INSIGHT - Sudanese force holding survivors of Darfur siege for ransom, witnesses say

Reuters could not determine exactly how many people the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and allied militias have detained in and around al-Fashir, capital of North Darfur. But the accounts suggest that large groups are being held in a cluster of villages within 80 km (50 miles) of al-Fashir, while others have been brought back into the city as the RSF demands payments worth thousands of dollars from their relatives.

Their detention shows the risks faced by those who were unable to reach safety from al-Fashir, which had been the final significant holdout against the RSF in the western Darfur region before its fall. Witnesses have described mass reprisals including summary executions and sexual violence since the RSF takeover.

It also sheds light on the plight of some of the tens of thousands of people who are unaccounted for as aid agencies push to gain access to famine-stricken al-Fashir and its environs, which became a focal point in the 2 1/2-year-old war between the RSF and Sudan's army.

Reuters interviewed 33 former captives as well as 10 aid workers and researchers, who provided previously unreported details about the violence captives faced, the locations where they were held and the scale of the detentions.

Survivors described paying ransoms of between 5 million (US$1,400) and 60 million (US$17,000) Sudanese pounds - vast sums in an impoverished region.

Many of those who could not pay were shot at close range or mowed down in groups, 11 survivors said, while other captives were badly beaten. A Reuters reporter saw survivors who had fled over the border to Chad bearing injuries that appeared to be from beatings and gunshots. Reuters could not verify their accounts in full.

"They give you three or four days, and if you don't transfer the money, they kill you," said Mohamed Ismail, who spoke with Reuters by phone from Tawila, a town near al-Fashir under the control of neutral forces.

Ismail said he had left al-Fashir as the RSF took over the city on October 26, but was captured by the RSF in a village called Um Jalbakh among a group of 24 men.

He and his nephew were each made to gather 10 million Sudanese pounds from family before being set free. Nine other men were killed in front of them, he said.

ETHNICALLY-CHARGED VIOLENCE

Asked for comment, RSF legal adviser Mohamed Mukhtar said most cases of detention and extortion of people from al-Fashir had been carried out by a rival group whose members disguise themselves in RSF uniforms.

An RSF committee is investigating more than 100 cases of alleged abuse in al-Fashir daily, with a large number of suspects arrested and nine convicted, the committee's head, Ahmed al-Nour al-Hala, told Reuters.

The capture of al-Fashir after an 18-month siege was a turning point in a war that erupted from a power struggle between the army and the RSF and has caused what the United Nations has described as the world's worst humanitarian crisis. Both sides have been accused of war crimes.

Up to a quarter of a million people were estimated to be living in al-Fashir when the RSF seized the city, tightening its grip on a region where the Arab-dominated force and its allies were blamed for mass killings against ethnic non-Arabs earlier in the war - an echo of the genocide in Darfur 20 years before.

Survivors of RSF detention in and around al-Fashir told Reuters they were frequently asked what tribe they belonged to and attacked with racial epithets.

The International Organization for Migration estimates that more than 100,000 people have fled al-Fashir since the RSF takeover. Aid agencies say more than 15,000 of those have arrived in Tawila and about 9,500 crossed into Chad, but most remain in RSF-controlled villages around al-Fashir - including Garney, Korma, Um Jalbakh, Shagra, Hilat Alsheikh, Jebel Wana and Tora.

Researchers are unclear how many remain within al-Fashir itself. Aid groups said some residents were unable to flee because they could not pay for transport out of the city, or were too sick or injured to travel.

COMMUNICATIONS BLACKOUT

One former captive who made it to Chad, Yassir Hamad Ali, 36, said he was captured by RSF fighters on October 29 along with 16 other men after fleeing al-Fashir. He said the RSF beat him severely and demanded 150 million Sudanese pounds for his release.

Speaking to Reuters at a hospital in Tine, near Chad's border with Sudan, he said the fighters used a Starlink satellite internet terminal placed on their Toyota Land Cruiser to contact his family via Facebook Messenger.

Swathes of RSF-controlled territory have been under a telecoms blackout since early in the war, leading to a proliferation of Starlink terminals. Starlink did not respond to a request for comment.

Ali said his family eventually negotiated the sum down to 5 million pounds, which they transferred via Bankak, a Sudanese virtual wallet, according to receipts shared with Reuters.

A second man in Tine, Ibrahim Kitr, 30, said his family took out a loan on their home in Atbara city to pay his 35 million pound ransom. "I don't think they will be able to pay it back," he said.

His brother, Alhaj Altijany Kitr, 31, said fighters held a gun to his head and beat him severely while on a videochat with the family - a technique similar to those used by gangs on migrant smuggling routes in neighbouring Libya, whose members call relatives of detained migrants while abusing them in an effort to extract higher ransoms.

The RSF has frequently recruited fighters or militias on the promise of plunder rather than a stable salary, and there has been widespread looting in areas under RSF control.

However, ransom-seeking on the scale seen around al-Fashir is a newer phenomenon, aid workers say.

Satellite imagery of the village of Garney on November 28 shows hundreds of new temporary shelters constructed over the last month. Two aid workers said this suggested people could be detained there long-term.

DETENTIONS IN AL-FASHIR

Reuters has previously reported that men were separated from women upon arrival in Garney. But women have also been held there. One woman said she had been blindfolded and raped there for several days, while another woman said she had witnessed such rapes.

The second woman, sobbing as she spoke by phone from Tawila, said RSF soldiers threatened to kill her when she tried to intervene.

Eight former captives described being brought back to al-Fashir, where they said they were held for ransom in buildings including military facilities and university dormitories.

One man, a 62-year-old teacher who asked to keep his identity concealed, said he found himself in al-Fashir's children's hospital with hundreds of other men.

Packed into rows and with nothing to drink, they took water from a stagnant pool in the hospital. They later discovered it was sewage water, and about 300 men died, the teacher said. Two human rights researchers, who spoke to witnesses, provided similar estimates to Reuters.

Another man who had been held in al-Fashir, 35-year-old Mujahid Eltahir, said he was released after being beaten when a 30 million pound ransom was paid, only to be detained again in the town of Zalingei, where his captors made his family pay another six million pounds.

On the road he said he had seen the bodies of seven men he had fled with, carrying gunshot wounds to their head or chest. Speaking to Reuters in N'Djamena, Chad, he showed a picture of his feet, blistered from walking barefoot after RSF troops took his shoes.

Since its takeover of al-Fashir, the RSF has posted videos and live streams of people being given food and medical care in the city.

A nurse who said she had been held there by the RSF told Reuters its fighters filmed her receiving food and saying she was being well treated.

"They did a video showing that they treated us well. They do that: they torture you one moment, and then put you on live the next," she said.