KHARTOUM — In Sudan’s war-scarred capital Khartoum, Red Crescent volunteers have begun the grisly task of exhuming the dead from makeshift plots where they were buried during the fighting so their families can give them a proper funeral.

Teams of workers in dust-streaked white hazmat suits comb vacant lots, looking for the spots where survivors say they buried their loved ones.

Mechanical diggers peel back layers of earth under the watchful eye of Hisham Zein al-Abdeen, head of the city’s forensic medicine department.

“We’re finding graves everywhere—in front of homes, inside schools and mosques,” he told AFP, surveying the scene.

“Every day we discover new ones.”

Here, in the southern neighbourhood of Al-Azhari, families buried their loved ones wherever they could, as fighting raged between the regular army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

When war broke out in April 2023, the RSF quickly swept through Khartoum, occupying entire districts as residents fled air and artillery bombardments and street fighting.

In March, the army and its allies recaptured the capital in a fierce offensive.

It is only now, after the front lines of the conflict moved elsewhere, that bereaved families can give their loved ones a proper burial.