KHARTOUM (AFP) – A foul odor emanates from a sewage pit in a war-torn neighborhood of Khartoum, as Red Crescent workers struggle to retrieve a bloated corpse from underground.
Volunteers say 14 other bodies remain buried.
Khartoum State’s forensic director, Hisham Zein al-Abidine, told AFP at the site that some bodies “show signs of gunshots to their heads and have shattered skulls.”
He added that the victims were either shot or beaten to death before being thrown into the pit.
Behind him, a truck bed was filling up with bodies recovered from the sewage pit in East Nile, one of Khartoum’s eastern areas now reduced to rubble.
The ongoing war between the army and Rapid Support Forces (RSF) for over two years has caused extensive damage to large areas of land.
Since the war began, more than 3.5 million people have fled Khartoum, once a vibrant city, according to the UN.
Millions more who are unable or unwilling to leave live among abandoned buildings, car wrecks, and what the army calls hidden mass graves.
Destroyed City
The war between army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his former deputy, RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, has continued since April 2023.
The fighting has killed tens of thousands and displaced more than 12 million people, according to UN figures, with many living in temporary camps while over 3.5 million have fled across borders.
The RSF initially seized Khartoum, but in recent months, the army has regained control of areas including Bahri, known as North Khartoum, and the East Nile area to the east.
Currently, army units in central Khartoum are less than one kilometer away from the presidential palace, which RSF forces captured at the start of the war.
Despite these gains, Daglo remains defiant, vowing that his forces will not withdraw from the capital.
Daglo pledged in a Telegram message that his forces “will not leave the Republican Palace.”
He added, “We are coming to Port Sudan,” located on the Red Sea, where the government has been based since Khartoum fell.
An AFP team, escorted by the military, traveled from Omdurman, Khartoum’s twin city recaptured by the army last year, to Bahri and its war-torn suburbs.
The convoy passed through deserted and eerie neighborhoods, including Haj Youssef, where closed shop frames and crumbling sidewalks line the streets.
Debris, wreckage, and abandoned tires litter the streets.
Small groups of people sit every few streets in front of empty, bullet-riddled buildings and shops.
Hospitals and schools have ceased operations. The army says it has found several mass graves, one in an Omdurman courthouse.
The civilians who remain in the city appear shell-shocked by the war.
Salha Shams al-Din, who lives near the pit where RSF forces dumped bodies, said, “I heard gunshots at night several times and saw them throwing bodies into the well.”
Hunger
For those who survived and witnessed the army’s recapture of the area early this month, life still poses ongoing challenges.
Electricity is cut off, and clean water and food are scarce.
On a quiet street in Bahri, about 40 women sit under a temporary tent preparing breakfast meals in a community kitchen, one of many that struggled under RSF control.
The women prepare porridge and lentils in large pots over wood fires.
Gas is no longer available. Water trucks now come from Omdurman, a notable improvement compared to when residents risked sniper fire to reach the Nile River, which itself poses health risks due to the lack of sanitation services.
Community kitchens have become the last line of defense for starving civilians, according to the UN. But they have struggled to survive throughout the war.
With roads cut off, markets destroyed, and RSF fighters robbing volunteers at gunpoint, feeding those in need became nearly impossible.
Moayed al-Haj, a volunteer at a community kitchen in Shambat neighborhood, said, “During RSF control, we had funding problems because they confiscated money transferred through banking apps.”
He added, “But now the situation is different. Phone networks are working, and every two weeks we go to Omdurman to bring supplies” for the kitchen.
What began as a power struggle between Burhan and Daglo has turned into the world’s largest displacement and hunger crisis.
The war has destroyed Sudan’s infrastructure and collapsed its already fragile economy, pushing millions to the brink of starvation.
Famine has been declared in three displaced persons camps, according to the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC).
In Khartoum alone, at least 100,000 people are experiencing famine conditions, according to the IPC.
