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08-02-2026
KHARTOUM: Montaha Omer Mustafa, 18, was among many people who managed to get out of el-Fasher before the city’s seizure by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group, but only after paying for passage and going days on foot with little water, moving through villages and scrubland.
As fighting closed in on the last big city held by the government-aligned Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) in North Darfur state, tens of thousands of residents fled westwards, abandoning homes, possessions, and even family members.
El-Fasher almost emptied in a matter of days in October.
“Armed men stopped us and stole everything of value, gold, cash and food,” Mustafa told media from the Tawila refugee camp, some 50km (30 miles) west of el-Fasher.
Somewhere along the road amid thirst, fear and the rush of thousands moving at once, her brother disappeared. They searched, then had to keep going.
There was no choice, she said, and she remains unsure of his fate.
Three Sudanese refugees narrated to media about their escape from el-Fasher, making a journey from a city which was under bombardment and siege to the Tawila refugee camp, where the sudden arrival of thousands has pushed already scarce resources to the brink.
‘Ghost town’
What the fleeing people left behind has become a “ghost town”, according to medical charity Doctors Without Borders (also known by its French acronym MSF), whose teams visited the city in January.
MSF said it fears that “a majority of the civilians who were still alive when the RSF seized the city were killed or displaced”.
More than 120,000 people fled the RSF’s capture of el-Fasher, approximately 75 percent of whom were already internally displaced people (IDPs) seeking refuge there, the International Organization for Migration said in January, while the World Food Program says between 70,000 and 100,000 remain trapped in the city.
Nathaniel Raymond, executive director of the Humanitarian Research Lab at Yale’s School of Public Health, which has been monitoring the war, recounted a rare call last year with someone trapped in el-Fasher, telling media: “They had run out of food and water. And they … saw bodies everywhere … they came out during the night.
“We only got them on the phone once. We haven’t talked to them again.”
RSF accused of more war crimes
The RSF mounted a large offensive to capture el-Fasher late last year, after besieging the city for nearly 18 months.
Its long-anticipated fall, despite the fighters marooned in the city putting up a determined resistance, precipitated mass atrocities in el-Fasher, including the systematic targeting of non-Arab populations, particularly from the Zaghawa and Fur tribes, according to the United Nations and rights groups.
On January 19, the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) deputy prosecutor told the UN Security Council that the RSF had committed war crimes and crimes against humanity during its capture of el-Fasher.
Nazhat Shameem Khan said the fall of the city was followed by a “calculated campaign of the most profound suffering”, particularly targeting members of the Zaghawa and Fur ethnic groups. “This criminality is being repeated in town after town in Darfur,” she said.
Marwan Mohammed, an activist at the Tawila refugee camp, where the majority of the refugees have fled, told media recent escapees described scenes in the city as “the worst they’ve seen”, with neighborhood streets strewn with corpses. (Int’l Monitoring Desk)
