Sudan .. New details in the case of decomposing bodies in the morgue, south of Khartoum

The crisis of unidentified corpses that piled up in a morgues south of the Sudanese capital interacts on a daily basis until they decomposed and lent pungent odors, exacerbating the suffering of hundreds of residents of adjacent neighborhoods who told Al-Jazeera Net that they smelled the smell of death daily.

Some residents of the neighborhood were forced to leave their homes near the hospital, which placed the mortuary container in the outside yard, which increased the spread of unpleasant odors in the vicinity of the place, and others were forced to cancel Ramadan breakfast in the street according to what they are used to annually, as it is difficult in light of the situation It is hospitalized. Read also An investigation by Al-Jazeera Net .. One year after the dispersal of the General Command sit-in in Khartoum, what happened to the missing and who hid them?Sudan: The investigation committee to disperse the sit-in requests the appearance of the Sovereignty Council’s military Sudan is on the threshold of 2021 … political and economic pitfalls exhausting the government of quarrelsome partners Nertiti sit-in in Darfur … “Clean Earth” seeks security

Al-Jazeera Net reviewed the latest developments in the “Al-Tamayuz” hospital, which is also known as the Academic Hospital in Al-Imtad suburb south of the capital, where 3 medical teams are working on autopsies and taking DNA samples before giving the body a number in preparation for the burial process.

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Doctors stopped working

However, on Thursday, doctors stopped working “due to the prosecution’s delay in obtaining burial permits for about 30 bodies whose autopsy and preparation operations have been completed,” says Muhammad Hashem, a member of the Resistance Committee and one of the neighborhood’s residents. To be received.

He adds to Al-Jazeera Net from inside the hospital morgue that the doctors have been making tremendous efforts for days, but they refused to continue the autopsy because there is no place to place the bodies inside the morgue, and that there are other obstacles that hinder the procedures for concealing bodies, including the delay of the Ministry of Endowments in providing grave “evidence” on Thursday, which arrived to the hospital. More than 30 of them, Al-Jazeera Net stood up for their digitization and preparation.

Hashem does not deny that the features of many of the bodies have been erased after their complete decomposition due to the power failure and the presence of the container in the yard under a scorching sun, but he points to the presence of a specialized medical team working on analyzing teeth and obtaining from them the information that helps in identification.

The director of the morgue of the academic hospital, Ishraqa Ibrahim, says that 50 of the bodies in the morgue belong to foreigners from the state of South Sudan, and that the decomposed bodies of up to 154 are present in the external refrigerator as a result of the power outage for long hours, indicating in press statements that a complete sterilization of the morgue has been conducted The bodies are numbered with preams and serial numbers.

After the wide echo and anger left by the case of the decomposing bodies, the Public Prosecution set two weeks for the completion of the autopsy and burial, but although the specified period is nearing the end, only 10 of them have been buried, while thirty others are awaiting burial permits from the prosecution.

Reciprocal accusations

The relevant medical authorities and the Public Prosecution exchange accusations of responsibility regarding the situation of the unidentified bodies crisis, as the prosecution says that the situation of the morgues in the capital, Khartoum, has become a threat to the environment, and it has alerted all relevant authorities to rectify the matter to no avail.

The prosecution said in a statement following the developments in the morgue that its investigations revealed a defect with regard to the morgues in Khartoum, and that the capacity of all four morgues in the capital does not exceed 100, but there is an increase in the number of unidentified bodies, which made the capacity of the morgues to reach 400%. Advertising

The Public Prosecution Office spoke about disagreements within the forensic medicine institution in Khartoum, which led to the failure to implement the Public Prosecution’s directives regarding dealing with unidentified corpses.

The statement confirmed that numerous meetings were held between the Attorney General and the forensic medicine officials in the presence of a member of the Sovereignty Council, Aisha Musa, but disputes within the forensic medicine body remained persistent, which exacerbated the odor problem in the academic morgue.

The Public Prosecution warned that its task is limited to issuing autopsy and burial orders, and the importance of working with the protocols followed internationally, to determine the causes of death and raise the genetic fingerprint.

The missing sit

The academic hospital corpses crisis was not the first of its kind, as Wad Madani Hospital in Al-Jazirah State in central Sudan witnessed a similar incident last February, when 168 of the unidentified bodies that had dissolved in the morgue were discovered.

In Bashair Hospitals in the south of the capital and Omdurman Hospital, morgues are also experiencing the same congestion crisis, waiting for the working team at the Academic Hospital to finish their duties to move there and start the autopsy and numbering operations in preparation for burial.

In many cases, the link between the unidentified bodies and the issue of dispersing the sit-in of the General Command on June 3, 2019, when heavy regular forces attacked thousands of peaceful protesters in the vicinity of the Sudanese army leadership, and in this incident at least 200 people were killed, dozens were injured and a number lost. else.

According to Muhammad Hashem, officials in the academic hospital morgue confirmed that there were two bodies of missing persons in the sit-in dispersal that were identified.

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who is in Charge?

In a joint statement, the Resistance Committees raise questions about the identity of the dead, the causes and the context of their death, how their bodies reached the “mortuary of excellence” and the rest of the other morgues, and the methods that were followed in recording and documenting the condition in which the bodies were at the moment they arrived to the morgue, and whether they came individually or individually. Collectively, are all of these cases registered in police officers or hospitals?

It also wonders about the procedures that have been taken regarding timely accountability and legal accountability, which are supposed to affect everyone who caused, participated in, or covered up this disaster. The committees, which have been carrying out sit-ins for long days, call among many demands to move the morgue from its current location.

The Resistance Committees – popular organizations formed in the Sudanese neighborhoods and villages during the Sudanese revolution that toppled the rescue regime headed by the ousted President Omar Al-Bashir in April 2019 – stress that the responsibility extends to the Public Prosecution, the Ministry of Health, the “forensic medicine authority” and any other party that ordered, supported or implemented The decision not to autopsy unidentified corpses and to stop autopsy and burial procedures, despite prior knowledge of the limited capacity of the morgues.

However, lawyer and lawyer Moez Hadrah told Al-Jazeera Net that responsibility for the accumulation of bodies in a number of Khartoum hospitals rests with the Forensic Medicine Authority, as it is responsible for the morgues, but it is experiencing deep internal disputes between its central and state branches.

He tells Al-Jazeera Net that placing a morgue in the academic hospital in the middle of a residential neighborhood is a gross mistake from the ground up, and indicates that the prosecution – after it was discovered during a period of time that unknown bodies are buried without taking the basic data – prevented any body from being buried before autopsy and taking a sample from DNA and photographing its basic features according to internationally recognized laws.

Hazrat explains that the burial of the bodies is carried out in accordance with a protocol established by the Red Cross, and the Public Prosecution Office is currently working with it and is based on opening a communication in the event of an unknown body, then dissecting and photographing it, and then the burial takes place, which is supported by the rulings and teachings of Islam.