The bodies of 28 Sudanese army officers, who attempted a coup in 1990 against ex-President Omar al-Bashir, were found in a mass grave in Omdurman, Khartoum's sister city, the government said. parquet Thursday July 23. 

It is the second discovered in Sudan since the fall of the autocrat, who had ruled the country with an iron fist for 30 years. 

It is on the basis of information gathered by a commission of inquiry set up by the prosecutor's office after the overthrow of Omar al-Bashir in August 2019, that the mass grave was found. 

"It took three weeks and the participation of 22 experts from different services to locate it. Operations are underway to exhume the bodies and doctors are carrying out tests to identify them", added in a statement the prosecutor, Tagelsirr al -Hebr. 

These officers surrounded the army headquarters as well as several barracks before being arrested and executed. 

A first mass grave discovered in June

In mid-June, a mass grave containing the bodies of dozens of soldiers (main photo), executed in 1998 by the regime of Omar al-Bashir while they were trying to desert, had been unearthed by the commission charged to investigate the killings in the Ailefoun military camp, south-east of Khartoum. 

In April 1998, several dozen young conscripts were killed while trying to escape from the insanitary Ailefoum camp where their training was taking place, in order to join their families for the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha.  

Rejecting the accusations addressed to them, the Sudanese authorities of the time, responding to ex-President Omar al-Bashir, claimed that the young soldiers had drowned in the Blue Nile. Officially, 55 bodies were recovered after the boat carrying the conscripts sank. 

This official version was quickly contested by survivors, families of victims who have never received the remains of their loved ones, as well as several opposition groups which estimate the number of victims at hundreds. 

Bashir's military regime was using conscripts as a contingent in its war against rebels in the oil-rich region that seceded in 2011.

Opening of the Bashir trial in Khartoum

Since August 2019, Sudan has had a transitional civil-military government, responsible for leading the country for three years. 

Determined to break with the old regime, the latter seeks to re-establish the long-suppressed truth about the atrocities and massacres committed under the Bashir dictatorship. 

Convicted of corruption in December 2019, Omar al-Bashir, who is currently detained in Kober prison in Khartoum, is also facing two arrest warrants from the International Criminal Court (ICC) for "war crimes "," crimes against humanity "and" genocide "in Darfur.  

On Tuesday, the former Sudanese president appeared before a special court in Khartoum where he must answer for the coup that brought him to power in 1989, a trial unprecedented in the Arab world. 

The first hearing lasted only one hour because the room could not accommodate the 191 defense lawyers. The three-judge special court has set August 11 as the next hearing.  

The 76-year-old ex-autocrat and 27 other defendants face the death penalty for overthrowing the democratically elected government of Prime Minister Sadek al-Mahdi 31 years ago.

With AFP 

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