By Ashraf Idris, KHARTOUM
Sudan
It was a funeral no one had envisaged: Sadig Abbas’ lifeless body was lowered hastily into a shallow unmarked grave in Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, not long after dawn.
Even the few family members
and neighbors who could attend were distracted, scouring the cemetery’s
surroundings for warnings of incoming fire, recounted Awad el-Zubeer, a
neighbor of the deceased.
Thankfully, none came.
Nearly four months of violent
street battles between the Sudanese Army and the paramilitary known as the
Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have made funerals a near impossibility in Khartoum.
Amid the chaos, residents and local medical groups say corpses lie rotting in
the capital’s streets, marooned by a conflict that shows few signs of easing.
“Given these circumstances, if you asked
me exactly where his body was buried I couldn’t tell you,” said el-Zubeer.
There
is limited data on the casualties in Sudan. The country’s health minister,
Haitham Mohammed Ibrahim, said in June that the conflict has killed upward of
3,000 people but there has been no update since. The true tally is likely far
higher, say local doctors and activists.
Likewise, no medical group has
provided a toll on the number of unburied corpses, with mass graves and
widespread ethnic killings being uncovered in the country’s southern Darfur
region.
Most civilians from the
capital have been killed in crossfire, as the once sleepy city turned into an
urban battlefield, the country’s doctors union says. Others died because they
were unable to access basic medicine, while some reportedly starved to death,
imprisoned by the gun battles that raged outside.
In times of peace, their
funerals would have been large affairs lasting days. In Sudan, it is common for
thousands to pay respects to the deceased. In accordance with Sudanese Islamic
tradition, corpses are usually washed and blessed before being buried in
cemetery graves dug by family members.
Seven former and current
residents from the capital area told The Associated Press that the conflict
between the country’s two top generals, army head Gen. Abdel Fattah Burhan and
RSF commander Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, has shattered this tradition. Three of
those who spoke did so on condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisal.
Several said reaching any of
the capital’s roughly two dozen cemeteries has proved impossible when they were
trying to bury family members, friends, or those with whom they were trapped.
Over 100 university students
were caught in Khartoum University when the conflict broke out on April 15.
Khaled, a student, was shot in the chest by a stray bullet, dying shortly after
being hit, a fellow student said.
“We dragged his dead body to
the lower levels (of a building) to stop it rotting,” he said, speaking on the
condition of anonymity for fear of being targeted.
He and others then wrapped
Khaled’s remains in a makeshift Islamic burial cloth and buried him in the university
grounds beneath a tree after gaining approval from his family.
Gasin Amin Oshi, a resident
from the Beit al-Mal area in Omdurman, located just across the Nile river from
Khartoum, said a neighboring family was prevented from burying a loved one in a
nearby graveyard by RSF troops. Instead they buried the woman, who died of
natural causes, in the grounds of a school.
Most of the residents said RSF
troops, who control vast swaths of the city, often cause the disruption. In the
first days of the conflict, the army bombed RSF camps in the capital, prompting
homeless RSF fighters to commandeer civilian homes and turn them into bases.
The army, in turn, struck residential areas from the air and with artillery.
Over 2.15 million people have since fled Khartoum state according to U.N. data
El-Zubeer said Abbas, his
neighbor, was shot and killed after RSF fighters raided his home and discovered
that one of his brothers was an army officer and the other an intelligence
officer. After Abbas’ body was transferred to a hospital, he said the RSF
initially prevented the burial without giving any reason, but eventually
conceded to the family’s pleading.
But most people were either
too afraid to attend the June 30 funeral or were unaware of it, el-Zubeer said.
The country has been beset by power outages and internet blackouts since the
conflict erupted.
‘’Mobile phones are as useful
in connecting as a pack of cigarettes,” el-Zubeer said.
The RSF’s chief spokesperson,
Youssef Izzat, told AP that the leadership had not given orders to prevent
civilian burials. If any were stopped it was only because there was heavy
fighting nearby, he said.
By contrast, residents
described the paramilitary as largely lawless, often motivated by boredom and
amusement. But at times, there were acts of kindness, they said.
One resident of south Khartoum
said that despite robbing people in an uncle’s neighborhood, a band of RSF
fighters suddenly offered to transport and bury the uncle after he died of
natural causes in July.
Since June, Sudan’s Red
Crescent has been collecting and burying corpses across the capital. Taking
advantage of brief lulls in fighting, the organization said that it has
recovered and buried at least 102 bodies, mostly unidentified combatants from
both sides. The collected corpses were photographed and issued an identity
number, a Red Crescent worker said.
But with many battle-stricken
districts inaccessible, potentially thousands remain unburied in the capital,
said the international aid group Save the Children. Last month, a community
group from the capital’s northern district of Bahri called on medical groups to
collect the corpses of about 500 RSF fighters decomposing on the roads. In
south Khartoum, an AP journalist counted at least 26 bodies, mostly civilians
and RSF fighters, lying on the streets in recent weeks.
And near el-Zubeer’s
apartment, in Khartoum’s al-Sahafa neighborhod, one body had decomposed in the
open-air so long that the bones were visible, he said.
Usually, unidentified bodies
would be taken to morgues. But at least four facilities in the capital area
have been abandoned due to fighting while only five of the city’s some two
dozen hospitals are still operating, said Dr. Atia Abdalla Atia, head of the
Sudan Doctors Union.
With Sudan’s rainy season
underway, international organizations and rights groups are fearful there could
be more deaths and damage to infrastructure. Last year floods killed scores of
people.
Rotting corpses can contribute
to the contamination of water sources.
Out of desperation, many “people
now drink from wells or the River Nile,” said el-Sadig el-Nour, head of the
Islamic Relief Worldwide for Sudan.
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