180 dead from Sudan fighting buried unidentified as battles rage

KHARTOUM: Blasts rocked the Sudanese capital Saturday, as fighting between warring generals entered its eighth week, with volunteers forced to bury 180 bodies recovered from combat zones without identification.

Witnesses told AFP of “bombs falling and civilians being injured” in southern Khartoum, while others in the city´s north reported “artillery fire”, days after a US- and Saudi-brokered ceasefire collapsed.

Since fighting between Sudan´s warring generals erupted on April 15, volunteers have buried 102 unidentified bodies in the capital’s Al-Shegilab cemetery and 78 more in cemeteries in Darfur, the Sudanese Red Crescent said in a statement.

Both regular army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his deputy-turned-rival, paramilitary commander Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, have issued repeated pledges to protect civilians and secure humanitarian corridors. But civilians reported escalated fighting after the army quit ceasefire talks on Wednesday, including a single army bombardment that killed 18 civilians in a Khartoum market, according to a committee of human rights lawyers.