Sudanese Survivors Describe Escape from Deadly al-Fashir Paramilitary Attack
By Reade Levinson
Firsthand Accounts of Survival and Loss
TINE, Chad, May 27 (Reuters) - They could do nothing but watch as paramilitary fighters shot and killed their loved ones. They were held captive and endured beatings. Their phones, shoes and life savings were stolen.
Survivors of a three-day paramilitary assault in western Sudan began showing up in the desert town of Tine, on the Chad-Sudan border, in early November 2025. There, a team of Reuters journalists spoke with some of them about the horrors they say they faced fleeing the Rapid Support Forces takeover of al-Fashir, a large city in Sudan’s Darfur region. The famine-stricken city, once home to some 1 million people, had been under siege for 18 months before the final RSF offensive, which began on October 25.
The RSF did not respond to questions about the actions of its forces during the offensive – actions that the U.N. said bore the “hallmarks of genocide.” On October 29, RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo said that any fighter or officer who committed a crime would be arrested and investigated, and the results would be publicized.
Tens of thousands of civilians fled through the desert. Many arrived at a refugee transit centre in Tine starving, some with bullet wounds and deep scarring on their feet from walking barefoot for days. Some were so traumatized they could not describe much of what they had seen.
But the stories they did tell, part of a Reuters documentary about the RSF’s attack on the city, paint a harrowing picture of desperation and violence. Reuters independently confirmed testimonies from survivors, though some details could not be verified.
Mohamed Adam: Loss and Escape
The Death of Siham Hassan
MOHAMED ADAM, 38, LOST HIS WIFE, FORMER MP SIHAM HASSAN
Mohamed Adam was trying to escape the city on the morning of October 26 when a drone strike hit the house where he was sheltering, killing his wife, Siham. Shrapnel embedded in his chest and eye. He did not have time to bury his wife before he fled.
Journey Through Danger
He said he saw dozens of bodies along the road as he ran, changing direction multiple times to avoid circling drones and groups of paramilitary fighters. The RSF had dug a 57-kilometre trench around the city. Inside, he said, he saw the bodies of men, women and children who had been shot by the RSF.
“Nobody asked who we were,” Adam said as he described his escape. “They just shot us.”
The road Adam followed “had no mercy,” he said. “It was all death and dead bodies.”
He walked for days with his brother, who hobbled on a crutch with a broken leg and destroyed knee cap. Then Adam rented camels to take them to the Chad border.
Siham Hassan’s Legacy
His wife, Siham, had been a member of parliament in Khartoum and a humanitarian activist who supported widows, orphans and other displaced Sudanese in the Zamzam refugee camp and other camps around al-Fashir. Up until the Friday before she died, he said, she was distributing food aid at the Saudi hospital.
Her death was so recent that he still spoke about her in the present tense.
“She is my wife. I am her husband. I can’t explain it in detail because of the pain.”
“We are looking for peace in our country,” he said. “We don’t need anything else. I have nothing. I lost hope. I lost my family.”
“I haven’t had hope in a long time.”
Safaa Zakaria: Family Tragedy Amid Siege
Life Under Siege
SAFAA ZAKARIA, 29, LOST HER HUSBAND AND BROTHERS
Safaa Zakaria was born in al-Fashir and grew up in the city with her brothers. She said her family suffered greatly during the RSF’s 18-month siege, surviving off ambaz, a form of animal feed.
“There was no eating and no drinking,” she said. “If you go outside to fetch water, they killed you with drones.”
The Final Assault
She said the final assault by paramilitary forces started at 3 a.m. on October 26, with heavy artillery and drones, “until the entire sky above the city was on fire.”
She and her family decided to flee. During their escape, she said, an RSF fighter took one of her brothers hostage, and another shot and killed two of her brothers-in-law.
Identifying the Perpetrators
In a video shown to her by a Reuters reporter, she identified the commander who killed them, RSF Brigadier General al-Fateh Abdullah Idris, known as Abu Lulu. He has become the face of the human rights abuses the RSF is accused of committing during the offensive.
Reuters reviewed hundreds of videos filmed and posted online by RSF forces during the assault. Abu Lulu is seen killing 15 unarmed people in four of those videos.
Shortly after the offensive, the RSF released a video showing Abu Lulu under arrest and being placed in a cell at Shala prison in southern al-Fashir. Thirteen sources told Reuters he has since been released. Nine said he is back in combat. The RSF denies this and says he is still jailed and will be tried for alleged offenses.
Escape and Survival
Zakaria continued on foot with her baby, then 2-1/2 months old. She said she was stopped multiple times by RSF fighters, who beat her. She saw many people die along the road to Chad.
“We had to leave their bodies on the road. We couldn’t carry them.”
“We suffered horrors beyond words,” she said. “What we lived through in al-Fashir cannot be described.”
Mona Mohamed: Witness to Atrocity
Displacement and Return
MONA MOHAMED, 33, SAW HER BROTHER'S LAST MOMENTS ON VIDEO
Mona Mohamed was about 9 years old when war broke out in Darfur in 2003, splitting apart her family. She ended up in a displaced persons camp in South Darfur.
She got married, moved across the country and graduated in English from Al-Neelain University in the capital, Khartoum. When war broke out again in April 2023, she moved back to Darfur and, eventually, to al-Fashir.
Loss and Flight
After six months of airstrikes on the city, a shell leveled her home and killed the entire family living next door. She fled to Chad with her two young children and began working in Iridimi refugee camp.
“We left our father and the rest of the family behind,” she said. Before she left, her brother, Bakhit Mersal
