Thousands of bodies are being left to decompose in Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, as the nation’s morgues become overwhelmed by the sheer number of corpses. According to the BBC, residents in the city’s El Jazira district claim to have seen hundreds of dead bodies being taken away in lorries. Witnesses report that those lorries were headed for mass burial sites outside of the city, with the reports being backed up by a number of international NGOs citing the government’s lack of resources in managing the crisis.
The outbreak in Sudan is thought to have been exacerbated by the civil war in the region, leaving many cities severely under resourced and unable to adequately manage the influx of corpses. As the problem continues to worsen, aid workers claim that morgues are reaching their “breaking point”.
The health crisis in Sudan is thought to have been made worse by a variety of factors, including a lack of access to proper medical care, clean water and sanitation. Those displaced by the conflict in the region are also thought to be particularly vulnerable to the spread of disease.
In addition to the thousands of bodies being left to decompose, reports have suggested that family members of the deceased are not able to provide proper burials due to a lack of access to quality coffins and financial resources.
The government of Sudan have yet to make any public statement on the issue, though many international organisations have called for immediate effort to be put into controlling the situation.
At this stage, it is difficult to ascertain exactly how many bodies are currently left to decompose in the city or the overall death toll from the crisis. However, the estimates make it clear that a significant amount of people are dying and that a lack of resources is significantly impairing the ability of the already fragile region to handle the problem.
