Over 100 fatalities in Sudan conflict buried unidentified: Red Crescent

The Sudanese Red Crescent has declared the continuous fighting in Sudan's troubled areas of capital Khartoum and Darfur has led volunteers to bury 180 bodies recovered from combat zones without identifying them.

Despite repeated claims by both rival military chiefs, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, of protecting civilians and securing human rights, volunteers have buried 102 unidentified bodies in the capital's Al-Shegilab cemetery and 78 more in cemeteries in Darfur, the organization announced in a Friday statement.

It added, however, that Red Crescent volunteers – supported by the International Committee of the Red Cross -- have found it difficult to move through the streets to pick up the dead, “due to security constraints,” the Red Crescent said.

Last month, while discussing peace talks in Saudi Arabia, the two rivals had agreed to “enable responsible humanitarian actors, such as the Sudanese Red Crescent and/or the International Committee of the Red Cross to collect, register and bury the deceased in coordination with competent authorities”.

Ever since the conflict between Sudan’s two rival generals erupted on April 15, more than 1,800 people have been killed in the fighting, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project.

According to medics and aid agencies, the actual death toll is projected to be much higher, considering the number of bodies abandoned in areas that were unreachable.

On Friday, the UN Security Council called on the rival parties to put an end to the fighting, as clashes continued in Khartoum after the collapse of talks to maintain a ceasefire and ease a humanitarian crisis.

In a press statement agreed by the 15-member body in New York expressed “deep concern” over the clashes and condemned all attacks on civilians, UN personnel and humanitarian agencies.

The council “emphasized the need for the parties to immediately cease hostilities, facilitate humanitarian access and establish a permanent ceasefire arrangement and to resume the process towards reaching a lasting, inclusive, and democratic political settlement in Sudan,” the statement said.

The statement also added that the council agreed upon extending the mandate of the UN Integrated Transition Assistance Mission in Sudan, but only for six months.

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