Mass grave found of Sudanese conscripts killed found in 1998: Prosecutor
Sudan's public prosecutor announced Mon the discovery of a mass grave of conscripts killed in 1998 after trying to flee a military camp.
The committee tasked with investigating the killings at Ailafoon armed service camp "found the mass grave during the past four days after hearing witness accounts", said public prosecutor Tagelsir al-Hebr, without giving information on the quantity of bodies found.
"The grave was exhumed and today the committee will work with forensic authorities and examine the data," said Wael Ali Saeed, a member of the investigation committee.
The Ailafoon military camp, located southeast of the administrative centre Khartoum, was used for training new conscripts under the rule of now-ousted president Omar al-Bashir.
In 1998, several conscripts were killed because they attempted to escape the base for the Muslim Eid al-Adha holidays.
The Sudanese government said at the time that 55 young conscripts who fled the military base drowned when their overloaded boat capsized in the Blue Nile river.
Opposition groupings accused the Khartoum federal government of undertaking the killings and reported an increased death toll of more than a 100.
Many Sudanese families reported that their sons went missing and their remains were hardly ever found.
Compulsory armed service service was widespread in Bashir, who employed conscripts on the civil war against rebels on the oil-rich south, which seceded in 2011.
Sudan's military ousted Bashir found in April 2019 following mass protests against his 30-year rule, triggered by steep price hikes on basic things. - AFP
