Sudan: scores of bodies found rotting at hospital morgue in Khartoum

Corpses suspected to be of people missing since June 2019 crackdown on sit-in protest

A holds a picture of Abdulsalam Kisha, a Sudanese protester who was killed in a raid on an anti-government sit-in in 2019 during a protest in the Riyadh district in eastern Khartoum on the anniversaryShow more

At least 100 bodies thought to be people killed in a crackdown on a sit-in protest in Khartoum nearly two years ago were found rotting in a hospital morgue, security sources said.

The remains will probably be buried in a mass grave this week.

The unidentified bodies, kept at a morgue not far from Khartoum airport, began to decompose over the past few days because of power cuts affecting the Sudanese capital.

Residents of the area have been staging nightly street protests to demand that the bodies be taken away because of the growing stench and health hazard.

Security forces dismantled the sit-in outside the Sudanese armed forces headquarters in Khartoum in June 2019.

The protest was intended to pressure the army generals who removed longtime dictator Omar Al Bashir two months earlier into handing over power to civilians.

The incident has since been the subject of several investigations to identify those responsible for the violence that led to the deaths of scores of protesters.

The head of the committee for the missing, Judge Al Tayeb Al Abbas, said on Monday that he wanted authorities to test the DNA of the bodies at the morgue before their burial.

The officials said authorities selected a site outside Khartoum for the burial once a judicial permit is secured.

The generals and pro-democracy groups who orchestrated mass protests in the months leading to Mr Al Bashir's removal formed a military-civilian transitional government months after the crackdown.

The government says 87 people were killed but an opposition union of doctors says the number is closer to 130.

Scores of people went missing.

Last November, authorities uncovered a mass grave close to the site of the sit-in.

The bodies included at least 25 men who were killed and buried in an “inhumane” manner, according to a committee created by the attorney general who looked into the missing.

The sit-in attracted a wide range of Khartoum residents and hundreds of homeless people drawn by free food and medical care.