Survivors of Sudan’s June 3 massacre: One year on

“Sadness, anger, fear, determination.”

These are the emotions protesters felt on June 3, 2019, the day more than 100 peaceful protesters were killed and hundreds were injured when security forces violently dispersed a three-month-long sit-in site at the military headquarters.

One year on, protesters, Mustafa and Amro recount their experiences. 

“As the sun began to rise we started to hear the gunshots coming from Nile Street and we heard yelling,” Amro Khalafalla recalls.

“They got down from their trucks and started beating the people at the sit-in, they were hitting people until they emptied the sit-in,” Mustafa Yassen told Al Jazeera. 

“They were using batons, gunfire, it seemed like a war zone with the sounds of intensive gunfire.”

Victims of the deadly dispersal have yet to receive justice. An independent committee is reportedly still investigating.

At least 128 people were killed and hundreds more wounded in the attack that ended the sit-in, according to doctors affiliated with the protest movement. Official figures put the death toll at at least 87. 

But those were not the only atrocities recorded on the day. Rights groups reported women and men were raped and sodomised, and witnesses said bodies were thrown into the Nile River. Many others who were present remain missing. 

This report was produced and edited by Al Jazeera NewsFeed’s Seena Khalil.