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Dr. Mohammed Ibrahim rushed from building to building, desperate to find a place to hide. As northern Sudan’s capital, he ran through streets strewn with corpses Darfur The entire province is enveloped in smoke and fire.
After 18 months of fighting, paramilitary militants have captured El Fasher, the Sudanese army’s last remaining stronghold in Darfur. Ibrahim, who fled the city’s last functioning hospital, said he feared he wouldn’t live to see the sun set.
“We saw people running around and falling to the ground,” the 28-year-old doctor told The Associated Press of the three-day attack that began on October 26.
Three months later, militant brutality rapid support force It’s only now becoming clear. United Nations Officials said thousands of civilians were killed, but there was no exact death toll. They said only 40% of the city’s 260,000 residents had managed to escape the attack. The fate of the rest remains unknown.
U.N. officials and independent observers said the violence, including mass killings, had turned El Fasher into a “massive crime scene.” When humanitarian teams finally entered in late December, they found the city largely deserted, with few signs of life.
Details of the attack remain sparse as Fasher was cut off from the outside world. Ibrahim provided a rare, detailed first-person account in an interview with The Associated Press.
The Rapid Support Forces did not respond to calls and emails from The Associated Press seeking details about the brutal attack and Ibrahim’s account.
Here are the key points.
Rapid Support Forces have a brutal history
When the military overthrew Sudan’s civilian-led government in a 2021 coup, it viewed the Rapid Support Forces, descendants of the country’s notorious Janjaweed militia, as allies.
But the army and the militants soon became adversaries.
By the end of October, they had been fighting for more than two years in Darfur, which became notorious in the early 2000s for genocide and other atrocities.
The last stronghold of the army was the strategic El Fasher. But Doctors Without Borders, accused by the Biden administration of committing genocide in the ongoing war, has laid siege to the city.
Ibrahim said civilians were forced to eat animal feed as food ran out. Ibrahim’s family fled after their home was shelled in April, but with few health workers left, Ibrahim stayed, working at a Saudi maternity hospital as Doctors Without Borders closed in.
Around 5 a.m. on October 26, Ibrahim was treating patients when the shelling intensified. “It’s clear that the city is falling,” he said.
decided to escape
At around 7 a.m., Ibrahim and another doctor decided to flee and headed to a nearby military base on foot.
An hour later, Médecins Sans Frontières militants attacked the hospital, killing a nurse and injuring three others. Two days later, militants attacked the facility again, killing at least 460 people and kidnapping six health workers. World Health Organization.
It took Ibrahim nearly nine hours to reach the military base just 1.5 kilometers (one mile) away, weaving between buildings and sometimes jumping from rooftop to rooftop to avoid detection.
At one point, he hid in an empty water tank and heard the screams of gunmen chasing people under two hours of non-stop shelling.
Along the way he passed dozens of corpses.
At around 4 p.m., he finally arrived at the military base where thousands of people, mostly women, children or the elderly, had taken refuge. Fraction injured. Ibrahim bandaged the wound with scraps of clothing.
A dangerous journey
At about 8 p.m., Ibrahim traveled with about 200 people to the small town of Tavira, 70 kilometers (43 miles) away, as tens of thousands of people fled the fighting.
Eventually, the group reached the 3-meter-high (10-foot) trench dug by Doctors Without Borders to reinforce the blockade of El Fasher. Many turned back because they were unable to climb the steep slopes. Their fate remains unknown.
In the last trench, the men in front of Ibrahim were attacked as they climbed out of the trench. Ibrahim and his colleagues lay flat in the trench until the shooting subsided. When they ventured out, five people died and many others were injured.
demand ransom
The survivors walked for hours to Tavira. Around noon on October 27, they were intercepted by soldiers from Doctors Without Borders.
The gunmen separated Ibrahim, his colleagues and three others, chained them to the motorcycle and forced them to follow.
In a village controlled by Doctors Without Borders, militants interrogated doctors.
“I don’t want to tell them I’m a doctor because they exploit doctors,” Ibrahim said. “But my friend admitted he was a doctor, so I had to do it.”
Since then, ransom demands have begun.
“They said, ‘You’re doctors. You have money,'” he said.
Initially, the gunmen demanded $20,000 each. Stunned by the number, Ibrahim laughed and the soldiers beat him with rifles.
After hours of abuse, the militants asked Ibrahim how much he could pay. When he offered $500, they “started hitting me again,” he said. “They said we would be killed.”
Ibrahim said his colleagues eventually agreed to $8,000 each – a huge sum in a country where the average monthly salary is $30 to $50.
In desperation, Ibrahim called his family. After transferring the money, the doctors were blindfolded and put into a truck full of fighters, who told them they would be taken to Tavira.
Instead, they were dumped into areas controlled by Doctors Without Borders, raising fears they would be recaptured. Eventually, they spotted the wagons and began following them.
Survival ‘is a miracle’
When they finally reached Tawila, Ibrahim was reunited with survivors, including another doctor from a Saudi hospital. The man said he saw a video of the doctors’ arrest on Facebook and was convinced they had been killed.
“He hugged me and we both cried,” Ibrahim said. “He didn’t expect me to be alive. It’s a miracle.”