CAIRO (AP) — Dr. Mohamed Ibrahim dashed from building to building, desperate for places to hide. He ran through streets littered with bodies as the capital of Sudan’s North Darfur province lay enveloped in smoke and fire.
After 18 months of battling, paramilitary fighters had overrun el-Fasher, the Sudanese army’s only remaining stronghold in the Darfur region. Ibrahim, who fled the city’s last functioning hospital, said he feared he would not live to see the sun go down.
“All around we saw people running and falling to the ground,” the 28-year-old physician told The Associated Press, recounting the assault that began Oct. 26 and lasted three days.
Three months later, the brutality inflicted by the militant Rapid Support Forces is only now becoming clear. United Nations officials say thousands of civilians were killed but have no precise death toll. They say only 40% of the city’s 260,000 residents managed to flee the onslaught alive. The fate of the rest remains unknown.
The violence, including mass killings, turned el-Fasher into a “massive crime scene,” U.N. officials and independent observers say. When a humanitarian team finally gained access in late December, they found the city largely deserted, with few signs of life.
With el-Fasher cut off, details of the attack remain scarce. Speaking to the AP, Ibrahim provided a rare, detailed first-person account.
The Rapid Support Forces didn’t respond to phone calls and emails from the AP asking detailed questions about the brutal attack and Ibrahim’s account.
Here are key takeaways.
Rapid Support Forces have a brutal history
When the military toppled Sudan’s civilian-led government in a 2021 coup, it counted the Rapid Support Forces — descended from the country’s notorious Janjaweed militias — as its ally.
But the army and militants quickly became rivals.
By late October, they’d fought fiercely for over two years in Darfur, already infamous for genocide and other atrocities in the early 2000s.
The army’s last stronghold was strategically-located el-Fasher. But the RSF, accused by the Biden administration of carrying out genocide in the ongoing war, had the city surrounded.
Civilians were forced to eat animal fodder as food gave out, Ibrahim said. His family fled after their home was shelled in April, but with few health workers left, Ibrahim stayed, working at the Saudi Maternity Hospital as the RSF closed in.
Ibrahim was treating patients around 5 a.m. on Oct. 26 when shelling intensified. “It was obvious that the city was falling,” he said.
A decision to flee
Around 7 a.m., Ibrahim and another doctor decided to flee, setting out on foot for a nearby army base.
An hour later, RSF fighters attacked the hospital, killing a nurse and wounding three others. Two days later, the militants stormed the facility again, killing at least 460 people and abducting six health workers, according to the World Health Organization.
It took nearly nine hours for Ibrahim to reach the army base, just 1.5 kilometers (a mile) away, as he darted between buildings, at times jumping from rooftop to rooftop to avoid detection.
At one point, hiding inside an empty water tank, he heard the screams of people chased by gunmen amid two hours of nonstop shelling.
He passed dozens of bodies along the way.
Around 4 p.m., he finally reached the military base, where thousands, mostly women, children or older people, were taking refuge. Scores were injured. Ibrahim used clothing scraps to dress their wounds.
The perilous journey out
Around 8 p.m., Ibrahim left with about 200 others for Tawila, a town 70 kilometers (43 miles) away swelled by the influx of tens of thousands fleeing the fighting.
Eventually the group reached 3-meter-high (10-foot-high) trenches that RSF fighters dug to tighten their blockade of el-Fasher. Many turned back, unable to scale the steep climb. Their fate remains unknown.
At the last trench, those ahead of Ibrahim came under fire as they climbed out. Ibrahim and his colleague lay flat in the trench until the shooting subsided. When they ventured out, five people lay dead, with many others wounded.
A ransom demand
The survivors walked for hours toward Tawila. Around noon on Oct. 27, they were stopped by RSF fighters.
The gunmen separated Ibrahim, his colleague and three others, chained them to motorcycles and forced them to sprint behind.
At an RSF-controlled village, the militants interrogated the doctors.
“I didn’t want to tell them I was a doctor, because they exploited doctors,” Ibrahim said. “But my friend admitted he was a doctor, so I had to.”
That’s when the ransom demands began.
“They said, ‘You are doctors. You have money,’” he said.
At first, the gunmen demanded $20,000 each. Ibrahim was so stunned by the amount that he laughed, and the fighters beat him with rifles.
After hours of abuse, the militants asked Ibrahim how much he could pay. When he offered $500, they “started beating me again,” he said. “They said we will be killed.”
Ibrahim said his colleague eventually agreed to $8,000 each — an enormous sum in a country where the average monthly salary is $30 to $50.
With little choice, Ibrahim called his family. After they transferred the money, the doctors were put blindfolded in a truck filled with fighters, who told them they were being taken to Tawila.
Instead, they were dropped off in an RSF-controlled area, prompting fears they would be recaptured. Eventually, they spotted tracks of horse-drawn carts and began following them.
Survival “was a miracle”
When they finally reached Tawila, Ibrahim was reunited with survivors, including another Saudi hospital physician. The man said he had seen video of the doctors’ capture on Facebook and was sure they had been killed.
“He embraced me and we both wept,” Ibrahim said. “He didn’t imagine I was still alive. It was a miracle.”
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