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In Sudan, volunteers help families give war dead proper burials

In Sudan, volunteers help families give war dead proper burials

In Sudan's war-scarred capital Khartoum, Red Crescent volunteers have begun the grisly task of exhuming the dead from makeshift plots where they were buried during the fighting so their families can give them a proper funeral.
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Teams of workers in dust-streaked white hazmat suits comb vacant lots, looking for the spots where survivors say they buried their loved ones.
Mechanical diggers peel back layers of earth under the watchful eye of Hisham Zein al-Abdeen, head of the city's forensic medicine department.
'We're finding graves everywhere – in front of homes, inside schools and mosques,' he said, surveying the scene.
'Every day we discover new ones.'
Members of the Sudanese Red Crescent and forensic experts exhume the remains of people from makeshift graves for reburial in the local cemetery in Khartoum's southern suburb of al-Azhari on August 2. Photo: AFP
Here, in the southern neighbourhood of Al-Azhari, families buried their loved ones wherever they could, as fighting raged between the regular army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
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In Sudan, volunteers help families give war dead proper burials
In Sudan, volunteers help families give war dead proper burials

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In Sudan, volunteers help families give war dead proper burials

In Sudan's war-scarred capital Khartoum, Red Crescent volunteers have begun the grisly task of exhuming the dead from makeshift plots where they were buried during the fighting so their families can give them a proper funeral. Advertisement Teams of workers in dust-streaked white hazmat suits comb vacant lots, looking for the spots where survivors say they buried their loved ones. Mechanical diggers peel back layers of earth under the watchful eye of Hisham Zein al-Abdeen, head of the city's forensic medicine department. 'We're finding graves everywhere – in front of homes, inside schools and mosques,' he said, surveying the scene. 'Every day we discover new ones.' Members of the Sudanese Red Crescent and forensic experts exhume the remains of people from makeshift graves for reburial in the local cemetery in Khartoum's southern suburb of al-Azhari on August 2. Photo: AFP Here, in the southern neighbourhood of Al-Azhari, families buried their loved ones wherever they could, as fighting raged between the regular army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

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