When war reached El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, it did not fall from the sky in a single, terrifying moment. It crept in on the backs of whispers, borne by spreading fear. Abdelaziz Ahmed, a man in his forties and a resident of North Darfur’s capital, was working on a farming project when his world began to unravel. He was a husband, a father to one child. He lived in a house he had built over time through effort, not charity. It was modest, but it was stable and dignified. Then came 15 April 2023.

The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF)—well armed and emboldened—unleashed a conflict that would not only redraw Sudan’s map but bury its people beneath it. Abdelaziz’s first instinct was not flight but patience. He took his family and moved to the eastern part of El Fasher, thinking they could wait it out. “We believed it wouldn’t last,” he said. “We thought maybe months, no more.” But the RSF was already there, quietly consolidating control. Nothing felt safe for long.

As the weeks dragged on and the war settled like smoke into every crevice of daily life. They returned to El Fasher, to a city already asphyixiated under siege. RSF leaders were now demanding that civilians vacate entire neighbourhoods. “They told people to leave,” Abdelaziz recalled. It was not advice; it was an open and solemn threat. The family moved again, this time north to the town of Shagra in North Darfur, far from the front lines. No battles had yet erupted there. But the peace lasted barely a few weeks.

In February, RSF fighters descended on Shagra and unleashed carnage, singling out young men and dragging them from their homes, beating and shooting them. Abdelaziz described it plainly: “They committed massacres.” He added: “There is no place the RSF enters that isn’t marked by crimes, theft and blood.” For him, it was the final confirmation that no place, however distant or quiet, would be spared. Once again, he gathered his family and fled this time to Zamzam, a large camp for the displaced, 15 kilometres from El Fasher.

Even on the road to Zamzam they heard rumours: that RSF leaders were calling it a military base, that attacks were imminent. But there was nowhere else to go. The roads were no longer pathways; they were tests of faith. “We knew they might attack, but we had no other choice,” he said.

At Zamzam, fear was the main currency. RSF fighters attacked twice before their final offensive. First, they struck the Salam neighbourhood, then the market at the centre of the camp. “Everywhere they enter, they destroy,” Abdelaziz said. On 13 April the RSF announced that they had taken control of what they called the “Zamzam base”. “It wasn’t a base,” Abdelaziz said. “It was a refugee camp. There were no soldiers, just people.”

By the time of the final assault, he had already escaped again risking his life to return to El Fasher. The city, still under siege, had grown hungrier, hollower, and was being pounded by indiscriminate RSF shelling. “They bombed houses directly,” Abdelaziz said. “Not military positions and homes. Families.”

Food became nearly impossible to find. Medicines disappeared. Disease spread. People began to die in quiet corners, unnoticed. “There was no more life in El Fasher,” he said. “Only survival.”

So, he made a final decision: to leave the city and Sudan entirely. With him were his wife, his young son, and his aunt who was widowed, alone, and caring for five children. The youngest was a one-year-old baby.

They loaded what little they could onto a donkey cart and began their journey towards Chad. On the way to Al-Sheikh village in North Darfur, they passed scene after scene of despair. “The road was filled with women, children, the elderly,” he said. “Everyone was walking. Everyone looked lost.”

People moved in single-file lines—not out of order, but fear. “We didn’t separate,” Abdelaziz said. “There were landmines. RSF fighters. We had to stay together.”

At Al-Sheikh, five kilometres from El Fasher, RSF had banned carts from continuing. They would now have to walk. Abdelaziz stared ahead, uncertain how they would survive. The next leg—to Qarni in North Darfur—was 18 to 20 kilometres. He didn’t know if he could make it. Then, beside him, he saw a child—barefoot, no older than five—walking the same road.

“That child gave me strength,” he said. “If he could walk it without shoes, how could I not keep going?”

They walked under a brutal sun. They carried babies, comforted crying children, and supported the elderly. Some collapsed from the heat. Others were left behind. Abdelaziz’s group reached Qarni after four hours; others took seven. There, they encountered an unexpected sight: more than 200 Toyota pickup trucks, many without number plates or RSF markings.

“They looked civilian, but they were driven by RSF fighters,” Abdelaziz said. “They were transporting people—for a price.”

He negotiated passage to Kurmu in North Darfur too for himself and his group: 130,000 Sudanese pounds per person (around $54). But he refused to pay upfront. “If you paid early, they might leave you at a checkpoint,” he said. “It happened to others.”

At RSF-controlled checkpoints between Kurmu and Sereif in North Darfur, extortion was routine. Young men were stopped, accused of being soldiers, and pulled from vehicles.

At one post, the driver demanded an additional 70,000 Sudanese pounds (around $29) per young man. Abdelaziz had no choice but to agree, but again refused to pay until they were delivered safely. One older man in the vehicle refused entirely, insisting on honesty. “He said, if they ask, I’ll explain my circumstances. That’s all,” Abdelaziz recalled.

But when RSF fighters stopped the car, they dragged the man out, called him a military officer, and beat him in front of his wife and children. “He was no soldier,” Abdelaziz said. “He was a cattle trader. Everyone knew him in El Fasher.”

Abdelaziz was next. They stopped him, questioned his beard, and then searched his passport. Inside, they found an old Saudi residency permit. The fighters accused him of being part of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) who had fought in Yemen. “They said I went to fight,” he said. “But I worked for a company.”

Unable to read the permit, they took him to a superior who could. The man saw it was outdated and legitimate. Only then was Abdelaziz released.

As he returned to the vehicle, he saw six young men under a tree, being whipped. “Their families were watching,” he said. “They weren’t allowed to stop it.”

RSF fighters kept calling us Falngaiat, Abdelaziz said—a derogatory term meaning “slaves”, historically used by some Sudanese-Arab tribes in Darfur to insult and dehumanise Sudanese-African communities. The word is steeped in the racial prejudice that has fuelled decades of marginalisation and violence. It was not just an insult. It was a message: that those fleeing were not considered civilians, or even human.

This racial abuse mirrors the RSF’s origins. Formerly known as the Janjaweed, the force is responsible for the atrocities committed in Darfur during the early 2000s, when entire villages were razed and mass killings targeted non-Arab communities. Two decades later, Abdelaziz said, the language—and the violence—has not changed.

Eventually, Abdelaziz crossed the border into Chad. But his face held no relief. “We left everything,” he said. “Our homes, our neighbours, our dead. There was no goodbye. Only walking.”

In another part of Darfur, Nasr, who only shared his first name, was facing his own version of the same war. When the RSF took over Zalingei, the capital of Central Darfur, in October 2023, he knew he had to run. His father had already been threatened twice by the late RSF commander in Darfur, Ali Yakoub. It was only a matter of time.

With his wife, two small children, his parents, and siblings, Nasr fled. They passed through Sarf Omra, then Kabkabiya in North Darfur, finally reaching Zamzam camp on 22 November 2024. They built a makeshift shelter and tried to rebuild. Each day, Nasr made the long journey to El Fasher and back—a 15-kilometre round trip—to work in the livestock market and bring food home.

Then, in February, RSF stormed the camp. He had to flee to El Fasher. The roads closed. He could not return to his family.

“I waited by the roadside every day,” he said. “Hoping someone would tell me anything.” His voice, when he spoke of it, was barely above a whisper. “I just wanted to know they were alive.”

Eventually, word reached him: his family had fled towards Tawila. But soon after, he began receiving threats. RSF members were asking about him. On 15 May, he knew he had to disappear.

He fled, not on foot, but by camel, across the desert, with smugglers. For seven days he crossed barren land. “It felt like dying slowly,” he said. “But I couldn’t stay.” When he reached Chad, he collapsed. His body had survived. But part of him had not.

Two men. Two testimonies. One country devoured by war.

Abdelaziz walked across a burning land, child in one hand, grief in the other. Nasr rode through silence and sun, chasing a family scattered by violence. Their journeys were different, but what they witnessed was the same: a war waged not just between armed forces, but against the people caught in between.

Despite RSF claims that they are targeting only military actors—the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Joint Forces—both men describe a systematic pattern of violence against civilians. Camps filled with displaced families, not fighters, were bombed. Children and elders were forced to flee. Along the roads, those trying to escape were extorted, accused, and beaten. Civilians who complied with RSF orders to evacuate still found themselves under fire. “Zamzam was not a base,” Abdelaziz repeated. “It was people. Families. Refugees.”

Their stories, drawn from two corners of Darfur, tell a deeper truth: for many, the war is not just about control of territory or military victories—it is about survival in the face of deliberate, calculated harm. Civilians are not collateral. They are targets. And the promises of protection are no more than dust in the desert winds that carried Abdelaziz and Nasr into exile.