Survivors fleeing Sudan’s El- Fasher recount horror: “Dead bodies in the streets, no one to bury them”

Survivors fleeing the besieged Sudanese city of El Fasher have described scenes of horror and devastation after the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) seized control of the city on Sunday, following more than a year-long siege.

Residents who managed to escape told of bodies strewn across the streets, including children killed before their families’ eyes. “There were dead bodies everywhere, no one to bury them,” one survivor said after reaching Tawila, about 70 kilometres away.

The United Nations Security Council on Thursday condemned the RSF assault, warning of its “devastating impact on the civilian population.”

According to UN estimates, more than 36,000 civilians fled El Fasher on Sunday alone, after the RSF captured the army’s last major stronghold in the Darfur region. Humanitarian agencies have since warned of the risk of mass killings and ethnic cleansing.

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Tawila, the town where many have sought refuge, already shelters more than 650,000 displaced people, stretching scarce food and medical supplies to the breaking point.

Three survivors who reached Tawila recounted the chaos of their escape, describing how the RSF cut off access to food, medicine, and water during the 18-month siege.

Their testimonies echo the atrocities of Darfur’s early-2000s conflict, when Janjaweed militias—now the core of the RSF—were accused of genocide, killing some 300,000 people and displacing more than 2.7 million.

Imtithal Mahmoud, a Darfur genocide survivor now living in the United States, said she recognized her relative’s body in a video circulating on accounts linked to the RSF.

The full names of other survivors interviewed have been withheld for their safety.

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