International Desk: After more than seven weeks of fighting for control of Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, the residents of the city have found themselves in a situation they never imagined before. They don’t know what to do with the dead bodies lying on the streets of the city. News BBC.
Warning: This report contains some images and details that may be disturbing. “I buried three inside their own house, and the rest were buried at the entrance to the street where I live,” said Omar, whose name has been changed for security reasons.
“A dog biting and eating a dead body is better than opening the door to the scene.”
No one knows how many people have died in the war so far. But the number is believed to be more than 1,000, including many civilians.
The fighting is between two factions of the military in Sudan. The regular army is fighting a paramilitary force called Rapid Support Forces, or RSF.
After several rounds of ceasefires between the two groups, it has become too dangerous for people in the capital to go out of their homes and go to the cemetery.
Omar buried at least 20 people.
“One of my neighbors was killed in his house. I couldn’t do anything. But I removed the ceramic tiles from the floor of his house, dug a grave there, and buried him,” he told the BBC.
The dead bodies lying on the road are rotting in the heat. What can I say? Some areas of Khartoum are now turning into graveyards.
Last month, Omar dug graves for four people on the side of a road just meters from his home in Khartoum’s Al-Imtidad area. Omar said he knows a few others in the neighborhood who have had to do the exact same thing.
Many of the dead have been buried in some areas near the University of Khartoum. It is next to an oil station; everyone knows this place. The rest were buried in some areas near Mohamed Naguib Road.
There is no official count of exactly how many people have been buried inside homes and in various settlements in Sudan since the war began. But Omar says, “This number will be dozens.”
Another such person is Hamid. We have also changed his name. Hamid’s experience is similar.
Hamid told the BBC that he had buried three members of the army in the town of Shambat, 12 kilometers from the capital Khartoum. They were killed when a military plane crashed.
‘I happened to be in that area that day. Along with five other men, I rescued the bodies from the rubble. Then I buried them in a place surrounded by residential buildings.
Hamid is a property businessman who has been living in the area for 20 years. He believes that ‘this burial is his responsibility.’
“It doesn’t matter where we bury the bodies,” he said.
“The first thing to do is to bury them. It is charity work. It can take days to get these bodies to the cemetery, and poachers are everywhere. We are trying to help society so that there is no major disaster in the health sector. It is our religious and moral responsibility.
“Truth is being suppressed.”
If these bodies are buried with good intentions, this initiative may inadvertently destroy evidence of war crimes, says the head of the doctors’ union. Attia Abdullah Attia.
He warned that such “unprofessional” burials could “suppress the truth”. He also said that, as a result, the evidence of why people were killed may be destroyed.
Dr. Attia says bodies should be identified and buried in a timely and dignified manner.
He thinks the process should be left to the health authorities, the Red Cross, and the Sudanese Red Cross instead of burying people.
It is not reasonable to bury the dead like this. Government representatives, public prosecutors, forensic experts, and the Red Cross need to be present at the burial process. It is also important to collect their DNA samples,’ he said.
He wonders how it will be possible to follow this process in a country where the health system and law and order situation have collapsed.
The two volunteers, Omar and Hamid, said they took pictures of the face and body of the deceased before burying them. They think that these may be useful in identifying them in the future.
But Dr. Attia warned that unsafe burials could also spread disease.
“If the bodies are not buried too deep, stray dogs can pull them up. The proper method of burial is not being practiced here. Hard objects or bricks should be placed inside the grave so that the dead body cannot be removed from the grave,’ he told the BBC.
But Hamid says most people in Sudan know how to bury dead bodies—”at least one meter deep in the ground.”
There are also some attempts to properly bury the war dead. A Red Cross volunteer, whom we have named Ahmed, is working to remove bodies from the road.
Dr. The bodies of Magdalene Youssef Ghali and her sister lay in their home for days.
‘I take pictures of the face and the body, record whether the person died recently or if the body is decomposed, and identify the body with a number.”
Dr. Despite Attia’s criticism, people say they have no choice but to be buried like this due to the collapse of government health infrastructure.
Videos circulated on social media on May 11 showing two Sudanese women doctors, Magdaline and Magda Youssef Ghali, being buried in their garden.
Their brother, who has not been named, told the BBC in a video call that burying his two sisters inside the house was “the only solution.”
“Their bodies were lying there for almost 12 days,” said their brother in tears.
“Neighbors say that there is a bad smell coming from our house. People then came forward to bury both of them in the same grave in the garden.”
But the teams that are doing this work are being delayed due to the war.
Apart from giving dignified burials to the dead, people are also trying to survive the war. In such a violent situation, the possibility of setting up a war crimes tribunal seems remote.
The deaths of the two sisters and the fact that their bodies were lying for a long time haunt people every day.
“My sisters were buried in a hole in the garden. “I never imagined in my life that they would ever end up like this,” said their brother.
