Thousands missing, new horrors after RSF takeover of el-Fasher - may Allah protect the innocent
Assalamu Alaikum. People who escaped say RSF fighters are hunting, humiliating and killing civilians in Darfur, and many more remain missing.
Starved and abused families have shared terrifying accounts after fleeing the Rapid Support Forces in western Sudan. El-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur and the last army-held city in the region, fell to the RSF after an 18-month siege on Sunday.
Since then, international aid agencies and the UN have warned about civilians’ safety as more reports of mass killings, rape and other atrocities keep coming.
One young man, Alkheir Ismail, who reached the town of Tawila about 50 km away, said he was part of a group of 300 people stopped by RSF fighters while trying to leave el-Fasher. He says he survived only because a captor recognised him from university and told the others not to kill him - the rest of the youths with him were killed.
Others in Tawila told similar stories of fear. “All of a sudden they showed up. Three young men, different ages. They fired in the air and told us to stop. They were wearing RSF clothes,” said Tahani Hassan. “They beat us and threw our clothes down. Even I, a woman, was searched. The attacker could be younger than my daughter.”
Fatima Abdulrahim, who walked for five days with her grandchildren to reach Tawila, said they were stripped of everything. “They beat the boys and took all we owned. After we got here we heard that the girls in the group after us had been raped, but our girls escaped,” she said.
Rawaa Abdalla, a young woman who fled the city, says her father is missing: “We don’t know if he’s alive, dead, with others who left, or injured.”
The RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo gave a speech asking fighters to protect civilians and said violations would be prosecuted. The RSF later said it had detained some accused fighters, but UN officials questioned how seriously they would investigate.
Both the RSF and the army have faced accusations of war crimes since the fighting began in April 2023, a conflict that has killed tens of thousands, displaced around 14 million people and created a dire humanitarian crisis. Famine and outbreaks of cholera and other diseases are increasing.
The UN reports more than 62,000 people fled el-Fasher between Sunday and Wednesday; the city still had about 260,000 people as of late August. Medical teams on the ground estimate only a little over 5,000 reached Tawila in five days.
“Based on what patients tell us, the most likely, and frightening, answer is that they are being killed, blocked, and hunted down when trying to flee,” said Michel Olivier Lacharite from Doctors Without Borders, urging mediators like the US, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt to intervene.
Medical teams say every child under five among 70 new arrivals in Tawila on October 27 was acutely malnourished, and 57% suffered severe acute malnutrition.
Survivors reported RSF fighters separating people by gender, age or perceived ethnicity, with many taken for ransom - sums reported between 5 million and 30 million Sudanese pounds. One witness said fighters crushed prisoners with their vehicles.
UN agencies protecting survivors’ identities collected further accounts: a 24-year-old said of a group of 200 men, women and children, only four who could pay ransom survived multiple encounters with RSF checkpoints; the rest were killed, including children, the elderly and women. A 26-year-old woman said her husband was killed after paying ransom only for her and their children. A 19-year-old said she was raped after soldiers asked if she was a virgin.
UNFPA also reported that at least 460 people were killed by RSF fighters in el-Fasher’s maternity hospital on October 29; the true toll may be higher, including patients, visitors, displaced people and healthcare workers.
In nearby North Kordofan, over 36,000 people fled Barra after the RSF captured it last week. The UN warns North Kordofan could be the next battleground as the state capital el-Obeid remains with the army.
Reports include alleged summary executions of aid volunteers and worrying accounts of sexual violence. People fleeing Barra are in very poor health after long, dangerous journeys through desert conditions with extreme temperatures.
Barra has seen intense fighting, and earlier attacks in the region in July left nearly 300 people dead, including children and pregnant women. The humanitarian situation remains catastrophic.
May Allah protect the innocent, grant patience to the displaced, and bring justice to the victims. Please keep the people of Sudan in your duas and support trusted humanitarian efforts where you can.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news