The terrifying escape from el-Fasher in Darfur

Abdulkadir Abdullah Ali suffered serious nerve damage in his leg because he could not find medicine for his diabetes during the long siege of the Sudanese city of al-Fasher.

The 62-year-old man walks with a severe limp, but when fighters from the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) eventually captured the city in the western Darfur region, he was so panicked that he felt no pain as he ran.

“The morning the RSF arrived there were bullets, lots of bullets and explosives going off,” he says.

“People are out of control [with fear]They ran out of their houses and everyone ran in different directions; Father, son and daughter were running.”

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

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

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

Al-Fasher’s rule was a major victory for the paramilitary group and forced the army away from its last foothold in Darfur.

But evidence of mass atrocities drew international condemnation and focused America’s attention even more on ending the conflict.

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

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

He was trying to register his family for a tent.

“Them [RSF fighters] “They were shooting at people, the elderly and civilians with live ammunition and emptying their weapons on them,” he said.

“Some of the RSF came in their cars. If they saw someone still breathing, they would run over them.”

Mr. Ali said he runs whenever he can, crawls on the ground or hides when the threat gets too close. He managed to reach the village of Gurni, a few kilometers from Al-Fasher.

Gurni was the first stop for many people fleeing the city, including Mohammed Abbaker Adam, a local official at the nearby Zamzam camp for displaced people.

Mr. Adam retreated to al-Fasher following the RSF overrun of Zamzam in April and left the day before they captured the city in October.

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

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

“They shot some people in front of us and then carried them away and threw them away. We saw unburied bodies in the open on the road. Some of them lay there for two or three days.”

“There are a lot of people scattered around,” he added. “We don’t know where they are.”

Some of those who did not make the long walk to al-Dabbah reached a humanitarian center in Tawila, about 70 km from al-Fasher.

Others crossed into Chad. But the UN says less than half of the 260,000 people estimated to have been in the city before it fell have been identified.

Aid agencies believe many people are unable to get very far, unable to escape due to danger, detention or the cost of buying their way out.

Mr. Adam confirmed allegations of widespread sexual violence, saying fighters also raped women.

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

“But you hear him screaming, ‘Help, help.’ And he was coming and saying, ‘They raped me.'”

There are mostly women in the camp, and many of them want to remain anonymous to protect those left behind.

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

“I was scared,” he said. “When they took her out of the car at the checkpoint, I was afraid they were going to pick up a girl at every checkpoint. But they just took her away and that was it until we got here.”

He had traveled here with his younger sister and brother. His father, a soldier, was killed in the war. His mother was not at Al-Fasher when he fell.

So the three siblings fled the city on foot with their grandmother, but the grandmother died before they could reach Gurni, leaving them to continue their journey alone.

“We didn’t take enough water because we didn’t know the distance was that far,” the young woman said.

“We walked and walked and my grandmother fainted. I thought maybe it was from lack of food or water.

“I checked his pulse but he didn’t wake up, so I found a doctor in a nearby village. He came and said, ‘Your grandmother gave you her soul.’ I was trying to pull myself together because of my sister and brother, but I didn’t know how to tell my mother.”

They were all particularly worried about their 15-year-old brother because the RSF suspected that the escaped men were fighting alongside the army.

The boy described his ordeal at a checkpoint where all the young men were unloaded from the vehicles.

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

“RSF fighters stood over us and circled around us, whipping us and threatening us with their guns. I lost hope and told them, ‘Do whatever you want to me.'”

They finally released him; After his 13-year-old sister told them that her father had died and that he was her only sibling. They were reunited with their mother at the camp in Al-Dabbah.

Many people describe RSF separating older men and women from combat-age men.

The same situation happened to Abdullah Adam Mohamed in Gurni when he was separated from his three little daughters aged two, four and six. A perfume salesman had been looking after them since his wife was killed in a bombardment four months ago.

“I gave my daughters to women” [travelling with us]He told the BBC: “Then RSF brought in big vehicles and we [the men] They were afraid that they would force us into military service. Thereupon, some of us ran and fled to the neighborhood.

“I thought all night long, how will I find my children again? I’ve already lost so many people, I was afraid of losing them too.”

Mr Mohamed escaped but the others could not. Mr Ali said that from a distance he saw RSF opening fire on a group of men.

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

Mr. Ali and Mr. Adam put Gurni on the donkeys and set off at night towards the next village, Tur’rah.

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

Many arrived at the camp empty-handed. They left the city with almost nothing and had to pay to pass through checkpoints.

“RSF fighters took away everything we had: our money, our phones and even our nice clothes,” Mr. Adam said. “At each stop, they would call your relatives and have them transfer money to your mobile phone account before allowing you to proceed to the next checkpoint.”

RSF told the BBC it rejected accusations of systematic abuse of civilians.

Dr., one of the advisors of RSF leader General Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo. “The specific allegations made, such as looting, murder, sexual violence or mistreatment of civilians, do not reflect our directives,” Ibrahim Mukhayer said.

“Any RSF member proven responsible for wrongdoing will be held fully accountable.”

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

To try to reshape the narrative, RSF released videos showing its officers greeting people fleeing al-Fasher, trucks carrying humanitarian aid, and medical centers reopening.

Mr Mohamed told the BBC that RSF foot soldiers were more brutal when they had no officers, while Mr Adam rejected what he described as attempts by the paramilitary group to improve its image.

“They have such a strategy,” he said. “They will gather 10-15 people, give us water and film us as if they were being nice to us.

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

Earlier this year, the United States determined that the RSF was committing genocide in Darfur.

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

This particularly brutal episode of Sudan’s devastating war caught the attention of US President Donald Trump. He vowed to participate more directly in U.S. efforts to broker a ceasefire.

For those fleeing Al-Fasher, this seems like a long shot. They have been broken over and over again by this conflict and have no idea what will happen next.

But they are durable. Ali had not heard of Trump’s sudden interest and was chasing officials to get permission to camp in a tent where he said “we could live and rest.”