11 reported missing after Sudan sit-in bloodbath: lawyers

KHARTOUM: Legal proceedings have been filed in Sudan to open investigations into 11 people who went missing during the deadly June repression of a protest, lawyers said Wednesday.

According to doctors close to the protest movement that led to longtime ruler Omar al-Bashir’s ouster, at least 127 people were killed on June 3 in a crackdown on a sit-in in the Sudanese capital.

“The number of people missing from the sit-in that is documented and for which legal proceedings were launched stands at 11,” lawyer Shawki Yacoub told AFP.

He was speaking at a press conference organised by the Sudanese Professionals Association, an umbrella group of trade unions that has played a key role in the protest movement.

Yacoub said many more people could be missing as a result of the bloody crackdown outside Khartoum’s army headquarters, but that other cases would need to be further documented.

The repression of the June 3 sit-in, which drew widespread condemnation, accounted for around half of all the reported deaths in the protests that have rocked Sudan since December.

Sudan’s ruling generals signed a deal with protest leaders on Sunday providing the broad outlines of a three-year transition to civilian rule.