Sudan Civil War: Improvised Burials in Khartoum
- Khartoum has been transformed into a city of graves as residents are forced to bury the dead in makeshift sites across the Sudanese capital.
- The proliferation of these burial sites is a result of intense fighting between the Sudanese army and a rival paramilitary faction known as the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
- In many neighborhoods, residents have had no choice but to utilize any available plot of land for burials.
Khartoum has been transformed into a city of graves as residents are forced to bury the dead in makeshift sites across the Sudanese capital. Due to the inaccessibility of official cemeteries during the ongoing civil war, thousands of victims have been interred in backyards, schools, mosques, and sidewalks.
The proliferation of these burial sites is a result of intense fighting between the Sudanese army and a rival paramilitary faction known as the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The conflict, which erupted in April 2023, has turned the Nile-front boulevards and commercial districts of the city into what reports describe as a charnel house
.
Makeshift Burial Sites
In many neighborhoods, residents have had no choice but to utilize any available plot of land for burials. Near the medical campus of the University of Sudan, a field has been filled with so many graves that it appears from above as an undulating, gravel-brown sea
.
The scale of the burials is vast, with some campus caretakers unable to provide an exact count, noting that hundreds or thousands may be buried in adjacent lots.
The desperation of the residents is exemplified by the experience of Mohammad Izzo and his sister Ikhlass, who were forced to bury their brother, Hassan, in the backyard of a school.
Scale of the Death Toll
Authorities have recovered 23,000 corpses from roads, homes, and looted areas. However, tens of thousands of other victims remain in mass graves or makeshift sites across the city.
Some estimates place the total death toll at 400,000 since the conflict began. The intensity of the urban warfare was such that many bodies were left on the streets, unable to be recovered or buried as the fighting progressed.
More than a year after the Sudanese army seized control of Khartoum, the city remains heavily scarred. The commercial district has been gutted, looted, and torched, while many surfaces in residential neighborhoods bear the marks of ordnance and shrapnel.
Forensic and Identification Challenges
The effort to identify and properly rebury the dead has been severely hampered by the destruction of infrastructure. DNA analysis laboratories have been destroyed, making the identification of victims a daunting challenge for forensic experts.
there is a critical shortage of the equipment and resources necessary to exhume and relocate bodies from makeshift sites to formal cemeteries.
The inability to properly identify and bury the deceased has added significant trauma to the residents of Khartoum, who must now deal with the psychological impact of the war alongside the physical destruction of their city.
The situation in Khartoum is part of a broader humanitarian crisis in Sudan, which has become one of the world’s most severe displacement crises since the outbreak of violence in April 2023.