Dr Mohamed Ibrahim dashed from building to building, desperate for places to hide, as paramilitary fighters overran el-Fasher, the last Sudanese army stronghold in Darfur. The 28-year-old physician fled the city's only functioning hospital with a colleague, fearing he would not survive the day.
“All around we saw people running and falling to the ground in front of us,” Ibrahim told the Associated Press from the town of Tawila, about 70km from el-Fasher. “We moved from house to house, from wall to wall under non-stop bombardment. Bullets were flying from all directions.”
The assault by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) began on 26 October and lasted three days. United Nations officials say thousands of civilians were killed, but no precise death toll is available. Only 40% of the city’s 260,000 residents managed to flee, and thousands were wounded. The fate of the rest remains unknown.
UN officials and independent observers described el-Fasher as a “massive crime scene”. A Doctors Without Borders team that visited in January called it a “ghost town”. Nazhat Shameem Khan, deputy prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, said war crimes and crimes against humanity were committed, with “organized, widespread mass criminality” used to assert control.
Ibrahim worked at the Saudi Maternity Hospital, el-Fasher’s last functioning medical centre, where months of RSF shelling and drone strikes had reduced staff to just 11 doctors. “We worked endless shifts and supplies dwindled to nothing,” he said. On the morning of 26 October, as shelling intensified, he and a colleague fled on foot towards an army base about 1.5km away. “It was a despicable feeling,” he said. “How can el-Fasher fall? Is it over? … It was like judgment day.”
