A Journalist Escaping the Hell of the Rapid Support Forces’ Gangs (2)

The murder of a well-known elder in the neighborhood—a man respected for his piety, strong character, and dignity—by the criminal gangs of the Dagalo family in broad daylight marked the beginning of a storm. It was as if they had gone mad. From then on, their main preoccupation became roaming the market, sitting near food vendors, eating without paying, and daring anyone to question them. Nearby, most shops were forced to close due to their harassment. As I mentioned before, a group of disreputable women gathered around them, and soon unemployed individuals, drug addicts, thieves, ex-convicts, pimps, and drug dealers from the neighborhood joined in. In short, all types of criminals aligned with them, causing more harm to the area than the outsiders who had initially arrived, as I will explain further.

These criminal militia members wandered arrogantly through the market streets, sitting around shamelessly and scrutinizing people’s faces—not as part of any security or intelligence operation but to find an excuse to exhibit their arrogance. They would beat, insult, detain, and torture people under any pretext to humiliate them. For example, they would stop someone at random and accuse them of being too stern-looking, asking, “What’s wrong? Don’t you like us?” Then they’d label the person a regime loyalist (Koz), beat them publicly to disgrace them, and drag them off to detention. For women, being beautiful was itself a crime. A woman could be detained simply for her looks—either she complied with their desires, or she was detained and never returned. If she did return, it was either as a corpse or as someone broken, mentally and emotionally destroyed.

Among the many heartbreaking stories is that of a doctor who was abducted by the local commander. The story goes that he had proposed to marry her, but when her family rejected him, he kidnapped her, leaving her family in unimaginable suffering. This incident instilled fear in families, causing many to forbid their daughters from going out.

One of the most painful atrocities was their night raids on homes. They would scale walls if they heard there was a beautiful girl inside. In full view of her father and brothers, they would take her away, claiming she was an army intelligence operative—even if she was merely a student or housewife. In one incident, they abducted a woman with a nursing infant who worked in the medical field. They came for her in the middle of the night while her husband and children were present. After severely beating her husband, they accused her of being a spy collaborating with the regular army. They took her away despite her cries, silencing her by pointing a weapon at her baby’s head. For days afterward, no one could console her crying children or her devastated husband. From that night on, no one ever heard from her again.