Mabruka’s husband and brother ran for their lives on October 26 when Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) attacked the besieged town of al-Fashar.
Their plan was to go to Tawila – about 60 kilometers (37 miles) away – where Mabruka would be waiting for them with her three young children. They had not come even after sunset.
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Since April 2023, reports have surfaced of the RSF fighting a bitter war against the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF). Summary execution against the population of el-Fashar, who is accused of siding with his enemy. Mabruka began to fear the worst.
Then her phone rang.
A voice tells Mabruka to wire 14,000 Sudanese pounds ($23) — a large sum for displaced and destitute Sudanese families — to a bank account she suspects belongs to an RSF fighter.
“When I got the call I was scared and cried the whole time,” Mabruka, 27, told Al Jazeera. “I knew that if I did not collect the money, they would surely torture and kill them.”
Kidnapping and extortion
Since the RSF took over the last army stronghold in Darfur’s sprawling western region, the group has carried out a series of atrocities, including executions, rape and mass looting, according to survivors and local monitors. The Sudan Doctors Network put the death toll from RSF attacks in the first few days after the city’s fall at 1,500, but the true number may be higher.
While admitting this Some crimes have been committed His army, the RSF, has largely denied some of the worst allegations against him and insists it is “liberating” the area.
But in al-Fashar, most of the victims are mostly from the sedentary “non-Arab” population, who live in fear of nomadic “Arab” fighters who mostly comprise the RSF.
Targeted ethnic violence has forced thousands to flee to neighboring villages, but along the way RSF soldiers have kidnapped many for ransom.
According to local monitors, international NGOs and victims’ families, tens of thousands of people may have sent money directly to national banks to RSF soldiers through banking applications.
Monitors told Al Jazeera that ransoms ranged from $20 to $20,000.
“We have a large number displaced people Those who have been detained, and RSF is asking for a really big amount from their families,” said Mohamed*, a local aid worker in Tawila with the Emergency Response Room (ERR), a grassroots initiative leading the aid response in Sudan.
Mathilde Wu, Sudan advocacy manager at the Norwegian Refugee Council, told Al Jazeera that many citizens were being detained as they fled and asked to pay “transportation fees” to reach Tawila.
Many children are separated from their parents, as well as women and children from their husbands, she said.
In addition, the United Nations estimates that more than 70,000 people have been uprooted from al-Fashar since October 26, and more than 40,000 of them have headed towards Tawila.
Of this number, Wu noted that only 6,000 people have come to Tawila so far.
“This is a clear indicator that people are disappearing or being left behind,” she told Al Jazeera.
Extortion videos
Some families who lost contact with loved ones in al-Fashar received ransom videos from unknown kidnappers.
Local monitors and the World Relief Agency, who asked to remain anonymous to protect their teams on the ground, said in most cases RSF soldiers appeared to be the kidnappers.
However, criminal gangs aligned with the RSF and other “Arab” militias may also be involved.
A video circulating on social media, authenticated by Al Jazeera’s verification team, Sanad, shows a man being held for ransom.
In the video, Abbas al-Sadiq, who is a professor of psychology at Al-Fashar University, asks one of his colleagues to pay a ransom of about $3,330.
“Please wire the money to the (account) number I sent you and please do it now because we don’t have much time. They are only giving me 10 minutes,” Al-Sadiq said in the video.
Al-Fashar journalist Noon Baramaki told Al Jazeera that al-Sadiq was released on Saturday after a ransom was paid. An associate of al-Sadiq also said on social media that al-Sadiq had been released, but Al Jazeera could not reach him.
Baramaki stressed that countless other people have been abducted, yet their families are afraid to speak to journalists for fear that the RSF will somehow find out and then kill their loved ones.
“People are really afraid to make any statements because they don’t want to cause their loved one to be hurt or killed,” Baramaki told Al Jazeera.
Reunited
Several news reports have documented that RSF and allied gangs are executing people who cannot pay the demanded ransom.
For most families in El-Fasher – who lived under a brutal 18-month RSF siege that led to famine – paying tens of thousands or even hundreds of dollars in ransom is extremely difficult, if not impossible.
Mabruka, whose husband and brother were kidnapped, considers herself lucky. She said she relied on donations from friends and family members in Tawila to quickly raise the 12,000 Sudanese pounds ($20) the kidnappers accepted.
Once the money was secured, her brother and husband were released on November 1. They managed to get to Tawila despite being lame and limping due to the fatigue and beatings they endured in captivity, as well as the lack of food and water they were given.
“When they finally came to Tawila, I cried and cried and shed tears of joy. I remember hugging them and greeting them,” Mabruka told Al Jazeera. “Thank God they did.”
Although she is now reunited with her husband and brother, she said they still live in fear.
The family believes the RSF could soon attack Tawila to continue its persecution of non-Arabs and end what many aid agencies, monitors and experts are describing as a possible genocide.
“Honestly, we are afraid that they will come after us after RSF al-Fashar ends,” Mabruka said.
“We are scared,” she told Al Jazeera. “Thank God (my husband and brother) came back, but people here are still scared.”
