Thousands missing, new horrors emerge after RSF taking of Sudan’s el-Fasher

Starved and abused civilians have recounted harrowing stories after fleeing the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces in western Sudan’s Darfur, while thousands more remain missing.

The capital of North Darfur state was the last Sudanese army stronghold in the vast region before falling to the RSF after 18 months of siege on Sunday.

Since then, the United Nations and international aid agencies have raised the alarm over the fate of civilians as accounts of mass killings, rape and other abuses continue to emerge.

Alkheir Ismail, a young Sudanese man who has fled to the town of Tawila, some 50km (31 miles) away, said he was among a group of 300 people who were stopped by RSF fighters as they tried to escape el-Fasher on Sunday. The fighters only spared him because one of the captors recognised him from his school days, he added.

“There was a young man I studied with, in the university in Khartoum, he told them, ‘Don’t kill him’. After that, they killed the rest of the people, the youths with me and my friends.”

Other Sudanese in Tawila also described the fear they experienced after being stopped by fighters.

“All of a sudden they showed up, from where I don’t know. Three young men showed up, different ages. They shot in the air, and said, ‘Stop, stop’. They were wearing RSF clothes,” Tahani Hassan said. “They hit us hard. They threw our clothes on the ground. Even I, as a woman, was searched. The attacker, he could be younger than my daughter.”

Fatima Abdulrahim, who fled with her grandchildren, said she walked for five days in brutal conditions to reach Tawila.

“They beat the boys and took everything we owned; they left us with nothing. After we arrived here, we learned that the girls in the group that came after us had been raped, but our girls escaped,” she said.

Rawaa Abdalla, a young woman who fled the city, said her father is missing.

‘We don’t know whether he’s alive or dead, whether he’s with the people who left or if he’s injured,” she said.

In a speech on Wednesday night, RSF head Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo called on his fighters to protect civilians and said violations will be prosecuted.

On Thursday, the paramilitary group, which has been fighting the Sudanese army since April 2023, claimed to have arrested several fighters accused of abuses, but UN humanitarian affairs chief Tom Fletcher questioned the RSF’s commitment to investigating violations.

A high-level RSF commander called the accounts “media exaggeration” by the army and its allied fighters “to cover up for their defeat and loss” of el-Fasher, according to Reuters news agency.

Both the RSF and the army have faced war crimes accusations over the course of the conflict that has killed tens of thousands of people, forced some 14 million from their homes and created the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, according to the UN. Famine is widespread while outbreaks of cholera and other deadly diseases are on the rise.

‘Killed, blocked, hunted down’

More than 62,000 people fled el-Fasher between Sunday and Wednesday, according to the UN. As of late August, el-Fasher was still home to 260,000 people.

In a statement on Friday, Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres or MSF) said agencies operating on the ground estimate that only a little over 5,000 people managed to make their way to Tawila over the past five days.

“Based on what patients tell us, the most likely, albeit frightening, answer is that they are being killed, blocked, and hunted down when trying to flee,” said MSF head of emergencies Michel Olivier Lacharite, calling on mediators the United States, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt to intervene.

MSF said every single child under five years old, of the 70 new arrivals in Tawila on October 27, was acutely malnourished, with 57 percent of them suffering from severe acute malnutrition.

Survivors told the aid agency that RSF fighters separated people by gender, age or perceived ethnic identity, with many remaining held for ransom, with sums ranging from 5 million to 30 million Sudanese pounds (more than $8,000 to nearly $50,000).

Another survivor reported gruesome scenes of RSF fighters crushing several prisoners with their vehicles, it said.

We denounce the horrendous mass atrocities and killings, both indiscriminate and ethnically-targeted, that have culminated this week in and around El Fasher, Sudan.

— MSF International (@MSF) October 31, 2025

The UN Population Fund (UNFPA), the organisation’s sexual and reproductive health agency, which offers humanitarian assistance in Tawila, spoke to more survivors while protecting their identities.

A 24-year-old man said that of a group of 200 men, women and children, only four people who could pay a ransom ended up surviving four different encounters with RSF soldiers at checkpoints on the way to Tawila.

“The rest were killed. They killed children, the elderly, and women. I cannot describe the scene, it was unbearable to watch people die right in front of you, each with a single bullet,” he was quoted as saying.

A 26-year-old woman said her husband was only able to pay a ransom for her and their children, and was killed in front of them. A 19-year-old girl said she was raped by soldiers after they asked if she was a virgin.

The UNFPA has also confirmed that at least 460 people were killed by RSF fighters in the el-Fasher maternity hospital on October 29.

The actual death toll may have been much higher, with patients, visitors, displaced people and healthcare workers among those killed, it said.

More killings in Kordofan

In the nearby state of North Kordofan, the UN estimates that more than 36,000 people have fled the Bara locality, which was captured by the RSF last week.

The UN says North Kordofan is likely to be the next battleground between the RSF and the Sudanese army, as state capital el-Obeid remains under army control.

“Reports are also emerging of serious violations in the context of RSF capture of Barra town, including the alleged summary execution of five Red Crescent volunteers. Our human rights colleagues have also received alarming reports of sexual violence,” Stephane Dujarric, spokesperson for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, told reporters on Friday.

Mohammed Elsheikh, spokesperson for the Sudan Doctors Network, told media from Manchester in the UK that people fleeing Bara are in very poor health.

“It is a long walk between Bara to el-Obeid city, through very unsafe roads in very difficult environmental conditions. We’re talking a desert, really high temperatures during the day and extremely cold weather at night,” he said.

Bara has been a scene of intense fighting between the army and the RSF, with the paramilitary group making advances in nearby areas as well.

In July, RSF fighters descended on North Kordofan villages and burned them in an attack that killed nearly 300 people, including children and pregnant women.