(BBC) Efforts to prevent a young Sudanese woman being stoned to de@th, after she was convicted of adultery, are being hindered by the absence of government ministers in the country.
Sudan has been run by a military junta since a coup one year ago.
Campaigners say the 20-year-old didn’t get a fair trial and should be freed.
A government official agreed that the trial was “a joke” but added: “We don’t have a minister who can intervene to demand her release.”
The young woman, who separated from her husband in 2020 and went to live with her family, was accused of adultery by her husband a year later. She was found guilty in June 2022 by a court in the city of Kosti, in Sudan’s White Nile state.
Her appeal against the conviction has now been heard and the court’s judgement is awaited.
Sulaima Ishaq, who heads the Violence Against Women Unit at the Ministry of Social Development, told the BBC that she had been telling officials in the capital, Khartoum, that the trial was flawed, but that the lack of government ministers made it hard to get her point across.