Grief-stricken families of Sudan’s turmoil seek justice
AMIDST mounds of sand capped by hand-written signs naming the dead, Khadom embraces the tomb of her son, one of the more than 200 killed in Sudan’s months-long turmoil.
It was an April morning when a freshly-shaven AlMoez drank his tea before heading out to the office from the modest home he shared with his parents in AlRimela, southern Khartoum.
His office was in the same building as Qatarbased news channel AlJazeera and near a longstanding protest camp outside army headquarters in central Khartoum.
“The building was under surveillance by the allpowerful National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS),” Khadom told AFP.
Shortly after he arrived at work, a colleague started to take pictures with his mobile phone from a window of their office.
Out of nowhere, a bullet pierced the window and lodged itself in the heart of Al-Moez who was standing nearby. The 45-year-old died on the spot.
Like dozens of others who lost a son, uncle or brother, the family has paid a high price for Sudan’s revolution that toppled its longtime autocratic ruler Omar al-Bashir in April.
And now Al-Moez’s family want justice.
His parents have called for an official investigation and for his killer to pay the “eye for an eye” penalty.
But Khadom says there is little chance the case will come to trial or that the NISS will be found guilty.
Anti-regime protests which first broke out on December 19 after the tripling of bread prices have cost the lives of more than 200 demonstrators, according to doctors close to the protest movement.
Gatherings have been staged in front of the homes of the “martyrs”, whose portraits have been painted on walls across the capital.
Outside a rundown apartment block in central Khartoum, two little boys, Ahmed and Asir, are often seen waving small Sudanese flags at motorists.
“Blood for blood, we don’t want compensation!” they chant if security forces pass by in their pickups.