Public Prosecution: Our Mission at Morgues is Confined to Issuing Autopsy and Burial Orders

In a statement it issued Monday on the background of the events accompanying the issue of morgues and the decomposing bodies in them, the Public Prosecution stated that the task of the Public Prosecution in this case is confined to issuing autopsy and burial orders, while adhering to internationally applicable protocols related to determining the cause of death, raising the DNA and clearly identifying the numbering of the body from its departure until its burial and until the moment of its identification by his family.

The statement indicated that the Public Prosecution has conducted several investigations which revealed that there is a major defect in the morgues, as the capacity of the morgues does not exceed a hundred in each of the four morgues in the capital, but with the increase in the number of unknown dead persons, the absorption in the morgues has exceeded 400%.

The Public Prosecution pointed out that it has alerted about this at all levels of the state, but the problems of the morgues were not solved until they became an environmental threat, stressing that it is very important to keep the bodies in all morgues for the purpose of carrying out autopsies to find out the causes of death and to what extent each case is related to any criminal causes.

The statement explained that in August and September 2020, the Public Prosecution Committee for Missing Persons issued an order directed to the Forensic Medicine body to conduct the necessary autopsy before the burial, after an agreement was reached with Khartoum State to determine the burial places for the unidentified persons or cases of enforced disappearance, but the existing differences between the components of Forensic medicine in Khartoum State has impeded the implementation of the issued orders.

The Public Prosecution has referred to a number of meetings held between the Attorney General and the forensic medicine, with its federal and state sections, in the presence of the Sovereignty Council’s member, Ayesha Musa, adding that these meeting have shown the continuous differences and contracting directives between the forensic medicine branches until occurrence of the environmental problem of Al-Academic Morgue (the current Excellence Morgue).

The statement pointed to meetings and interventions by the Attorney General, the Minister of Health and the Governor of Khartoum State which stipulated that the autopsy procedures should be carried out, taking into account getting a report on the causes of death for each case separately, taking the DNA sample for each case, establishing a reference database network, and following the Red Cross protocol and the directives issued by the Missing Persons Committee regarding the burial of the bodies, adding the work began today (Monday) and is expected to continue for seven days and will include the rest morgues of Omdurman, Bashayer and other morgues.

1. The Public Prosecution also referred to its advanced professional experience in the dealing with bodies of unknown persons and enforced disappearance cases in Gezira State under supervision of the Public Prosecution and in accordance with the Red Cross Protocol, when it completed the autopsy of all the 190 bodies and decided the burial of 114 bodies.