Sudanese Police Forces
The Sudanese Police Forces are the national apparatus responsible for maintaining security and order and enforcing the law in Sudan, operating under the supervision of the Ministry of Interior. Its beginnings date back to 1898 when a British officer was appointed in the central administration for police tasks with thirty officers to organize state apparatuses, then complete decentralization in police administration was tried in 1901 before returning to modified central control in 1908, and in the same year the force was officially established by the British authorities, then its subordination transferred to the Sudanese government at independence in 1956.
The force is headed by a Director General of Police who reports to the Minister of Interior, and the central headquarters is located in Khartoum organized into general administrations each led by an officer with the rank of Police Major General, including Criminal Investigations, Administration, Training, Public Relations, Passports and Immigration and Security Affairs, while Traffic Police and Riot Police are the two main operational elements, with state commands organized in the same way and having their own budgets.
The "Police Forces Act of 1992" stipulated unifying formations under the leadership of the Director General, and included the "General Administrations of Specialized Police": Public Order Police, Customs Police, Prisons and Reform Police, Civil Defense Police, Wildlife Protection Police, Passports, Immigration, Nationality and Civil Registry Police, in addition to the Central Reserve Forces. Officers receive their basic training at the Police College near Khartoum over two years of theoretical and practical training, while soldiers receive four months of training at state headquarters. The force expanded from about 7,500 members at independence to about 18 thousand in 1970 and 30 thousand by the mid-eighties, and cooperates with the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) in combating drugs and international crime.
(Sources: GlobalSecurity.org — Sudan Police Force; United Nations Development Programme (UNMIS) study on community policing in Sudan; Wikipedia — Ministry of Interior (Sudan))
— Editorial Team