Sudanese medical officials warned on Tuesday that the more than 1,500 unidentified bodies piling up in various morgues across the country could spread disease, while the government is accused of covering up the causes of these deaths.
Among the dead are believed to be pro-democracy protesters, who activists say were killed by government forces in their crackdown on the demonstrations.
For these activists, the lack of proper autopsies is an attempt to hide the evidence of these deaths.
Mahjoub Babaker, a forensic consultant and toxicologist with the country’s autopsy corps, raised concerns about the proximity of one of the morgues to a market, saying the bodies “could spread cholera among local residents.”
At a news conference Tuesday, Babaker and three other officials argued against the need for independent autopsies, saying instead there should be a mass burial of the bodies for public safety reasons.
They announced a postponement of the autopsies to discuss matters with the families of the deceased. Reports of bodies piled up awaiting autopsy first surfaced in May, with news images released earlier this month showing piles of corpses stored in a building, apparently without refrigeration. Then the country’s top prosecutor authorized the mass burial of the bodies last month, without an autopsy.
A decision that was made as the country faced a continuing crackdown on anti-militarist protests following a military coup last year. In October, Sudan’s brief democratic transition was interrupted when the country’s top general, Abdel-Fattah al-Burhan, ousted the government and arrested hundreds of officials and activists.
Pro-democracy groups and families of the missing protesters said the lack of proper autopsies is an attempt to hide evidence of the deaths of hundreds of pro-democracy protesters at the hands of the Sudanese armed forces following the popular uprising. of 2019 that deposed the ruler. of Omar al-Bashir for a long time.
In June 2019, the Rapid Support Forces, a powerful armed paramilitary group, opened fire on a group of protesters in Khartoum, killing more than 100 people.
The prosecutor’s decision in May sparked several demonstrations outside morgues by pro-democracy groups. On Sunday, the Sudanese Medical Committee, which has been tracking the deaths and injuries of protesters since the coup, held a protest outside the prosecutor’s office.
In a statement, the group called for the suspension of all burials until “an independent and reliable international forensic team is recovered, which protects the rights of the disappeared and their families, and seeks to reach the truth and achieve justice.”
Source: TSF
