In a makeshift morgue in Khartoum, engineer-turned-mortician Ali Gebbai scrolls through a spreadsheet listing thousands of dead. Each entry includes a photo and burial site, recording the harrowing toll of Sudan's war. When volunteers find a body, they post on social media and wait 72 hours, hoping relatives will recognize the person and claim them.
Volunteers' Grim Work
"We photograph every body. We check pockets for identification, and mark the burial spot," Gebbai told AFP. On a blazing April day, a dead woman lay on the floor of a small, air-conditioned room in the capital, her brown-speckled thobe covering her face. If unclaimed, the team would prepare a clean white shroud, wash her according to Muslim custom, and bury her nearby. This makeshift system is all Khartoum has for a morgue—and it is far better than what most war victims receive: a shallow grave where they fell.
The conflict, now in its fourth year between Sudan's army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, has killed at least tens of thousands, with aid workers estimating over 200,000 deaths. "It's disheartening, all these estimations. When a population doesn't know what happened, that trauma cannot be overlooked," said Jose Luis Pozo Gil, deputy Sudan chief of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
Exhumations and Mass Graves
Since the army recaptured Khartoum a year ago, authorities have exhumed and reburied around 28,000 people, according to Hisham Zein Al-Abdeen, head of forensic medicine at Sudan's health ministry. Only a little over half the capital has been cleared. Gebbai said his teams have buried 7,000 dead since the war began. Meanwhile, ethnic massacres in Darfur have killed thousands at a time, and drone strikes in Kordofan have claimed at least 700 lives this year alone.
Morgues Destroyed
Across Sudan, there is no place to store the dead or count them. During the worst massacres, when firebombs tear through mosques and markets, rescuers run out of shrouds. The dead are buried where they lay, wrapped in their own clothes or plastic bags, often in villages with no clinic or morgue. Zein Al-Abdeen, one of only two forensic doctors in Khartoum, said the capital's morgues were already full before the war. According to the ICRC, all four morgues in Khartoum were forced out of service, but bodies remained inside. "When we entered the Omdurman morgue, there were still many bodies. No electricity for a long time—you can imagine the state," Pozo Gil said. The Omdurman morgue was completely destroyed in a strike, its compressors looted while bodies rotted.
For a year, Zein Al-Abdeen's team has exhumed Khartoum's dead, focusing on those buried in shallow graves, public spaces, sewers, and along the Nile. During the war, civilians unable to reach cemeteries buried loved ones in courtyards, playgrounds, and street corners, turning Khartoum into an open-air graveyard. "That leaves a mark on society, destroys human dignity, and normalizes death," Zein Al-Abdeen said. The same is true for Darfur, Al-Jazira, and Kordofan, where bodies are dumped in canals or stalked by drones.
Finding the Missing
Most of those exhumed in Khartoum are identified by families who buried their loved ones but needed authorities to give them a proper resting place, Zein Al-Abdeen said. But many remain anonymous. From each unidentified body, authorities remove a small bone or hair sample, hoping for future identification. However, Sudan has no working DNA labs or storage facilities. "The safest place to keep DNA samples is buried separately in the ground, marked clearly, or we'll exhume the bodies again later," Zein Al-Abdeen said.
According to the ICRC, at least 11,000 people are missing in Sudan. "The lack of closure for families leaves an open wound. In any future recovery, the issue of the missing must be addressed to rebuild trust," Pozo Gil said. Gebbai, the mortician, spoke with steely resolve but cracked when recalling a young man who searched for his father and uncle for over a year. "He found out they were shot dead in the street early in the war. It broke him; he collapsed and cried for a long time. But at least he could visit their graves."
