PORT SUDAN: Families hid in trenches, bodies lay in the streets and children were killed in front of their parents as Sudanese paramilitaries advanced into the western city of El-Fasher, survivors told AFP.
More than 36,000 civilians have fled the city since Sunday, when the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) captured the army’s last stronghold in the Darfur region, triggering warnings from the UN and humanitarian groups of possible mass killings and ethnic cleansing.
Some have sought refuge in Tawila, a town around 70 kilometers (43 miles) to the west that is already sheltering some 650,000 displaced people.
In satellite phone interviews with AFP, three survivors who reached Tawila described scenes of terror and loss during their escape from a city besieged by the RSF for 18 months, cut off from food, medicine and other aid.
Their accounts echoed those of survivors of the mass killings in Darfur in the early 2000s, when Janjaweed militias — the forces accused of genocide there which later became the RSF — burned villages, killed some 300,000 people and displaced 2.7 million more.
Emtithal Mahmoud, a survivor of the earlier Darfur killings now based in the United States, recounted to AFP a harrowing moment when she recognized her cousin, Nadifa, in a video shared by RSF accounts, lying dead on the ground.
The survivors’ full names have been withheld for their safety.

- Hayat, mother of five: ‘They killed my 16-year-old son’ -

“On Saturday at 6 am, the shelling was extremely heavy. I took my children and hid with them in a trench. We haven’t heard from my husband for six months.
“After about an hour, seven RSF fighters entered our house. They took my phone, searched even my undergarments, and killed my 16-year-old son. We fled with many people from our neighborhood.
“On the road between El-Fasher and Garni (a village northwest of the city), we saw many dead bodies lying on the ground and wounded people left behind in the open because their families couldn’t carry them. Along the way, we were robbed again and the young men traveling with us were stopped. We don’t know what happened to them.”

- Hussein, survivor wounded by shelling: ‘Bodies in the streets’ -

“We left El-Fasher early Saturday morning. The road was exhausting — hunger, thirst and constant checkpoints. Before Garni, we were stopped for three hours. They said I must have been fighting because I was injured. If it wasn’t for a family passing by with a donkey cart carrying their mother, I wouldn’t have reached Garni. They helped me get there.
“The situation in El-Fasher is so terrible — dead bodies in the streets, and no one to bury them. We’re grateful we made it here, even if we only have the clothes we were wearing. Here, we finally feel some safety. I went to the clinic and they checked my leg.”

- Mohamed, father of four: Corpses ‘turned to bones’ -

“I used to live in the Zamzam camp (for displaced people). When the RSF entered the camp, I fled to El-Fasher and stayed in the Abu Shouk neighborhood. The fighting on Saturday was extremely heavy — my four daughters, their mother and I spent the entire day hiding in a trench until dawn on Sunday.
“We left before sunrise and walked toward Garni. On the way, they robbed me of my money and stopped the young men to take them. I saw dead bodies, some already turned to bones.
“They beat me on my back with sticks, and I already had shrapnel in my leg from a shell that fell near our home in Zamzam.
“We reached Tawila at sunset on Tuesday. Now, we have nowhere to stay. My daughters, their mother and I are sleeping in the open without any covers. Aid workers gave us some food, but no tents or blankets.
“We just want the war to end so we can go back to our homes.”

- US-based Emtithal Mahmoud, 32: ‘Recognized my cousin from a video’ -

“It is almost impossible to describe the feeling that we’re feeling right now as people from Darfur. A lot of our family members are still trapped in the city. We don’t know who’s dead or alive.
“We have videos and reports of people being killed. It’s so terrible because even in the videos that the RSF is sharing, gloating as they commit a continuation of the genocide since the early 2000s, we’re recognizing our family members and friends. We found out that one of our cousins was killed because of a video that was circulating.
“In the video circulated by her killers, the RSF, you can see her corpse on the ground. And you can hear the RSF person saying, ‘Get up if you can.’ And so they’re taunting her corpse and it’s another form of torture.
“She was a volunteer for quite some time and when the siege happened she joined the resistance. She’s one of the women warriors.”