When Mouawia heard the Fast Help Forces (RSF) paramilitary group had overrun the western city of el-Fasher after besieging it for a lot of the two and a half years of struggle with Sudan’s military, he was devastated.
Chatting with Al Jazeera over the telephone on Sunday, the activist’s voice broke as he spoke of his fear for the civilians still trapped there and of not understanding if he would ever have the ability to return to his metropolis.
Beneficial Tales
record of three gadgetsfinish of record
“It seems like we’ve misplaced every part,” the 31-year-old stated from the close by city of Tawila. “I simply maintain pondering of the individuals nonetheless there – the kids, the households – and I can’t cease worrying.”
The RSF introduced its takeover of el-Fasher on Sunday after it stated it took the military’s final garrison within the metropolis, belonging to the Sixth Armoured Division.
It had besieged the capital of North Darfur state for 18 months, attacking individuals and blocking all assist from coming into, engineering a famine that has taken maintain for months.
Escape
Mouawia, who refused to present his full title for worry of RSF retaliation, left el-Fasher in early October, overlaying the roughly 60km (37 miles) to Tawila over a number of days by cart and strolling.
He had determined to go away after realising he would not have the ability to proceed his work serving to civilians within the metropolis because the RSF’s assaults elevated in viciousness.
Mouawia, a media graduate, had been injured a number of weeks earlier on his approach to a clinic he and a gaggle of different volunteers have been working within the western sector of the town.
A shell exploded close by as they walked, throwing him to the bottom and injuring him within the abdomen.
After a harrowing stroll to attempt to get out of the firefight, he and a companion have been in a position to get to a fellow volunteer’s house, a physician’s assistant who was in a position to administer first assist.
A visit to a hospital confirmed that Mouawia’s wounds had shrapnel in them, however they might not be eliminated, given the overcrowding and extreme lack of sources within the hospital. The shrapnel stays in Mouawia’s abdomen, now healed over.
The damage modified every part. Unable to proceed volunteering and with the each day bombardment closing in, he determined to go away el-Fasher via a “protected hall” for fleeing civilians that the RSF had introduced.
He and his staff formally handed over their clinic to the Ministry of Well being, and he and a fellow volunteer set out with a small cart, some money and their id papers.
“We left quietly, praying to succeed in someplace protected,” he stated. However as they moved via the “protected hall”, they realised it was something however.
Ransom, humiliation
The hall looped northwest regardless of Tawila being to the southwest as a result of the RSF had erected huge sand berms across the metropolis throughout its siege, leaving only one route open.
The 2 males headed first to Garni, about 16km (10 miles) away, hoping to succeed in someplace they might sleep earlier than persevering with their journey.
On the outskirts of Garni, a journey that may take as much as 5 hours on foot, RSF fighters stopped them at a checkpoint and accused them of being troopers disguised as civilians.
The fighters shouted racial slurs and demanded to know the positions of Sudanese military forces, refusing to pay attention when Mouawia and his companion confirmed their passports and defined they have been volunteers.
After hours of questioning, they have been launched – solely to be stopped once more minutes later at one other checkpoint the place a fighter discovered newly printed Sudanese authorities foreign money in Mouawia’s bag. He snarled: “That is flangi cash,” a Sudanese slur used to explain any fighter with the military or its allied forces.
“Eat it,” the soldier ordered, slapping Mouawia and forcing him to swallow a wad of payments.
“He informed me handy over every part,” Mouawia recalled. The troopers stole the remainder of their money and telephones earlier than letting them move.
Farther alongside, two RSF fighters on motorbikes stopped them, accusing them once more of being fleeing troopers.
However discovering nothing once they searched them, they allowed them to proceed in the direction of a mosque close to Garni, the place they stopped to sleep till morning earlier than persevering with their two-day journey to Tawila.
Their ordeal deepened when an RSF four-by-four blocked the street between Garni and Jughmer, about 11km (7 miles) to the west.
A soldier observed the scar on Mouawia’s abdomen and shouted: “He’s a soldier! I informed you!”
They have been dragged from a cart, interrogated and threatened at gunpoint till they have been finally launched, shaken however alive.
Hours later, the automobile returned, the fighters demanding 10 billion Sudanese kilos ($3,500) – an unattainable ransom.
“I stated: ‘Even for those who kill me, I don’t have 10 billion,’” Mouawia recalled.
After tense arguments, the fighters lowered the demand to 2.5 billion Sudanese kilos ($860) and took them to an space with telephone reception, ordering them to name kinfolk for cash and threatening to kill them.
Determined, Mouawia contacted a pal in Khartoum, who managed to switch 1 billion Sudanese kilos, and one other volunteer despatched 1.5 billion, finishing the ransom via a Starlink RSF station positioned close to the checkpoint.
One of many fighters determined to maintain a few of the cash for himself, Mouawia recounted, whispering that he shouldn’t inform the opposite fighters in regards to the first billion from his pal in Khartoum.
Appeased with the 1.5 billion kilos, the fighters feigned kindness as they left, saying: “We’ll return your cash in order for you,” giving him a WhatsApp quantity “for cover” and driving away.
Survival
By then, exhaustion had set in. The 2 males spent the evening within the tiny village of Arida Djangay, sleeping beside their cart.
The following morning, they resumed their journey, solely to come across a brand new RSF ploy to take cash from individuals on the street: convoys of RSF automobiles demanding “transport charges”.
“They stated they’d take us without spending a dime however later demanded 1 million [pounds] per particular person [$0.50],” he stated.
At Silik camp in Korma, west of Garni and on the way in which all the way down to Tawila – about 45 minutes away from it – troopers stopped their cart once more, detaining passengers, together with girls and youngsters, and extorting “ticket cash” from individuals to switch them in RSF automobiles as a substitute.
When an aged man protested that he was already at his vacation spot, the troopers demanded cost anyway.
“Folks have been livid,” Mouawia stated. He and his companion pleaded for calm, reminding the fighters of their earlier guarantees of protected passage – however to no avail.
Ultimately, they secured extra money to repay the fighters from mates who despatched cellular transfers.
“We paid simply to outlive,” he stated.
Lastly, a sympathetic driver agreed to take them to Tawila for 130,000 kilos ($0.04) through a financial institution switch.
“After every part, I simply thanked God we made it alive,” Mouawia stated softly.
In Tawila, he lastly rested though now he questions how he’ll have the ability to go on.
“Once we have been serving to individuals,” he stated, “we saved going understanding that somebody needed to maintain hope alive – even in a spot like el-Fasher.”
‘Every little thing stopped’
When struggle erupted in el-Fasher on April 15, 2023, the once-bustling metropolis collapsed. Inside days, medical centres closed, streets emptied and civilians have been trapped between bombardment and siege.
“Every little thing stopped,” Mouawia recalled, happening to element how he and a gaggle of younger residents – medical doctors, engineers and college students – determined to assist by reopening a clinic of their neighbourhood.
Inside every week, they’d cleaned and reopened it, relying solely on native donations and shared meals to maintain their work.
“We labored collectively no matter our beliefs or political leanings,” Mouawia stated.
The unity carried them via air raids and shortages. They handled gunshot victims, pregnant girls and displaced households who appeared at their door in panic. On the finish of 2024, their initiative expanded to group kitchens and different types of help, which saved working regardless of the bombings.
In Could, because the RSF intensified its siege on el-Fasher and launched drone strikes on group kitchens, the volunteers switched to delivering meals home to deal with as a substitute.
“The meals we cooked for displaced households grew to become our solely meal of the day,” he stated.
For practically two years, their braveness held the neighbourhoods collectively, however by the center of this yr, the siege had tightened. The RSF occupied key areas, blocked provide routes and turned hospitals into army zones.
Because the volunteers themselves grew to become targets, these like Mouawia started to see no possibility however leaving.
