For 550 days, Abubakr Ahmed risked his life defending el-Fasher, the last major army stronghold in Sudan’s Darfur region, from the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). As a member of the “popular resistance” — a local group backing the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) — he fought to keep the city from falling.
That battle ended on October 26, when el-Fasher finally fell to the RSF after months of siege and relentless fighting.
According to SAF leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the army’s surrender was meant to prevent a large-scale massacre, allowing troops to retreat safely. But the withdrawal left about 250,000 trapped civilians at the mercy of RSF fighters.
Ahmed, 29, said he barely made it out alive. During the final hours of combat, a rocket-propelled grenade exploded near a car close to him, spraying shrapnel into his abdomen. “I was lucky to survive,” he told Al Jazeera after escaping the city. “Many didn’t.”
He described scenes of horror as the RSF moved in. “They killed civilians and left their corpses in the streets,” Ahmed said. “They were killed without mercy.”
The fall of el-Fasher marks a devastating chapter in Sudan’s two-and-a-half-year civil war, which has pitted the army against the RSF and displaced millions across the country.
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