Sudan: Hundreds Of Men Shot And Missing After Al-Fashir Falls To Paramilitaries: Witnesses

Men were rounded up and shot after the capture of Sudan’s al-Fashir by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), witnesses told Reuters, describing what appeared to be targeted killings in the latest escalation of the country’s two-and-a-half-year civil war.

According to Reuters, one survivor, Alkheir Ismail, said he was among a group of around 200 men detained near the city at the weekend and taken to a nearby reservoir by fighters on camels. The men were insulted with racial slurs before being shot, he said. “He told them, ‘Don’t kill him,’” Ismail recalled of one captor who recognised him from school and allowed him to escape. “Even after they killed everyone else – my friends and everyone else.” Reuters said it could not immediately verify his account.

Ismail was one of four witnesses and six aid workers interviewed by Reuters who said men fleeing al-Fashir were separated from women and removed by RSF fighters in surrounding villages. One earlier account described hearing gunfire shortly after the separations.

Activists and analysts have long warned that the RSF’s capture of al-Fashir could lead to ethnically motivated reprisals. The UN human rights office said on Friday that hundreds of civilians and unarmed fighters may have been executed, calling such acts war crimes.

The RSF denied the allegations, saying they were fabricated by opponents seeking to obscure their defeat. A senior RSF commander described the reports as “media exaggeration” and said those detained were soldiers disguised as civilians taken for interrogation. “There were no killings as has been claimed,” he told Reuters.

He added that RSF leadership had ordered investigations into any abuses, with several individuals arrested, and said the group had helped civilians leave the city while urging aid organisations to provide support.

Reuters said it had verified at least three videos posted online showing men in RSF uniforms shooting unarmed captives, along with about a dozen others depicting clusters of bodies after apparent shootings.

According to Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), eyewitnesses reported that about 500 civilians and Sudanese army soldiers tried to flee al-Fashir on 26 October, but most were killed or captured by the RSF and allied forces. “Survivors report individuals being separated by gender, age, or perceived ethnic identity, and many who remain held for ransom, with sums ranging from 5 million to 30 million Sudanese pounds ($8,000 to $50,000),” MSF said.

The fall of al-Fashir consolidates Sudan’s division, leaving the RSF dominant in Darfur and the army pushed further east. In a speech on Wednesday, RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo urged his fighters to protect civilians and said any violations would be prosecuted. He appeared to acknowledge ongoing detentions and ordered the release of those held.

Most of the forces defending al-Fashir were from the Zaghawa ethnic group, long at odds with the largely Arab RSF, whose roots trace back to the Janjaweed militias accused of atrocities in Darfur two decades ago.

Alex de Waal, a Darfur specialist, told Reuters that the reported acts in al-Fashir resembled those seen in Geneina and other cities previously taken by the RSF. The United States has said the RSF committed genocide in Geneina, and the International Criminal Court (ICC) is investigating the attack. The Sudanese army has accused the United Arab Emirates of backing the RSF, which the UAE denies.

Mary Brace, a protection adviser with Nonviolent Peaceforce, said those arriving in Tawila were mostly “women, children, and older men.” She added that RSF trucks had transported some displaced people from Garney to Tawila, while others were taken elsewhere.

On Thursday, the RSF released a video showing what it said was the distribution of food and medical supplies to displaced residents in Garney. Aid workers, however, told Reuters the force might be attempting to retain civilians in its territory to attract international assistance.

Around 260,000 people were in al-Fashir before the attack, but only 62,000 have since been accounted for, according to humanitarian agencies, with just a few thousand reaching Tawila, controlled by a neutral force.

Among those who fled was Tahani Hassan, a former hospital cleaner, who told Reuters she escaped after her relatives were killed by stray bullets. On the road to Tawila, she said she was stopped by three men in RSF uniforms who beat and searched her family. “They hit us hard. They threw our clothes on the ground. Even I, as a woman, was searched,” she said, adding that their food and water were destroyed.

Hassan said the men in her group were later separated and not seen again. “We can’t say they are alive, because of how they treated us,” she said. “If they don’t kill you, the hunger will kill you, the thirst will kill you.”

(With inputs from Reuters)