"They Drove Over Injured People": The Terrifying, Death-Strewn Escape from Sudan's Falling City of El-Fasher

 

Al-Dabbah, Sudan - The long, brutal siege of El-Fasher, the last major military stronghold in Sudan's Darfur region, ended in a torrent of gunfire and explosives, unleashing a tide of panic and flight that survivors describe as an apocalyptic nightmare. Accounts gathered from those who made the perilous journey to army-controlled territory reveal a pattern of relentless violence, murder, and sexual assault allegedly carried out by the victorious paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

The fall of El-Fasher after an 18-month blockade marks a major turning point in the civil war that erupted in April 2023 between the RSF and the regular Sudanese army. It handed the paramilitary group its most significant victory yet, but it also cemented international condemnation amidst overwhelming evidence of mass atrocities that are now drawing increased American attention to the conflict.

The BBC traveled to a sprawling tent camp, monitored by authorities, located in the desert near the town of al-Dabbah—some 770km (480 miles) northeast of the ruined city—to hear the harrowing stories of those who survived the city's descent into chaos.

The RSF's Trail of Horror

Among the dispossessed wandering the arid camp grounds is Abdulqadir Abdullah Ali, a 62-year-old man desperately trying to register his family for shelter. Ali walks with a severe limp, the result of serious nerve damage from untreated diabetes during the lengthy siege. Yet, on the morning the RSF finally captured the city in October, his fear overwhelmed the pain.

“The morning the RSF came there were bullets, many bullets, and explosives going off,” he recounted. “People were out of control [with fear], they ran out of their houses, and everyone ran in different directions, the father, the son, the daughter—running.”

Ali’s testimony painted a horrific picture of the fighters' brutality towards civilians.

“They [RSF fighters] were shooting at the people—the elderly, the civilians, with live ammunition, they would empty their guns on them,” he told the BBC. “Some of the RSF came with their cars. If they saw someone was still breathing, they drove over them.”

Ali's escape was a combination of desperate sprints, crawling, and hiding, eventually leading him to the village of Gurni, a few kilometers outside El-Fasher.

"The Road Here Was Full of Death"

Gurni was the first stop for a flood of refugees, including Mohammed Abbaker Adam, a local official who had fled to El-Fasher months earlier when the RSF overran the nearby Zamzam camp. Adam left El-Fasher just one day before it fell and, in a desperate attempt to appear harmless, grew a long white beard, hoping it would garner him more lenient treatment from the fighters.

His memory of the journey is scarred by images of the unburied dead. "The road here was full of death," he stated solemnly.

"They shot some people directly in front of us and then carried them and threw them far away. And on the road, we saw dead bodies out in the open, unburied. Some had lain there for two or three days."

He spoke of the widespread scattering of people, fearing that many did not get far due to the immediate danger, detention, or the sheer cost of buying passage through checkpoints. The UN estimates that less than half of the 260,000 people thought to have been in the city before it fell have been accounted for, with many feared trapped or unable to escape to hubs like Tawila or across the border into Chad.

The Agony of Sexual Violence and Lost Innocence

The accounts of sexual violence were tragically corroborated by Adam, who described the RSF's tactics of separating women from their group before the assaults. “They would take a woman behind a tree, or take her far from us, out of sight, so you wouldn't see with your own eyes,” he said. “But you would hear her shout: ‘Help me, help me.’ And she would come and say: ‘They raped me.’”

In the safety of the desert camp, most of the refugees are women who fear being identified, lest it endanger family members still within RSF reach. One 19-year-old woman, traveling with her younger sister and brother, recounted the terrifying moment RSF fighters singled out another girl from their car group at a checkpoint, forcing them to drive on and leave her behind.

The young woman and her siblings—their father, a soldier, killed in battle, their mother absent when the city fell—escaped on foot with their grandmother. But the cruel journey exacted the ultimate price.

"We walked and walked and my grandmother passed out," she recalled. "I checked her pulse, but she didn't wake up... I was trying to keep myself together because of my sister and brother, but I didn't know how I would tell my mother."

Targeted Men and Separated Families

The danger was particularly acute for young men, whom the RSF often suspected of having fought alongside the army. The 19-year-old's 15-year-old brother described being hauled out of a vehicle at a checkpoint, alongside other males.

"The RSF interrogated us for hours in the sun," he explained. "The RSF fighters stood over us and circled around us, whipping us and threatening us with their guns. I lost hope and told them: 'Whatever you want to do to me, do it.'" He was ultimately released after his 13-year-old sister tearfully told the fighters that their father was dead, and he was their only brother.

Abdullah Adam Mohamed, a perfume seller, faced the same terror of separation in Gurni, torn away from his three little girls—aged two, four, and six—whom he had been looking after since his wife was killed in shelling four months earlier.

"I gave my daughters to the women [traveling with us]," he said. When the RSF brought in large vehicles, the men, fearing forced recruitment, bolted. "All night, I was thinking: 'How am I going to find my children again?' I've lost so many people already—I was afraid I'd lose them too."

Mohamed managed to escape and was eventually reunited with his daughters in the next village, Tur’rah, before beginning the long, desperate drive to al-Dabbah.

💰 Payment for Freedom: The Checkpoint Racket

The cost of survival was not just human; it was financial. The displaced arrived empty-handed because RSF fighters systematically stripped them of their possessions at every checkpoint.

"The RSF fighters stripped us of everything we had—money, phones, even our nice clothes," Mohammed Adam confirmed. "At each stop they would make you call your relatives to transfer money to your mobile phone account before they let you move on to the next checkpoint."

The RSF, through Dr. Ibrahim Mukhayer, an adviser to RSF leader Gen Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, rejected the accusations of systematic abuses, claiming that allegations of "looting, killings, sexual violence, or mistreatment of civilians—do not reflect our directives." They further claimed the widespread atrocity reports are a politically motivated media campaign by the military-led administration.

But survivors like Adam dismissed the RSF's attempts to reshape their image with staged videos of aid distribution. "They have this strategy," he said. "They will gather 10 or 15 people, give us water and film us like they're treating us nicely. Once the cameras are gone, they will start beating us, treating us very badly and take everything we have."

The U.S. has previously determined that the RSF committed genocide in Darfur. While the Sudanese armed forces and their allies have also been accused of atrocities, including the indiscriminate shelling of residential areas, this latest chapter of the war has prompted President Donald Trump to promise more direct U.S. involvement in brokering a ceasefire.

For Abdulqadir Abdullah Ali, who has yet to hear of Trump's sudden interest, the focus remains simpler: getting permission to stay in the camp in a tent where, he says, "we can live and rest." The prospect of peace is a distant echo; the reality is the broken, resilient effort to survive one more day.

---

Would you like me to find any current information on the state of humanitarian aid or the US-led peace efforts in Sudan?