Witnesses, aid workers and researchers said the Rapid Support Forces, which surrounded El-Fasher in Darfur before capturing it in late October, have been holding survivors from the siege in a systematic campaign, demanding ransom for their release and killing or beating those whose families cannot pay, according to a Reuters report.
Reuters said it could not determine how many people are being held by the RSF and allied armed groups in and around El-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur.
However, accounts indicate that large groups are being detained in several villages about 80 kilometers from the city, while others were taken back into El-Fasher where the RSF demands payments worth thousands of dollars from their relatives.
The detention of survivors underlines the risks facing those who failed to escape El-Fasher, which had been the last major stronghold against the RSF in Darfur before its fall.
Witnesses described collective reprisals since the takeover, including summary executions and sexual violence.
The accounts also highlight the plight of tens of thousands still unaccounted for as relief agencies try to reach famine hit El-Fasher and its outskirts, which have become a focal point in the two and a half year war between the RSF and the Sudanese army.
Pay or be killed
Reuters said it interviewed 33 former detainees and 10 aid workers and researchers who provided previously unreported details about the violence faced by detainees, the locations where they were held and the scale of the arrests.
Survivors described ransoms ranging from five million Sudanese pounds, about 1400 dollars, to 60 million pounds, about 17 thousand dollars, sums that are enormous for residents of such a poor region.
Eleven survivors said some of those unable to pay were shot at close range or killed in groups, while others were severely beaten.
According to the agency, survivors who fled across the border to Chad were documented with injuries that appeared to result from beatings and gunshots. Reuters said it could not fully verify their accounts.
Mohamed Ismail, who spoke to Reuters by phone from Tawila, a neutral-held town near El-Fasher, said the RSF gives families three or four days to pay. If no transfer is sent, “they kill him,” he said.
He said he left El-Fasher when the RSF seized the city on 26 October but was arrested with 24 men in the village of Um Jalbakh. He and his nephew were forced to collect 10 million pounds from their family for their release. Nine other men were killed in front of them, he said.
RSF denies responsibility and says it is investigating
RSF legal adviser Mohamed al-Mukhtar told Reuters that most cases of detention and extortion of people from El-Fasher were carried out by a rival group wearing uniforms similar to the RSF.
A committee within the RSF is investigating more than 100 alleged abuses a day in El-Fasher, and many suspects have been detained while nine have been convicted, said committee head Ahmed al-Nour al-Hala.
The fall of El-Fasher after an 18-month siege marked a turning point in a war triggered by a power struggle between the army and the RSF, which the United Nations has described as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. Both sides face accusations of war crimes.
Survivors of RSF detention in and around El-Fasher told Reuters they were often asked about their tribal identity and were subjected to racial insults.
The International Organization for Migration estimates that more than 100 thousand people fled El-Fasher after the RSF took control. Aid agencies say more than 15 thousand have reached Tawila and about 9500 have crossed into Chad, but most remain in RSF controlled villages around the city, including Garney and Um Jalbakh.
Aid groups say it remains unclear how many have stayed inside El-Fasher itself. Some residents could not flee because they could not afford the cost of leaving, while others were too sick or injured to travel.
Negotiations with families
Yassir Hamad Ali, 36, a former detainee who reached Chad, said RSF fighters arrested him on 29 October with 16 other men after he fled El-Fasher. He said they beat him heavily and demanded 150 million pounds for his release.
Speaking to Reuters from a hospital in Tine near the Chad Sudan border, he said the fighters used a Starlink satellite internet device mounted on their Toyota Land Cruiser to contact his family on Facebook Messenger.
Large areas under RSF control have been cut off from telecommunications since the start of the war, prompting widespread use of Starlink devices. Starlink did not respond to a request for comment.
Ali said his family negotiated the amount down to five million pounds, which they sent via a Sudanese mobile money platform, according to transfer receipts seen by Reuters.
Another man in Tine, Ibrahim Kitr, 30, said his family borrowed against their home in Atbara to pay the 35 million pound ransom, saying he doubted they would be able to repay the loan.
His brother, Alhaj Altijany Kitr, 31, said fighters placed a gun to his head and beat him severely during a video call with their family, a method similar to that used by smuggling gangs on migrant routes in neighboring Libya, where captors show relatives the abuse to pressure them for higher ransom.
The RSF has often recruited fighters or allied factions with the promise of looting rather than a fixed salary, and widespread looting has taken place in areas under its control.
But aid workers said the large ransom demands around El-Fasher represent a new phenomenon.
Satellite images of Garni village on 28 November show hundreds of newly built temporary shelters over the past month. Two aid workers said this suggests people could be held there for extended periods.
Detention inside El-Fasher
Reuters said men and women were separated on arrival in Garney, but women were also detained there. One woman said she was blindfolded and raped repeatedly over several days. Another said she witnessed similar assaults.
The second woman cried as she spoke by phone from Tawila. She said RSF fighters threatened to kill her when she tried to intervene.
Eight former detainees said they were taken back to El-Fasher and held for ransom in buildings that included military facilities and university dormitories.
A 62-year-old teacher, who requested anonymity, said he found himself in El-Fasher Children’s Hospital with hundreds of other men.
They were packed in rows, he said, with nothing to drink, so they took water from a stagnant pool in the hospital grounds that they later discovered was sewage. The teacher said about 300 men died.
Two human rights researchers who spoke to witnesses gave Reuters similar estimates.
Mujahid Eltahir, 35, who was detained in El-Fasher, said he was released after a beating for a ransom of 30 million pounds, only to be detained again in Zalingei, where his captors forced his family to pay another six million pounds.
Speaking to Reuters in N’Djamena, Chad, he said he saw the bodies of seven men he had fled with lying along the road, shot in the head and chest. Eltahir displayed a photo of his feet covered in sores from walking barefoot after RSF fighters took his shoes.
Since taking El-Fasher, the RSF has posted videos showing people receiving food and medical care in the city.
A nurse who said she had been detained by the RSF told Reuters that fighters filmed her receiving food and saying she was treated well. She said they abuse people, then show them moments later on livestreams.
