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Call for probe into 11 missing after Sudan sit-in crackdown

Thursday August 08 2019
sit-in

Sudanese protesters during a sit-in outside military headquarters in Khartoum on May 15, 2019. Legal proceedings have been filed in Sudan to open investigations into 11 people who went missing during a deadly crackdown on a sit-in in June. PHOTO | FILE | NATION MEDIA GROUP

By AFP

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 long-time 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 Khartoum.

"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.

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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.

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