Survivors of al-Fashir attack describe brutal escape from Sudan

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 Oct 25.

The RSF did not respond to questions about the actions of its forces during the offensive – actions that the UN said bore the “hallmarks of genocide.” On Oct 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 publicised.

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 traumatised 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, 38, Lost His Wife, Former Mp Siham Hassan

Mohamed Adam was trying to escape the city on the morning of Oct 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.

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.

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, 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.”

She said the final assault by paramilitary forces started at 3 a.m. on Oct 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.

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.

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, 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.

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, had helped her and her young family, bringing her books and distracting them by taking them places.

“He supported us and didn’t spare any effort, so that we didn’t have to feel the weight of the war,” she said.

After the RSF took control of al-Fashir in October 2025, Mohamed saw her brother, bleeding and barely alive, in a video posted online and circulating on WhatsApp groups. That is how she learnt that he died, she said.

“He stayed there, all alone. The last we heard about him was when they brought us a video.”

Khadija Isa, 35, Witnessed Her Brother Killed

Khadija Isa fled al-Fashir with her sister, Manazil, and their families on Oct 26, during the RSF’s final assault on the city.

She said she watched RSF paramilitary fighters shoot and kill men, women and children on the streets. Fighters entered her home, she said, and took their clothes, shoes and cell phones.

On their way out of the city, she said, her family was stopped and held hostage for five days. During that time, she said, RSF commander Abu Lulu introduced himself and harangued them with racial slurs.

“They took prisoners and killed young children and pregnant women,” she said.

She watched Abu Lulu kill her brother, Mubarak Harun, who was 30 years old. When she tried to prevent the shooting, she said, Abu Lulu pushed her down and beat her.

That night, she said, she and her sister found a way out and fled with some of their children.

“We lost our other children,” she said. “We don’t know whether they are alive or dead.”

Ibrahim Ali, 26, Learnt His Best Friend Had Been Executed on Camera

Ibrahim Ali met his best friend, Fatih Mukhtar, during registration day at Nyala University, in South Darfur. Muktar taught him volleyball and always had a smile on his face, he said.

When war broke out in 2023, Ali and Mukhtar both returned to their families in al-Fashir and continued to meet up regularly in the city.

When the RSF began bombarding the city early on the morning of Oct 26, Ali said, he didn’t understand what was happening. Amid the shelling, he ran through the streets with his wife and young daughter, trying to find a way out.

“They were shooting guns around us,” he said.

Eventually, he and his family joined a group of women fleeing the fighting. He said the group was stopped multiple times by paramilitary fighters. The fighters beat them and took his life savings and identification documents. One fighter shot off a round near his temple, permanently damaging his hearing, he said.

Later, in Tulum refugee camp, in Chad, a Reuters reporter showed Ali a video of an RSF attack on civilians. That’s when he learnt his best friend had been killed, he said.

In the video, RSF commander Abu Lulu introduces himself on camera before pointing his gun at three men on the ground in civilian clothing and forcing them to chant RSF slogans. Mukhtar is wearing a blue shirt and tries to negotiate with Abu Lulu, before he is shot dead.

“The guy had nothing to do with the military or politics,” Ali said of Muktar. “He was only interested in philosophy and education … as well as books and novels.”

“I have no words," he said. "It is the worst thing I have witnessed.”