“Two members of our group couldn’t pay the ransom — they told us to line them up in front of us.” A sentence that may sound shocking to many, but it is the reality for those fleeing Al-Fashir, the capital of North Darfur, since the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) seized the city in late October after a tightening siege that lasted 550 days.
With those words, 32-year-old Mohammed Bakhit began his account to Atar, describing his abduction by the RSF and his release only after his family paid the demanded ransom.
Mohammed left Al-Fashir two weeks before it fell to the RSF, travelling with eight other young men and guides who were helping escapees reach the area of Tawila, about 69 kilometres west of Al-Fashir. As they exited through Bab al-Amal (al-Rubwa), west of Al-Fashir University, rain began to fall and dust filled the air; they became separated from their companions and the guides.
Bakhit said six of them — leaving the western part of the city for the first time and with no knowledge of Tawila — decided to press on alone along the only road they knew. Their route led them into the hands of camel herders, who brutally beat them and labelled them “falnqayat”.
They subjected me to every form of humiliation and savage beating… On the fourth day, they demanded we call our families to arrange a financial ransom, threatening to kill us if it was not paid.
Mohammed Bakhit
“They subjected me to every form of humiliation and savage beating,” Bakhit said. The herders handed the captives over to motorcycle drivers, who transported them to Umm Jalbagh, a village in Al-Fashir’s western countryside.
Bakhit recounted that they were suspended by ropes at night and bound under the sun by day for three days, whipped until the marks were imprinted on their bodies, and denied food and water. On the fourth day, their captors demanded they call their families to arrange a financial ransom, threatening to kill them if the payment was not made.
Bakhit sighed before adding that two of his companions were shot dead on the spot after telling their captors their families could not pay. When the four remaining men learnt the fate of those who could not pay, they decided to call their families. Bakhit said, “Because the women in my family might not withstand the shock of our abduction, I called a friend and urged him not to tell my family where I was until the ransom was paid.” He added that he negotiated with his captors to reduce the ransom of 50 million pounds: “I told them I did not even have a quarter of that amount, that all I owned were furnishings inside Al-Fashir, and that I would ask my brothers to sell them and send whatever they could.”
Bakhit said his captors then moved him from the market prison in Umm Jalbagh to the house of one of the kidnappers, placing him in a small pen guarded by the kidnapper’s children, who carried weapons, never spoke to the captives and could not be questioned. He remained there for another three days until he was able to pay the ransom, which negotiations had lowered to 5 million pounds. His captor then took him to a village near Tawila. Asked about guarantees for his safety after payment, he said he felt secure because he met other captives at the kidnapper’s house who had been released after their families paid.
Camel herders, or abalah, are camel owners in North Darfur and include different ethnic groupings such as the Zaghawa, Rizayqat and Mahariya. In this report, however, the term refers to Arab groups aligned with the RSF. They live in areas known as damirat, encampments used by nomadic Arab tribes. These groups do not possess exclusive hawakir (land holdings) like other social groups; instead, they establish their damirat within the hawakir of others, such as the Fur and the Tunjur. Damirat are especially common in the direction of Koma and north of Kutum.
Umm Jalbagh lies in Al-Fashir’s western countryside, about 37 kilometres from the city. It is one of the damirat of Arab groups that have supported the RSF since April. Locals say the area has long served as a transit route for nomads and traders. It rose to prominence after repeated abductions of civilians fleeing Al-Fashir as the RSF tightened its siege, turning escapees into commodities in a human-trafficking market. RSF-aligned abalah militias hunt and gather civilians, divide them and move them to Umm Jalbagh west of Al-Fashir or to Kolqi damira southwest of the city, seven kilometres west of the Zamzam IDP camp.
An explicit agreement between RSF kidnappers and allied militias leaves captives in farms near Tawila so they can reach the town; anyone intercepted earlier risks being kidnapped again, according to information obtained by Atar’s correspondent.
Speaking to Atar, the son of al-Tahir ‘Ushr, a 67-year-old sheikh, said his father left Al-Fashir the morning the city fell, heading to Tawila. Wounded and unable to walk quickly, he fell into RSF hands, who demanded a ransom near Tawila or said they would leave him to die of his injuries. His son lost contact for about five days before a relative informed him his father had managed to pay two million pounds and was receiving treatment at Tawila hospital.
Mohammed Mandi, 33, was last seen in Al-Fashir before the city fell to the RSF. His sister told Atar that the family lost contact after the fall until, 10 days later, someone called from an RSF phone demanding a ransom, warning they would kill him if it was not paid. In the meantime, another sibling — her brother — had also been seized by a different group of captors who demanded 8 million pounds. The extended family raised the money and secured that brother’s release, but they were slow to pay for Mohammed. By the time they gathered the 5 million pounds required for his release, his original captors had left Darfur for Kordofan and handed him to other kidnappers. The family were told to deal with the new captors, but contact was cut and his fate remains unknown.
The morning of 26 October saw the final pitched battles in Al-Fashir between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and its allies and the RSF, which attacked from several directions with armoured vehicles and drones. The Sixth Infantry Division collapsed at about 11 a.m., and fighters withdrew west toward the artillery compound and Al-Fashir University. As defenders continued to repel attacks at al-Muqarrin amid heavy RSF bombardment, withdrawals grew chaotic: some fighters slipped out in civilian clothes, others in combat vehicles. Many fell into RSF ambushes; others escaped and dug in on Wana mountain along the Kutum road west of Al-Fashir, where the RSF besieged them for roughly five nights while the holdouts repelled assaults. During these attempts to slip away, a large number of soldiers and officers were captured. Some prisoners were taken straight to RSF detention at Al-Fashir’s inland port; others were transferred to Daqrisi prison in Nyala, the capital of South Darfur.
Speaking to Atar, First Lieutenant Sidiq Omar said he and six soldiers left the northern gate of Al-Fashir on the evening of 26 October. They had been warned not to disclose their ranks to RSF forces and agreed to present themselves as civilians seeking safety outside the city. The officer said they ended up at the Abu Lulu checkpoint, notorious as one of the RSF’s bloodiest elements. He said he appears in a video circulated by RSF fighters documenting Abu Lulu’s executions of escapees, and that one soldier admitted they were combatants and identified Omar as a SAF officer.
Ransom payments initially ranged from 1 million to 10 million pounds, but within days after Al-Fashir fell, the ceiling climbed to 100 million pounds.
Atar correspondent
Sidiq said Abu Lulu ordered him out from among the civilians and told him to sit apart because he was an officer, then had the civilians lined up and executed in front of him. He was then moved in a combat vehicle to the Qarni area northwest of Al-Fashir, and later to the inland port on the city’s eastern side, where he was handed over to other RSF soldiers. There he began negotiating his release for a ransom. After days of talks, they set the price at 8 million pounds plus transportation fees to the town of Mellit, about 65 kilometres north of Al-Fashir, where he was released and later reached the town of Al-Dabba in the Northern State. The officer said that from Mellit to Al-Hamra he paid large sums to ride in goods trucks bound for Kordofan.
Officer Ammar al-Haj, a SAF officer, said kidnappers usually demand payment from within the captive’s own military cohort. Ammar relied on a colleague who had been seized between Al-Fashir and Qarni; once the captors confirmed he belonged to the SAF, they demanded 100 million pounds. His brother contacted a fellow captive from the same intake, who in turn appealed to Ammar’s batchmates; they raised roughly 50 million pounds to secure his freedom. Ammar said the military institution does not pay ransoms for abducted soldiers or prisoners; releases are arranged through mutual support among members of the same intake. He added that since Al-Fashir fell they have paid ransoms for four colleagues whose demands were exorbitant.
Ransom amounts vary by captor and sometimes by the captive’s rank. SAF officers and soldiers and members of allied forces face demands ranging from a minimum of 20 million pounds to as high as 100 million. Atar’s correspondent recorded more than 10 cases in which officers paid over 40 million pounds for their freedom.
Testimonies collected by Atar also indicate most kidnappers are abalah and motorcycle drivers; these groups do not confine captives in the RSF’s known prisons. Abductions typically occur outside Al-Fashir’s northern or north-western gates, and captives are taken to areas such as Kolqi and Umm Jalbagh in Al-Fashir’s countryside, with only a few moved to outlying neighbourhoods far from the RSF detention centres inside the city. The correspondent also noted that ransom demands rose over time: on the first day after the city fell most demands ranged from 1 million to 10 million pounds, but in the days that followed the ceiling climbed to 100 million pounds. Contact between kidnappers and families is usually by WhatsApp or Facebook, and all ransom payments are routed through the Bankak app.
A fighter with the joint armed movements said a commander known in the forces was captured as he left Al-Fashir; once the kidnappers recognised him, they threatened to demand 50 million pounds or hand him to RSF command, which had been seeking him since the city’s fall. The fighter said they raised the money and paid quickly when the commander or his family made contact, to prevent the captors from changing their minds or hiking the price; the man was later released near Tawila.
The same fighter said another comrade was captured alongside a field officer of the joint forces and was gravely wounded. The kidnappers told his family to pay the ransom or leave him to bleed to death; they paid 50 million pounds, but the officer later died from his injuries. The family then tried to recover the payment, but the kidnappers refused and blocked them on social media.
If captives are not left at the prearranged safe location, they risk being seized again and forced to pay ransom a second time.
Testimony from a survivor escorted to Tawaila
The fighter added that they contacted the Bank of Khartoum and froze the account that received the payment; that action succeeded, and they are still awaiting legal steps to recover the money. He said this case was unique among those he knew, since RSF elements typically provide multiple account numbers for payment when demands are large.
Kidnapped people also reported an intermediate safe zone where those who pay for their freedom are left: farms east of Tawila. Motorcycle drivers bring captives from Umm Jalbagh or Kolqi to those farms; anyone not left at the location prearranged among the captors risks being seized again by another group and forced to pay ransom once more.
