Sudan civil war: El-Fasher’s terrifying escape in Darfur

Abdulqadir Abdullah Ali suffered severe nerve damage to his leg during the long siege of the Sudanese city of el-Fasher because he could not get medication for his diabetes.

The 62-year-old walks with a heavy limp, but panicked when fighters from the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) finally captured the town in the western region of Darfur, he felt no pain as he ran.

“The morning the FAR arrived, there were bullets, many bullets and explosives exploding,” he says.

“People were out of control [with fear]They ran out of their houses and they all ran in different directions, the father, the son, the daughter, running.”

The fall of El-Fasher after an 18-month siege is a particularly brutal chapter in Sudan’s civil war.

The BBC traveled to a tent camp in northern Sudan, set up in army-controlled territory, to hear first-hand the stories of those who escaped. The team was monitored by authorities throughout the visit.

The RSF has been fighting the regular army since April 2023, when a power struggle between them erupted into war.

The takeover of El-Fasher was a major victory for the paramilitary group, which drove the army from its last foothold in Darfur.

But evidence of mass atrocities has drawn international condemnation and focused greater American attention on trying to end the conflict.

Warning: This report contains details that some readers may find distressing.

We found Mr. Ali wandering around the camp, located in the desert about 770 kilometers (480 miles) northeast of el-Fasher, near the town of al-Dabbah.

He was trying to register his family for a tent.

“They [RSF fighters] They shot at people, the elderly, civilians, with live ammunition, they shot their weapons at them,” he told us.

“Some members of the RSF came with their cars. If they saw that someone was still breathing, they ran them over.”

Ali said he ran when he could, crawling on the ground or hiding when the threat got too close. He managed to reach the town of Gurni, a few kilometers from El Fasher.

Gurni was the first stop for many of those who fled the city, including Mohammed Abbaker Adam, a local official in the nearby Zamzam displacement camp.

Adam retreated to El-Fasher when Zamzam was invaded by the RSF in April, leaving the day before they captured the city in October.

He grew a white beard to look older, hoping it would lead to more lenient treatment.

“The road here was full of death,” he said.

“Some people were shot right in front of us and then taken away and thrown away. And on the way we saw dead bodies lying in the open, unburied. Some were lying there for two or three days.”

“There are so many people spread out,” he added. “We don’t know where they are.”

Some of those who did not make the long journey to Dabbah reached a humanitarian center in Tawila, about 70 kilometers from El Fasher.

Others crossed into Chad. But the UN says less than half of the estimated 260,000 people who were in the city before its fall have not been accounted for.

Aid agencies believe many people didn’t get very far: They couldn’t escape because of danger, detention or the cost of buying their way out.

Adam said the fighters also raped women, corroborating widespread accounts of sexual violence.

“They would take a woman behind a tree, or they would take her away from us, out of sight, so you couldn’t see with your own eyes,” he said.

“But you heard her scream, ‘Help me, help me.’ And she would come and say, ‘They raped me.'”

In the camp there are mostly women and many do not want to be identified to protect those left behind.

A 19-year-old woman told us that RSF fighters at a checkpoint took a girl from the group she was traveling with and had to leave her behind.

“I was afraid,” he said. “When they took her out of the car at the checkpoint, I was afraid that at every checkpoint they would take a girl. But they just took her away, and that’s how it was until we got here.”

He had traveled here with his younger sister and brother. His father, a soldier, had died in battle. His mother was not in El Fasher when he fell.

So the three brothers escaped from the city on foot with their grandmother, but she died before they reached Gurni, leaving them alone.

“We hadn’t drunk enough water because we didn’t know the distance was so great,” said the young woman.

“We walked and walked and my grandmother fainted. I thought it might be lack of food or water.

“I checked her pulse, but she didn’t wake up, so I looked for a doctor in a nearby town. He came and said, ‘Your grandmother has given her soul to you.’ I was trying to hold my ground thanks to my sister and brother, but I didn’t know how to tell my mother.”

Everyone was especially worried about his 15-year-old brother because the RSF suspected that the fleeing men had fought with the army.

The boy described his ordeal at a checkpoint when all the young people were removed from the vehicles.

“The RSF interrogated us for hours in the sun,” he explained. “They said we were soldiers; some of the older ones probably were.

“The RSF fighters stood in front of us and surrounded us, whipping us and threatening us with their weapons. I lost hope and told them: ‘Whatever you want to do to me, do it.'”

They eventually let him go, after his 13-year-old sister told them that their father had died and that he was her only brother. They were reunited with their mother in al-Dabbah camp.

Many people describe the RSF as separating older men and women from men of fighting age.

That happened to Abdullah Adam Mohamed in Gurni, taking him away from his three daughters, aged two, four and six. The perfume seller had been taking care of them since his wife died in a bombing four months ago.

“I gave my daughters to women [travelling with us]” he told the BBC. “Then the RSF brought large vehicles and we [the men] We were afraid of being forcibly recruited. Then some of us ran and escaped into the neighborhood.

“All night I was thinking: how am I going to find my children again? I’ve already lost so many people; I was afraid of losing them too.”

Mohamed escaped, but others did not. Ali said he saw from afar the RSF open fire on a group of men.

“They killed the men, they didn’t kill the women, but all the men were shot,” he told the BBC. “There were many dead and we fled.”

Mr. Ali and Mr. Adam left Gurni on donkeys and traveled by night to the next village, Tur’rah.

Mohamed also arrived at Tur’rah, where he was reunited with his daughters. From there they took vehicles for the long journey to al-Dabbah.

Many arrived at the field empty-handed. They had left the city carrying almost nothing and had to pay to pass the checkpoints.

“The RSF fighters stripped us of everything we had: money, phones and even our nice clothes,” Adam said. “At each stop they made you call your relatives to transfer money to your mobile phone account before letting you go to the next checkpoint.”

RSF told the BBC it rejected allegations of systematic abuses against civilians.

“The specific allegations raised – looting, murder, sexual violence or mistreatment of civilians – do not reflect our directives,” said Dr Ibrahim Mukhayer, an adviser to RSF leader General Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo.

“Any RSF member found responsible for an unlawful act must be held fully accountable.”

He said the group believed the allegations of widespread atrocities were part of a politically motivated media campaign against them by what he called Islamist elements within Sudan’s military administration.

RSF has released videos to try to reshape the narrative, showing its officers greeting people fleeing El Fasher, trucks bringing in humanitarian aid and medical centers reopening.

Mohamed told the BBC that RSF foot soldiers were more brutal when their officers were not present, while Adam dismissed what he described as the paramilitary group’s attempts to improve its image.

“They have this strategy,” he said. “They will gather 10 or 15 people, give us water and film us as if they are treating us well.

“Once the cameras are gone, they will start beating us, treating us very badly and taking away everything we have.”

Earlier this year, the United States determined that the RSF had committed genocide in Darfur.

But the Sudanese armed forces and their allied militias have also been accused of atrocities, including attacking civilians suspected of supporting the RSF and indiscriminately bombing residential areas.

This particularly brutal chapter in Sudan’s devastating war has caught the attention of US President Donald Trump. He has promised to become more directly involved in ongoing U.S. efforts to negotiate a ceasefire.

For those who escaped El Fasher, that seems a distant prospect. This conflict has torn them apart time and time again and they have no idea what will come next.

But they are resistant. Ali hadn’t heard of Trump’s sudden interest; he had been chasing officials for permission to stay at the camp in a tent where, he says, “we can live and rest.”