The air was stifling and the heat unforgiving on that fateful day in July 2023 when all hell broke loose in Sudan's capital.
The deafening explosions of artillery shells and rockets shook the ground during a bout of fierce fighting between the civil war enemies – the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
The screams of the wounded added to the day's grimness as dark columns of dust and smoke rose up in the air and fires raged uncontrollably.
Musaab Nasreldeen, 16, was among the scores of civilians killed that day in Omdurman - one of the three Nile-side cities that make up the capital's greater region, and the first to be retaken by the army from the RSF in late 2024.
His death and burial in a school yard close to his home is neither unique nor rare in a city destroyed by war, but it speaks to the helplessness and angst of the millions trapped by a war whose belligerents have paid little or no heed to civilian lives.
Tens of thousands have been killed since the war broke out in April 2023. At least 12 million have been displaced and 25 million – about half of the population – are facing hunger with pockets of famine emerging, mostly in western Sudan. International calls for a humanitarian truce have failed to halt the fighting.
The military-backed government set up a special commission late last year to find the makeshift graves dug by the capital's residents because the fighting prevented them from reaching cemeteries that are mostly on the outskirts.
The next step, which involves police, state forensic experts, prosecutors and families of the dead, is to exhume the bodies and rebury them in cemeteries, according to a statement by the commission's head, Hamad El Neel Haidar.
He said 1,223 makeshift graveyards have been found so far in the capital's greater region, comprising Omdurman, Khartoum and Bahri, and as many as 15,000 bodies have been exhumed and reburied.
"Our work faces great challenges because of the destruction wrought on our DNA labs, as well as an acute shortage of body bags," Mr Haidar said.
Sulaima Ishaq, the government's Minister of State for Human Resources and Social Welfare, and a veteran human and women's rights campaigner, said some displaced families could not return even after the army retook the entire capital last March, because they had buried relatives there.
"They are psychologically unable to return and live in their homes," Ms Ishaq told The National. "Many schools have been used to hurriedly bury the dead. Some found unidentified and decomposing bodies inside their homes and had to wait for the authorities to remove the bodies before they could move back in."
Musaab Nasreldeen was killed while the RSF was consolidating its grip on the capital and the army was confined to heavily fortified positions across the city that later capitulated.
His mother, Hanan Adlan, told The National he was killed as she and her husband Abu Bakr Nasreldeen were about to leave home with their five children to find safety north of the capital.
She said Musaab asked to make a last-minute trip to the toilet in the backyard before joining the rest of the family waiting in the car for the 90-minute journey to Hagr Al Asal in the River Nile region.
He never made it back. A stray bullet killed him instantly in the backyard. The family had to stay behind to bury him and endure more of the violence gripping the city at the time.
'Death was quicker than us'
It was not until two weeks later that they made the trip to Hagr Al Asal.
"It was the most difficult day of my life. We were getting ready to escape death, but death was quicker than us and took my son," Ms Adlan said.
"It was an indescribable moment of pain and helplessness. We could not bury him in the cemetery 7km away because of the shelling. So we buried him in the yard of a nearby school."
The family lived in northern Sudan for 16 months, first in Hagr Al Asal and later in the city of Shindi farther north, before they returned to Omdurman.
Soon after they returned, Ms Adlan looked for ways to give her son a proper burial in the family's plot in the cemetery they were unable to reach in 2023.
"It took us a month of contacts with the police, prosecutors and a government body set up to rearrange the reburial of civilians killed in the war but laid to rest in private or public spaces," lamented Ms Adlan, who, like her husband, is a government employee.
resident of Bahri
Faisal Osman is another resident of the capital who lost his life in the brutality of the war in July 2023.
"He was defending his wife from an armed band, who shot him dead before they fled the scene," his brother and neighbour, Seifeldeen Osman, told The National. "We could not take the body to the cemetery because of the security situation, so we buried him outside next to his home."
As the fighting intensified in Bahri, the family sought refuge in the relative safety of Omdurman.
Mr Osman, his family and his brother's widow were unable to return to their homes in Bahri's Shambat district even after the RSF was driven out last year because living conditions there remained very poor.
Faisal's body, however, was exhumed and given a proper burial soon after the RSF was thrown out of the capital and after weeks of negotiating the city's bureaucracy.
"Faisal, may God grant him mercy, had no children and his wife remains traumatised by his death to this day. He was very popular among our neighbours. He was the most active man in the neighbourhood when it came to finding food and water for everyone during the early days of the war. He took many risks doing that," Seifeldeen Osman said.
"His passing left so much sadness behind. Not just for us in the family but for so many others."
In the 10 months since the RSF was pushed out, the Sudanese capital has been struggling to restore a level of normality that would tempt the millions who had fled to return.
Vast areas remain without power to this day. Disease is rife and crime is rampant in some parts. Many residents are struggling to come to terms with the loss of loved ones or the trauma of having friends or relatives victimised by brutal acts of violence or humiliation.
Many are barely able to feed their families due to exorbitant prices, or are unable to afford health care as state hospitals lie in ruins.
The military-backed government that sits in Port Sudan, the wartime capital on the Red Sea, has gradually started to move back. Its first move to assure residents of their safety was to ban all army-allied militias from carrying arms in the city, leaving only the army, police and security personnel to maintain order.
"The return of the displaced to the capital is what will fully restore security," said Ms Ishaq. "They are the best monitors of what happens on the streets, and their complaints enlighten authorities on security-related incidents."
Al Shafie Ahmed reported from Kampala, Uganda.
