Some Khartoum residents have become accidental undertakers to stop corpses being left on the streets.
After seven weeks of a bitter battle for control of Sudan's capital, some Khartoum residents are grappling with a problem they never envisaged - what do with all the dead bodies which are piling up on the city's streets."I have buried three people inside their own houses, and the rest just by the entrance of the road that I live on," said Omar, whose name we have changed.
Last month, Omar dug graves for four people by a road just a few metres away from his house in the al-Imtidad district of Khartoum. He said he knew of other people who had to do the same in nearby neighbourhoods. "I was in the area by chance. A group of five people and myself moved the corpses away from the debris, and buried them in an area surrounded by residential buildings."
He warned that these "amateurish" methods of burial could "bury the truth", adding that clues of how people died could be destroyed.He insisted people should leave the burial process to the health authorities, the Red Cross and the Sudanese Red Crescent. The two volunteers, Omar and Hamid, both said they take photographs of the faces and bodies of the dead before they bury them, which can help identification in the future."Burying the dead at a shallow level makes the graves more likely to be exhumed by stray dogs. The correct way of burying isn't applied here, because a solid object or bricks need to be placed in the grave to prevent the bodies being exposed," he told the BBC.
On 11 May, videos circulated on social media showing the burial of two Sudanese female doctors, Magdolin and Magda Youssef Ghali, in their garden.
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