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Asharq Al-Awsat
23-07-2025
- General
- Asharq Al-Awsat
Sudan Families Bury Loved Ones Twice as War Reshapes Khartoum
Under a punishing mid‑morning sun, Souad Abdallah cradles her infant and stares at a freshly opened pit in al‑Baraka square on the eastern fringe of Sudan's capital. Moments earlier the hole had served as the hurried grave of her husband – one of hundreds of people buried in playgrounds, traffic islands and vacant lots during Sudan's two‑year war. Seven months ago, Abdallah could not risk the sniper fire and checkpoints that ringed Khartoum's official cemeteries. Today she is handed her husband's remains in a numbered white body‑bag so he can receive the dignity of a proper burial. She is not alone. Families gather at the square, pointing out makeshift graves – 'my brother lies here... my mother there' – before forensic teams lift 118 bodies and load them onto flat‑bed trucks known locally as dafaar. The Sudanese war erupted on 15 April 2023 when the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the army clashed for control of Khartoum, quickly spreading to its suburbs, notably Omdurman. More than 500 civilians died in the first days and thousands more have been killed since, although no official tally exists. The army recaptured the capital on 20 May 2025, but the harder task, officials say, is re‑burying thousands of bodies scattered in mass graves, streets and public squares. 'For the next 40 days we expect to move about 7,000 bodies from across Khartoum to public cemeteries,' Dr. Hisham Zein al‑Abideen, the city's chief forensic pathologist, told Asharq Al-Awsat. He said his teams, working with the Sudanese Red Crescent, have already exhumed and re-interred some 3,500 bodies and located more than 40 mass graves. One newly discovered site at the International University of Africa in southern Khartoum contains about 7,000 RSF fighters spread over a square‑kilometer area, he added. Abdallah, a mother of three, recalled to Asharq Al-Awsat how a stray bullet pierced her bedroom window and killed her husband. 'We buried him at night, without witnesses and without a wake,' she said. 'Today I am saying goodbye again this time with honor.' Nearby, Khadija Zakaria wept as workers unearthed her sister. 'She died of natural causes, but we were barred from the cemetery, so we buried her here,' she said. Her niece and brother‑in‑law were laid in other improvised graves and are also awaiting transfer. Exhumations can be grim. After finishing at al‑Baraka, the team drives to al‑Fayhaa district, where the returning owner of an abandoned house has reported a desiccated corpse in his living room. Neighbors said it is a Rapid Support Forces (RSF) fighter shot by comrades. In another case, a body is pulled from an irrigation canal and taken straight to a cemetery. Social media rumors that authorities demand hefty fees for re‑burials are untrue, Dr. Zein al‑Abideen stressed. 'Transporting the remains is free. It is completely our responsibility,' he added. The forensic crews rotate in two shifts to cope with the fierce heat. Asked how they cope with the daily horror, one member smiled wanly over a cup of tea, saying: 'We are human. We try to find solutions amid the tragedy. If it were up to us, no family would have to mourn twice.' Khartoum today is burying bodies – and memories. 'We are laying our dead to rest and, with them, part of the pain,' Abdallah said as she left the square, her child asleep on her shoulder. 'I buried my husband twice, but we have not forgotten him for a single day. Perhaps now he can finally rest in peace.'
Washington Post
17-07-2025
- Washington Post
Drugs, blood and terror: Inside a paramilitary massacre in Sudan
SALHA, Sudan — The families had pooled their money for the convoy, hoping to escape the battle for the final piece of the Sudanese capital in late April. They had just set off when paramilitary gunmen shot out their tires at a roadblock, survivors said. The men were forced out, they recalled, then the fighters threatened to set the trucks on fire with the women and children inside. 'Everyone was crying and screaming,' said Amal Ismail, 30, holding tightly to her son, a wide-eyed boy of 10. 'We could see our husbands and brothers being beaten outside.' Soon, the killing began. At least 31 people were massacred on April 27 in Salha, a neighborhood in the city of Omdurman, across the Nile from the capital, Khartoum, survivors said. Drawing on eight eyewitness accounts and videos, as well as evidence gathered from the scene, The Washington Post has reconstructed the events of that day, documenting a bloody breakdown in discipline among Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary fighters as Sudan's military closed in. Survivors said the men who attacked had often previously been high on drugs, and may have been that day, which they believe contributed to their brutality. Sudan's civil war erupted in April 2023 after a power struggle between the head of the military and the leader of the RSF. More than 150,000 people have been killed in the conflict and over 12 million forced from their homes. Famine and disease are spreading unchecked. In the early days of fighting, civilians were rarely the main targets. But as the RSF recruited new fighters, and the military raised militias, mass killings of noncombatants became more common. Atrocities similar to those in Salha have been carried out across the country, but with few journalists still able to operate, many victims' stories remain untold. The use of drugs by irregular fighters has introduced a dangerous new variable to an already lawless battlefield. In May, reporters visited a makeshift factory recently recaptured by the army where authorities said the RSF had been producing Captagon, a synthetic stimulant that contains amphetamine. 'We knew the RSF in our neighborhood who had been there for two years and they did not bother the community,' said Juma Mohamed Ismail, a lawyer from Salha. But earlier this year, he said, new fighters arrived who had been pushed out of other parts of the city. The new guys, he said, 'took a lot of pills.' The RSF did not respond to requests for comment. What happened in Salha reveals how RSF leaders are increasingly failing to assert command and control, leaving civilians to pay the price. A maze of sandy residential streets and small businesses, Salha was one of the first areas seized by the RSF during the war. It fell largely without a fight, sparing residents the wholesale destruction visited on other parts of the capital. Just over a year ago, the military began retaking Khartoum piece by piece. As its advance accelerated in the spring, roads and markets near Salha shut down. 'There was nothing. No food, no water, no medicine,' said Jalal Siraj, a 50-year-old truck driver who was part of the convoy. Different RSF fighters, many from neighboring South Sudan, began pouring in. 'The new guys were selling drugs everywhere — in shops, in the market. They would sniff powder, even young boys like 13. And then they would bother the ladies,' said 25-year-old Rihab Ismail, Juma's middle sister. 'I saw them shoot a boy who was just standing at the gate of his house, for no reason,' said Rukiya Kharif, a mother of four. At the end of May, a police escort took Post reporters to an abandoned, half-constructed apartment building in the neighborhood of Bahri, 15 miles northeast of Salha, on the other side of the Nile. Strewn around the building were packages of white powder marked 'animal feed supplement' and 'manufactured in Syria.' In the last years of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad's rule, that country became a leading producer of Captagon. Mixers and an industrial pill press had been set up there, and crate-loads of new equipment broken open. Police said the factory could produce 100,000 Captagon pills per hour. High and drunk at all hours, the RSF recruits in Salha would shoot off their guns at random, Juma said, forcing him to hustle inside with his children. Within their sunbaked walls, they were safe from bullets but not from the heat. 'Too dangerous outside, too hot inside, miserable everywhere,' he said. Siraj Ali, 53, said his uncle approached the longtime RSF commander in the area and explained their predicament. The commander offered them guards, according to Ali, but his uncle said there wouldn't be enough to protect every household. Juma's eldest sister, Amal, said the families paid the commander $1,200 for permission to leave. Ali's uncle called the military to negotiate crossing the front lines. The Ismail family gathered just before dawn with their friends and neighbors, between 250 and 300 people in all, survivors said. The women and children were loaded into the depths of two trucks, normally used to transport cattle; the men were on top for protection. Two RSF vehicles escorted them, one in front and one behind. After only 500 yards, they hit an RSF checkpoint. The men there were behaving erratically, the Ismail sisters said; they seemed to be hopped up on drugs. Most of their RSF escorts quickly abandoned them, Amal recounted, but two remained. She said one pleaded with his fellow fighters not to set the trucks ablaze, and to release the women and children. 'I am a father and I cannot see this happen,' she remembered him saying. The men in the convoy were forced to strip off their shirts, the women said, then beaten. A video geolocated by The Post to the scene of the roadblock shows a group of terrified men surrounded by jeering fighters. 'Don't beat them. Kill them. Don't compromise. Kill, kill!' say the armed men in the video. The sisters identified a man in blue shorts as their brother Mohamed, a 28-year-old shopkeeper. They said he was killed that day along with their younger brother, 20-year-old Adam. The fighters separated the men and women and took them to different buildings, survivors recalled. The sisters said the women were searched for cash, and told that if they hid it they would be killed. Their phones were inspected for online bank accounts; those without battery power were charged so the accounts could be emptied. Two of Siraj's sisters were beaten to death, witnesses later told him. He said he was marched away to an RSF prison and never found their bodies. Ali was taken with the men to another building nearby, he said, and held with six others. Their captors shot dead one of the men, Yusuf Hassan, for no reason, Ali said. In the next room over, two survivors said, an RSF militiaman laughed as he threw a grenade in their direction, but it did not explode. The fighters demanded to know who had organized the convoy. When they identified Ali, the RSF fighters forced him outside, he said, screaming that the group was smuggling weapons for the army. Ali said he frantically assured the gunmen that the families had no ties to the military, that they were only trying to escape. He showed them the document from the RSF commander guaranteeing their safe passage. The fighters just laughed and beat him, Ali said, shooting around his feet. Soon, seven RSF military police arrived on the scene: 'They tried to stop it but the others were out of control,' Ali said. The police dragged Ali to a makeshift prison a couple hundred yards away. The rest of the captives were left to their fate. In a bare room behind a girls' high school, Ali said he watched through a hole in the door as a couple dozen men from the convoy were marched past the gate. Then they passed out of sight. 'Suddenly, I heard a lot of shooting, at least 15 guns altogether,' Ali said. 'The guards came back inside and said, 'We have just killed your people.'' Amal's 10-year-old son described seeing a large pile of bodies near the school. The RSF told him they had been killed by a drone strike, he said. A video verified by The Post shows the men being marched along the street, taunted and beaten by RSF fighters. A second video shows at least 19 lifeless bodies, including some of the same men, jumbled on top of each other. 'It's the 27th of April 2025. History will never forget us doing this work,' one of the RSF fighters can be heard saying in the video. In another video, a bearded man in uniform films himself in front of the bodies. 'I am the one who gave permission to kill these people,' he says proudly. 'Anyone who has any problem, let him come to me.' The men 'had to be on drugs,' Siraj said. 'Sudanese people do not just kill for nothing.' At least 31 people died that day, locals said. Among them: A computer graduate who studied in India. A recently married mechanic. A father and his 4-year-old son. The true toll was probably higher. Witnesses said other captives were taken away and many have not been seen again. Salha has no phone network. The survivors have scattered. No one knows how many are missing, or how to trace them. As news of the massacre trickled out, the RSF moved quickly into damage-control mode. The group has sought to portray itself as a defender of human rights and democracy fighting a repressive military regime. 'The soldiers in the video are not from the RSF at all,' senior RSF adviser Elbasha Tbaeq said in a message posted to X on the night of the killings. The post was later taken down. The commander who had filmed himself in front of the bodies posted a nearly seven-minute video to TikTok the next day, again claiming responsibility. 'My name is Jar El Nabi Abdullah,' he says in the video, reclining in an armchair with a turban and sunglasses. 'The people who said this killing was not RSF — I'm from the RSF. My [badge] number is 50139136.' He said the convoy had been concealing small arms, but provided no evidence. He accused some of the families of being related to members of the Al-Bara' ibn Malik Battalion, a military-affiliated militia whose members have filmed themselves sawing the heads off captives and mutilating bodies. 'It is allowed for you to behead and it's not allowed for me to kill?' he asked in the video. Eight of the surviving adults from the convoy, as well and friends and relatives of the dead and missing, said they had no ties to the militia. They added that their only contact with the military had come when they were trying to organize their movement across the front lines. Ali was sure he would be killed. But after he spent hours of interrogation in the RSF prison, his brother scraped together $800 and bought his freedom, he said. Weeks later, he took reporters back to the roadblock. The neighborhood had been retaken by the military just days before. The corpses of RSF fighters still lay in the streets. The things families had taken with them were scattered about. There were clothes and papers in the sand. Dental records, schoolbooks, driving licenses and family photographs were jumbled up with bullet casings. And there were two freshly dug, unmarked graves — one for an adult and one for a child. Ali said 16 members of his family were killed that day. He bent down to pick up a small green shirt, the wind whipping his long white djellaba. 'This belongs to my cousin's son Ahmed,' he said. 'He was 7 years old.' He pressed the shirt to his chest. 'Praise God, he survived.' Jonathan Baran in San Francisco contributed to this report.
Russia Today
09-06-2025
- Politics
- Russia Today
Mass graves uncovered in war-torn African state
At least 117 mass graves have been discovered across the Sudanese capital Khartoum, amid escalating civil conflict, local news agency Sudan Tribune reported on Saturday. A state government official, who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue, said that the bodies were buried in improvised locations, including homes and open streets, because conventional cemeteries are now overrun or inaccessible due to the fighting. The graves vary significantly in size, with some containing only a few bodies and others reportedly holding dozens. Earlier this year, authorities began the process of exhuming bodies from mass graves in parts of Omdurman, the second-largest city of the country. In May, 465 bodies of civilians were also discovered in the Al-Salihah area of Omdurman. Since April 2023, Sudan has been gripped by fierce fighting between the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), with both factions vying for control amid a stalled transition to civilian rule. According to Reuters, citing the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), more than four million people have fled Sudan since the outbreak of the war. Estimates of fatalities vary, though research from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine suggests that over 61,000 people were killed in the state of Khartoum alone during the first 14 months of the conflict. Local media have reported a death toll as high as 130,000. In March, the commander of the RSF, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, declared that the country's two-year civil war was far from over, despite the national army regaining control of major infrastructure in the capital.
Al Jazeera
03-06-2025
- Business
- Al Jazeera
‘Corpses rotting in the Nile' as cholera tears through Sudan
After Sudan's army recaptured the national capital region of Khartoum in March, tens of thousands of people returned to check on their homes and reunite with loved ones. The joy of returning was tempered by the shock of seeing the damage caused during nearly two years under the control of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary group that has been fighting the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), recognised by many Sudanese and the UN as the de facto authority in Sudan, since April 2023. In a region whose hospitals and food and medicine stores had been systematically plundered by the RSF, many returnees started falling sick. Many of the returnees had settled in Omdurman, one of the national capital's three cities, where living conditions were slightly better than in the other cities. This is because several localities in Omdurman never came under the RSF's control, insulating it from heavy clashes, pillaging, and looting. Omdurman quickly became overcrowded, with 'thousands of people [returning] from Egypt alone', according to Dr Dirar Abeer, a member of Khartoum's Emergency Response Rooms, neighbourhood committees spearheading relief efforts across the country. The crowding, Dr Abeer said, meant an accelerated spread of cholera, an acute, highly contagious diarrhoeal infection that is endemic to Sudan and can be fatal if not treated. 'In areas south of the Nile in Omdurman, there are a lot of corpses rotting next to [or in] the Nile, and this has [partially] caused the spread of infection,' said Badawi, a volunteer in Omdurman who declined to give his full name due to the sensitivity of speaking in a warzone. Cholera has become an epidemic in Sudan, spreading in several states, including White Nile and Gadarif, and killing hundreds in the last two weeks. As in Khartoum, the spread was fuelled by overcrowding and a lack of essential services in these regions. The waterborne disease could be stopped with basic sanitation and provisions, said Fazli Kostan, the project coordinator for Doctors Without Borders, known by its French initials MSF. 'But that's not really possible right now,' he told Al Jazeera, referring to a lack of electricity to pump water since Omdurman's electricity grids went down on May 14. The RSF had fired a barrage of suicide drones that day, which took out major power stations and grids, consequently shutting down water treatment plants and causing a sharp rise in cases. Deprived of safe drinking and bathing water, people have resorted to drinking contaminated water from the Nile, as well as scooping up water from the ground after it rains, Badawi said. The SAF-backed Ministry of Health (MoH) reported a huge surge in daily cholera cases in the national capital region between May 15 and May 25, with at least 172 people dying between May 20 and May 27. The UN says daily cases spiked from 90 to more than 815 in the latter half of May. Those who contract the disease often rush to the nearest hospital, further straining an already overwhelmed and ill-equipped health sector. However, local volunteers said many people do not experience life-threatening symptoms and that they would be better off staying at home and isolating themselves. The overcrowding at hospitals has further exacerbated the spread of the disease and overstrained the already collapsing health sector, they explained. 'We do not have enough medication or medical tools, and the rate of people coming to the hospitals is far more than we can handle,' said Kareem al-Noor, a medic at al-Nao hospital in Omdurman. 'The [remaining hospitals] are at full capacity and people are also waiting for treatment, crowded on the streets,' al-Noor added. Dr Abeer feels the SAF-backed health authorities are not doing enough to tackle the epidemic. While she acknowledged that the health sector was largely destroyed by the RSF, she believes the current health authorities could be doing more. Al Jazeera submitted written questions to Dr Montasser Towarra, the MoH spokesperson, asking him what measures the ministry is undertaking to help volunteers and to provide basic provisions. He had not answered by the time of publication. Sudan is also suffering an acute hunger crisis. Since the civil war, millions of Sudanese have struggled to feed their families due to spoiled harvests, the systematic looting of markets and food aid and the destruction of homes and livelihoods. According to the UN, about 25 million people – more than half the population – currently suffer extreme food shortages. Hunger can weaken bodies and lead to an acute increase in contagious diseases, according to Alex De Waal, an expert on Sudan and famine. He noted that civilians – especially children – have always been more likely to die from diseases if they are also on the brink of starvation. 'We could see an excess of hundreds of thousands of deaths [due to these factors] over the next year,' warned De Waal. The UN has also warned that up to one million children could die from cholera unless the spread is thwarted quickly. The only way to thwart the health crisis is to repair basic provisions such as electricity and sewage systems to improve sanitation, said De Waal. However, he believes that repairing essential services is not a priority for the army, which remains the de facto authority. Al Jazeera sent written questions to SAF spokesperson, Nabil Abdullah, to ask if the army is planning on repairing vital resources such as bombed electricity grids. Abdullah said, 'These questions are not for the army, but for the Ministry of Health.' Tawarra from the MoH also did not respond to these questions. De Waal suspects the army is prioritising combat operations against the RSF. 'My sense is the army is too stretched financially and organisationally to prioritise anything other than fighting the war,' he told Al Jazeera.
The National
29-05-2025
- General
- The National
Cholera outbreak deepens fears for children in Sudan's capital
A developing cholera outbreak in Sudan 's war-ravaged capital has claimed 70 lives in two days, officials said on Thursday, as a UN agency warned that more than a million children are at risk in the city. The Khartoum Health Ministry said it recorded 942 new infections and 25 deaths on Wednesday, following 1,177 cases and 45 deaths on Tuesday. The surge in infections is widely blamed on drone strikes by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) that knocked out the water and electricity supply across the Nile-side capital. The capital has been a major battleground throughout two years of war between the Sudanese armed forces and the RSF, which last week lost its last footholds in the capital's greater region. Two months ago, the army regained control of the heart of the capital, ending the presence the RSF had had there since the opening days of the war. The Sudanese capital comprises three cities; Khartoum, Omdurman and Bahri; Khartoum is the name commonly used to refer to the three combined. Wartime destruction Cholera, an acute diarrhoeal illness caused by ingesting contaminated water or food, can kill within hours if untreated. It is easily preventable and treatable when clean water, sanitation and timely medical care are available. But the capital's health and sanitation infrastructure are barely functioning. Up to 90 per cent of hospitals in the conflict's main battlegrounds have been forced out of service by the fighting. The federal Health Ministry reported 172 deaths from cholera in the week to Tuesday, 90 per cent of them in the capital. The disease is endemic to Sudan, but outbreaks have become worse and more frequent since the war broke out in April 2023. Unicef, the UN agency for women and children, said in a Thursday report that 7,700 cases of cholera have been reported in the capital area, including 1,000 of children under five, since January this year. Cholera-related deaths numbered 185 in the capital over the same period, it said. Risk to children More than 1,700 people died of cholera in 12 of Sudan's 18 states since August 2024, when authorities declared an epidemic, said Unicef. The total number of cases stands at 65,200, it added. It said the threat of famine looms over two areas in the capital: Jabal Aoulyah and Khartoum. The two are home to a third of the 307,000 children suffering from malnutrition, it said. "Estimates point to more than one million children living in the worst-affected areas of the state of Khartoum," it added. Of these, 26,500 are suffering acute malnutrition. "For children weakened by hunger, cholera or any other disease can be deadly unless immediately treated," it added. Aid agencies are warning that without urgent action, the spread of disease is likely to worsen with the arrival of the rainy season next month, which severely limits humanitarian access. The war between the RSF and the army has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced 13 million since it broke out. The displaced include at least three million who fled the capital.
