Ahmad Abou Al-Alaa, who got to know the brothers during a sit-in in December 2018, is the third member of the team. Most of the time, Abou Al-Alaa is the one who gathers photos from the friends and family of the victims.

It was my job to go seek out the family members of the victims. I would often meet them at their homes, which was very painful. It’s incredibly hard to remind a mother about the death of her child. That brings up a lot of pain. Some families are still struggling with grief. I never insist. Sometimes, I leave and come back much later.



At first, the families didn’t really understand the point of these portraits. But there's a network of victims' mothers who all know each other through online groups, and through that more families saw our work and that convinced them to take part.



I ask the families for joyful photos of the victim: pictures from childhood, photos from the revolution or happy moments shared with friends and family. In that way, all the victim’s loved ones help to make up the mosaic portrait.



Honored for the 3rd time by the twins to deliver one of the martyrs Mosaic, Martyr Mahgoub, Special thanks to the #twins @Merg_Salih & @0smanSalih what a pleasure, and took a photo next to a picture by @sudalove_ ✌???????????????????????? #SudanUprising pic.twitter.com/n8cvT4eIe4 Ahmed Aboelela (@AhmedAb45273759) November 23, 2019

The three visit Mahjoub Tej’s family to give them the final portrait.



The process can take weeks. We ask the families for at least 100 photos in order to make a high resolution image. Then we copy the photos 2000-5000 times and put them together in the program Turbomosaic to make a giant mosaic.

Mirghani and his friends plan to put together the portraits of more than 250 victims to give to their family members.

The aim of our portraits is for the families to hold on to a beautiful image of their children. I was really shocked and upset by one case in particular: a young man named Koussay, whose body was found in the river, where it had swelled up and turned blue. It was horrible for his family. We hope that our portrait helps his family to instead remember his handsome face, young and full of life. Each photo in the mosaic can help his family relive the happy memories that they have of Koussay.





Video by Osam and Mirghani Mohamed Salih



The two brothers also want to start making portraits for families who live outside of the capital Khartoum. They say they want to meet these families, to “see the joy and the emotion in their eyes”. They also hope that their portraits will help those trying to establish transitional justice.



On Tuesday [November 26, 2019] families of the victims protested because a law court decided not to proceed with an investigation into Mohamed Hamdan Daglo’s Rapid Support Forces, who were involved in the massacre that took place on June 3. We haven’t forgotten Hemeti [Editor’s note: the nickname given to General Daglo]. I made a portrait of him using photos of the victims to show that their blood is on his hands.



