Investigation to open into 11 reported missing after Sudan sit-in bloodbath

Investigation to open into 11 reported missing after Sudan sit-in bloodbath
Investigations will open into 11 people who went missing during a bloody June crackdown in Sudan in which at least 127 people were killed.
2 min read
08 August, 2019
A Sudanese man waves his national flag as he takes part in a demonstration [AFP/Getty]
Legal proceedings have been filed in Sudan to open investigations into 11 people who went missing during the deadly June repression of a protest, lawyers said Wednesday.

According to doctors close to the protest movement that led to longtime ruler Omar al-Bashir's ouster, at least 127 people were killed on June 3 in a crackdown on a sit-in in the Sudanese capital.

"The number of people missing from the sit-in that is documented and for which legal proceedings were launched stands at 11," lawyer Shawki Yacoub told AFP.

He was speaking at a press conference organised by the Sudanese Professionals Association, an umbrella group of trade unions that has played a key role in the protest movement.

Yacoub said many more people could be missing as a result of the bloody crackdown outside Khartoum's army headquarters, but that other cases would need to be further documented.

The repression of the June 3 sit-in by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which drew widespread condemnation, accounted for around half of all the reported deaths in the protests that have rocked Sudan since December.

Sudan's ruling generals signed a deal with protest leaders on Sunday providing the broad outlines of a three-year transition to civilian rule.

Sudanese opposition groups last month rejected the findings of a probe into the deadly June 3 that absolved the country's ruling generals of guilt.

Prosecutor Fatah al-Rahman Saeed announced that the generals did not order the crackdown and that eight officers from the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces had exceeded their orders.

Protesters and rights groups have accused the paramilitary force of carrying out the raid, but the deputy chief of Sudan's ruling military council General Mohamed Hamdan Daglo who also heads the RSF has steadfastly denied his group's involvement.

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