\n<\/p>\n
Mohammed Zakaria had not slept in two days when the news came that el-Fasher, his hometown, had fallen to the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.<\/p>\n
The Sudanese video journalist and human rights activist had been monitoring the deteriorating situation from Kampala, Uganda, watching as the paramilitary seized the North Darfur governor\u2019s office in the city on Friday, edging closer to taking control of all of it.<\/p>\n
He feared the worst.<\/p>\n
For Zakaria, the \u201cnightmare\u201d scenario is intensely personal. Searching through social media after the city\u2019s fall, he discovered footage posted on Facebook by RSF soldiers celebrating, standing over dead bodies. He recognised three of his uncles among the dead.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are celebrating by killing them,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He said another uncle\u2019s Facebook profile photo had been changed to an image of an RSF fighter, a chilling message about his possible fate.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t know where he is \u2026 we\u2019re really scared for him,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The city fell to the RSF on Sunday after an 18-month siege, the Sudanese army confirming its withdrawal from what was its last outpost in the Darfur region, held for months by the resolve of fighters holed up there.<\/p>\n
The RSF\u2019s capture of el-Fasher gives the paramilitary control over all five state capitals in Darfur, marking a significant turning point in Sudan\u2019s civil war.<\/p>\n
El-Fasher endured one of the longest urban sieges in modern warfare this century. The RSF began encircling it in May 2024 and intensified its assaults after being driven from the capital, Khartoum, by the army in March.<\/p>\n
What followed its fall has been described by international observers as a massacre on an unprecedented scale, with satellite imagery and social media footage pointing to mass atrocities by RSF fighters, reportedly along ethnic lines.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have been talking about this for more than a year. We knew this would happen,\u201d Zakaria told Al Jazeera, his voice breaking.<\/p>\n
Sarra Majdoub, a former UN Security Council expert on Sudan, told Al Jazeera observers were warning for months of the city\u2019s fall, like other major urban areas in Darfur that were\u00a0captured by the RSF, but \u201cthey surprisingly held on for a really long time\u201d.<\/p>\n
A communications blackout has all but cut off connection from the city, leaving those with loved ones there in a state of anxious uncertainty.<\/p>\n
An estimated 260,000 civilians remained trapped in the city when it fell, half of them children.<\/p>\n
The Sudan Doctors Network said a \u201cheinous massacre\u201d had taken place in el-Fasher, while the Joint Forces, a coalition of armed groups allied with the Sudanese army, said 2,000 people had been executed. However, activists and monitors have said the figure is likely much higher.<\/p>\n
The Yale School of Public Health\u2019s Humanitarian Research Lab, which monitors the war in Sudan, reported Tuesday that satellite imagery revealed evidence consistent with mass killings, including what seem to be visible pools of blood and clusters of corpses.<\/p>\n
Nathaniel Raymond, executive director of the Humanitarian Research Lab, told a media briefing on Tuesday that the killings were \u201conly comparable to Rwanda-style killings\u201d, referring to the 1994 Tutsi genocide in which hundreds of thousands of people were killed in weeks.<\/p>\n
As early as October 2, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk warned of the risk of \u201clarge-scale, ethnically driven attacks and atrocities\u201d, calling for immediate action to prevent it.<\/p>\n
Social media footage verified by Al Jazeera\u2019s Sanad fact-checking agency after the city\u2019s fall showed many instances of RSF fighters carrying out summary executions of civilians. In one video, an RSF commander bragged<\/a> that he had killed 2,000 people.<\/p>\n In a statement on Monday, the RSF said it was committed to \u201cprotecting civilians\u201d.<\/p>\n Majdoub told Al Jazeera that the voyeuristic nature of the videos recorded by RSF fighters was among the \u201cmost disturbing elements\u201d of the violence.<\/p>\n She recalled that fighters filming abuses had been seen before in places such as el-Geneina in West Darfur and Gezira state, \u201cbut el-Fasher has been different, their violence is more exaggerated.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt is very painful,\u201d Zakaria said, \u201cfinding videos in social media, and then you find that you know this person, who is a friend, or a distant relative, or uncle, surrounded by RSF fighters.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a reality now for many people\u201d.<\/p>\n He remains unable to locate dozens of friends and relatives.<\/p>\n Among them is Dr Mudathir Ibrahim Suleiman, medical director of Saudi Hospital, whom Zakaria last spoke to early Saturday morning, hours before the RSF took the city.<\/p>\n \u201cHe told me he would escape with a group of doctors,\u201d Zakaria said. \u201cUntil now, I didn\u2019t hear anything \u2026 We found that some doctors reached Tawila, but Dr Mudathir is not among them.\u201d<\/p>\n Darfur\u2019s governor, Minni Minnawi, said on Wednesday the RSF had committed a massacre in the Saudi Hospital, killing 460 people. He also posted footage on X showing a summary execution.<\/p>\n Residents who spoke to Al Jazeera in the weeks before the final offensive described daily bombardments and periodic drone strikes. People dug trenches to hide in at dawn as shelling began, sometimes remaining underground for hours.<\/p>\n