They came into Tine, a desert transit town on the Chad-Sudan border, drawn by the thin hope of survival and shelter. Families arrived exhausted and starving, some wounded by gunfire, many with deep scarring on their feet from days of walking barefoot across baked sand. The newcomers told accounts of being shot at as they fled, of being held captive and beaten, and of having their phones, shoes and life savings taken from them during the chaos that followed the Rapid Support Forces takeover of al-Fashir.
The assault on al-Fashir, a major city in Sudan's Darfur region once home to roughly 1 million people, culminated after an 18-month siege. The RSF's offensive began on October 25 and intensified over several days, leaving tens of thousands of civilians to navigate the desert and attempt to reach safety across the border. The U.N. has said the RSF’s actions bore the hallmarks of genocide. The RSF did not provide responses to questions about its forces' conduct during the offensive in al-Fashir.
Journalists working in Tine spoke with a number of survivors who had just escaped the city. Some testimonies were independently confirmed, while other details could not be verified. The accounts describe a city under encirclement, repeated drone strikes and paramilitary fighters operating in and around civilian areas.
Mohamed Adam, 38, and the loss of his wife, Siham Hassan
Mohamed Adam said he was attempting to flee al-Fashir on the morning of October 26 when a drone strike struck the house where he and his family were sheltering. His wife, Siham, was killed in that strike. Adam said shrapnel became embedded in his chest and eye. He said there was no time to bury her before he and surviving relatives fled.
As he ran, Adam said he saw dozens of bodies lining the road and was forced to change direction repeatedly to avoid circling drones and groups of paramilitary fighters. He described a 57-kilometre trench that the RSF had dug around the city and said that inside that perimeter he observed bodies of men, women and children who had been shot by RSF forces. "Nobody asked who we were," Adam said. "They just shot us."
Adam described the road out of al-Fashir as merciless. "It was all death and dead bodies," he said. He walked for days with his brother, who was injured and walking with a crutch because of a broken leg and a destroyed knee cap. The two eventually rented camels to reach the Chad border.
Adam said his wife, Siham, had been a member of parliament in Khartoum and a longtime humanitarian activist who supported widows, orphans and displaced people in and around al-Fashir, including at the Zamzam refugee camp. Until the Friday before she died, he said, she had been distributing food aid at the Saudi hospital. He spoke about her in the present tense, raw in grief. "She is my wife. I am her husband. I cant explain it in detail because of the pain," he said. "We are looking for peace in our country. We dont need anything else. I have nothing. I lost hope. I lost my family. I havent had hope in a long time."
Safaa Zakaria, 29, on losing her husband and brothers
Born and raised in al-Fashir, Safaa Zakaria said her family endured severe deprivation during the 18-month siege, surviving in part by consuming ambaz, a form of animal feed. "There was no eating and no drinking," she said, adding that anyone who ventured outside to fetch water risked being killed by drones.
Zakaria said the final RSF assault began around 3 a.m. on October 26 with heavy artillery and drone strikes, filling the sky above the city with fire. She and her family attempted to flee. During the flight, she said an RSF fighter captured one of her brothers and another fighter shot and killed two of her brothers-in-law.
In a video shown to her, Zakaria identified an RSF commander as the man who had killed those relatives. The commander, Brigadier General al-Fateh Abdullah Idris, who is known by the name Abu Lulu, has been widely identified by survivors as central to abuses during the offensive. Videos reviewed by journalists show Abu Lulu shooting unarmed people in several recorded incidents; in four videos he is seen killing 15 unarmed people.
Following the offensive, footage circulated showing Abu Lulu in a detention cell at Shala prison in southern al-Fashir. Informants in the field offered conflicting accounts about his status after that release; thirteen sources told journalists that he had subsequently been released, and nine said he had returned to combat. The RSF rejects those claims, maintaining that he remains in detention and will be tried for alleged offenses.
Zakaria continued fleeing on foot with her baby, then two-and-a-half months old, and said she was stopped repeatedly by RSF fighters who beat her. She said she witnessed many people die along the route to Chad and that bodies had to be left on the road because survivors could not carry them. "We suffered horrors beyond words," she said. "What we lived through in al-Fashir cannot be described."
Mona Mohamed, 33, and the last sighting of her brother
Mona Mohamed recounted a life marked by repeated displacement. She was about nine years old when widespread conflict in Darfur in 2003 first separated her family, and she later lived in a displaced persons camp. She married, moved, graduated in English from Al-Neelain University in Khartoum, and when renewed fighting began in April 2023 she returned to Darfur and eventually to al-Fashir. After months of airstrikes, a shell flattened her home and killed the people next door. She fled to Chad with her two young children and began working in the Iridimi refugee camp.
Mohamed said she left other family members behind, including her brother, Bakhit Mersal, who had supported her and her family through the fighting. After the RSF took control of al-Fashir in October 2025, she saw a video circulating online and on messaging apps showing her brother alive but bleeding and barely responsive. That video became the last confirmation she had of his fate. "He stayed there, all alone. The last we heard about him was when they brought us a video," she said.
Khadija Isa, 35, who witnessed the killing of her brother
Khadija Isa said she and her sister Manazil fled al-Fashir with their families on October 26 as paramilitary fighters tightened their attack. She said fighters entered her home and stole clothes, shoes and cell phones. The family was stopped and held hostage for five days while leaving the city; during that time she said Abu Lulu identified himself to them and used racial slurs.
Isa said she witnessed RSF fighters shooting and killing men, women and children in the streets. She said she saw Abu Lulu shoot her brother, Mubarak Harun, who was 30 years old, and that when she tried to intervene he pushed her down and beat her. That night Isa and her sister managed to escape with some of their children, but Isa said they lost other children and do not know whether those children are alive or dead.
Ibrahim Ali, 26, whose best friend was killed on camera
Ibrahim Ali described meeting his best friend, Fatih Mukhtar, on university registration day at Nyala University in South Darfur. Mukhtar taught him volleyball and was known for his constant smile, Ali said. After fighting resumed in 2023, both returned to their families in al-Fashir and continued to meet in the city.
When bombardment began on the morning of October 26, Ali said he did not immediately understand the scope of what was happening. He ran through streets with his wife and young daughter looking for a way out. The group of women they joined was repeatedly stopped by paramilitary fighters who beat them and took their savings and identity documents. One fighter fired a round near Ali's temple, leaving permanent damage to his hearing, he said.
In a refugee camp in Chad, Ali was shown a video by a journalist of an RSF attack. In that footage, Abu Lulu appears on camera, introduces himself and points a gun at three men lying on the ground in civilian clothes, forcing them to chant RSF slogans. Mukhtar, wearing a blue shirt in the footage, attempts to reason with Abu Lulu before being shot dead. "The guy had nothing to do with the military or politics," Ali said. "He was only interested in philosophy and education ... as well as books and novels." He described the killing as the worst thing he had witnessed.
Humanitarian and logistical fallout described by survivors
The accounts collected in Tine point to a combination of direct violence against civilians and the collapse of basic services and protections in al-Fashir. Survivors described bodies left along routes of flight, families unable to carry the dead, and scenes of destruction that left residents with little or no property, savings or identification. Many said their attempts to reach water or food were met with lethal force.
While the RSF has said that fighters or officers who committed crimes would be arrested and investigated and that any results would be publicized - as stated by RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo on October 29 - survivors report that commanders implicated in abuses have, according to some field sources, resurfaced in combat roles. The RSF has denied claims that a prominent commander has been released and returned to fighting, insisting he remains detained and will face trial.
Survivor testimonies convey immediate needs for medical care for wounds and injuries from gunfire and long marches, psychological support for severe trauma, and basic humanitarian assistance such as food, water and shelter. They also highlight difficulties in documentation for displaced people whose identity papers and savings were taken during seizures and detentions while fleeing.
Verification and limits of the survivors' accounts
Journalists on the ground sought to corroborate the accounts they recorded in Tine. Some elements of the testimonies were independently confirmed; however, other details could not be verified. That limitation underscores the challenge of documenting events in areas where access is constrained, communications are disrupted and powerful armed actors control movements and narratives.
The survivors descriptions, taken together, paint a consistent picture of civilians under sustained attack, fleeing through hostile terrain and encountering repeated violence from paramilitary fighters. But specific sequences of events, numbers of victims and the immediate whereabouts of certain commanders remain subjects where accounts differ or cannot be conclusively confirmed from the available material.
What survivors say they want
Beyond immediate material needs, survivors repeatedly voiced a desire for peace. "We are looking for peace in our country," said one survivor who had lost his family. Others expressed uncertainty and despair at the loss of loved ones and the difficulty of knowing who among their relatives had survived. The narratives gathered in Tine are both personal and representative of broader displacement: families separated, livelihoods erased, and communities facing uncertain futures.
The accounts provide a human-scale view of the consequences of a military offensive that followed a prolonged siege of a major urban center, and they underline the complex humanitarian and security challenges that follow such operations. As displaced people seek refuge across borders and in camps, the need for medical care, shelter and the restoration of identity documents remains acute according to those who made it out of al-Fashir.