Washington Post: RSF Hold Thousands Hostage, Kill Those Unable to Pay Ransoms
Sudan Events – Agencies
The Washington Post has reviewed testimonies from survivors who said fighters from Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) carried out mass arrests of civilians in the city of El Fasher, subjecting them to torture and extorting their families for money.
In a report by Katherine Houreld and Hafiz Haroun, the newspaper said survivor accounts and human rights organizations point to widespread abuses committed by the RSF after it seized control of El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state. These abuses included the mass abduction of civilians, holding them for ransom, and carrying out summary executions against those unable to pay—sometimes in front of their family members.
According to these accounts, detainees were tortured, starved and humiliated, and were forced at gunpoint to contact their relatives to demand large sums of money in exchange for their release, the newspaper reported.
The violations intensified following a prolonged siege of the city that lasted about a year and a half, according to the paper. After the Sudanese army withdrew in late October, RSF fighters launched sweeping arrest campaigns targeting men, women and children.
An Extortion Network
Although the true scale of the crimes is difficult to determine due to communications blackouts, the testimonies describe horrific scenes, including civilians being run over by armored vehicles, filmed mass executions, and children left orphaned and wandering in the desert.
These events are unfolding amid a war that has continued since April 2023, which the United Nations has described as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. The conflict has displaced around 12 million people and killed vast numbers of civilians.
Nathaniel Raymond, director of the Humanitarian Research Lab at Yale University’s School of Public Health, believes that tens of thousands have already been killed by the RSF in El Fasher alone. He said his lab will release a report next week documenting at least 140 mass grave sites and identifying extensive efforts to conceal evidence of massacres.
Reports have also revealed the existence of an organized extortion system inside detention centers, particularly in the city of Nyala, where thousands of civilians are held in harsh conditions and released only after ransoms are paid through financial transfers. Torture and poor health conditions have led to repeated deaths, according to the newspaper.
Medical and human rights organizations have confirmed that doctors, politicians and journalists are among those detained. A medical worker, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals, said he remained in El Fasher throughout the siege. When RSF fighters overran the city, he fled with a group of about 100 people, but they were quickly captured, and around 30 were executed on the spot.
Detainees at Gunpoint
The medical worker said the survivors were transported in a convoy to the town of Kutum. “They dropped us in an abandoned house and ordered us to call our families,” he said. “They told me I had to convince them to pay 50 million Sudanese pounds, or I would be executed immediately.”
According to the newspaper, the worker contacted friends because he knew his family could not afford the amount. His friends managed to negotiate the ransom down to 15 million Sudanese pounds (about $25,000). After the money was transferred, he was released.
He added that guards encouraged indiscriminate killing, recalling one of them saying, “You must kill half of them to pressure the rest to pay.” Another witness said that of about 150 people who left El Fasher with him, only 30 survived, after RSF forces killed the others at checkpoints, in shelling, or by running them over.
Politically, the atrocities have highlighted regional competition over Sudan, amid accusations of external support for parties to the conflict, at a time when international sanctions have failed to halt the violence.
As diplomatic efforts to end the war continue, thousands of civilians remain detained at gunpoint—underscoring the depth and масшعة of the humanitarian tragedy in Darfur and across Sudan.
Source: Washington Times
