center. It was one of those ghost houses.</s>ELBAGIR: Ghost houses. Torture houses which the government says don't exist. We went to try and find one. For all of us that grew up under Bashir dictatorship ghost houses conjure up immediately the horrors this government is accused of -- torture, sexual assault, brutal beatings. Right in the center of Khartoum, we find a heavy military and intelligence presence. On your left, a screened-off square, a holding pen. Activists pick</s>WITAQ AHMED ABDULLAH, TORTURE VICTIM (through translator): They detained us in an abandoned building. Because we were so severely beaten we went numb. I could not feel my arms or legs. The place was so cold it felt like there were knives piercing our bodies. I only spent two days there but they were the worst two days of my life.</s>ELBAGIR: So why in spite of all this is President Trump's administration in talks to restore relations with Sudan? The brutal aftermath of the terror attacks on the USS Cole and U.S. embassies in east Africa. For years families of victims have been seeking compensation from Sudans' government who they believe was complicit. CNN has learned that a key requirement for talks between Sudan and the U.S. is that Sudan enter into good faith negotiations regarding compensation for victims' families. In a statement, the U.S. State Department does not deny that talks are continuing with Sudan or that this is ultimately about the terror claims. But says relations will improve only if the Sudanese government takes steps related to human rights. The Sudanese have shown no signs of doing so and yet talks to improve relations continue. After days of searching we are able to verify that the neighbor's son, who we filmed being detained was released only after hours of torture, he says. You can see it here -- another casualty in the litany of victims of Sudan's brutal repression. This is what we witnessed in just one day back home. The demonstrations, the tear gas,, the fear. But the horrors have been going on for so much longer. And there's still no end in sight. Nima Elbagir, CNN -- Khartoum, Sudan.</s>ALLEN: And we will have more news right after this.