The families forced to pay ransoms to free loved ones in Sudan’s el-Fasher

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When Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) stormed the besieged metropolis of el-Fasher connected October 26, Mabrooka’s hubby and member ran for their lives.

The program was for them to caput to Tawila – astir 60 kilometres (37 miles) distant – wherever Mabrooka would beryllium waiting for them with her 3 tiny children. By sundown, they had inactive not arrived.

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News dispersed that the RSF, which has been warring a bitter warfare against the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) since April 2023, was carrying retired summary executions against the colonisation of el-Fasher, which it accused of siding with its enemy. Mabrooka began fearing the worst.

Then, her telephone rang.

A dependable told Mabrooka to ligament 14,000 Sudanese pounds ($23) – a hefty sum for displaced and destitute Sudanese families – to a slope account, which she suspected belonged to an RSF fighter.

“When I got the call, I was terrified and crying the full time,” Mabrooka, 27, told Al Jazeera. “I knew they would for definite torture and termination them if I didn’t muster up the money.”

Kidnapping and ransom

Since the RSF captured the army’s past stronghold successful the sprawling occidental portion of Darfur, the radical has carried retired a bid of atrocities, including execution, rape and wide looting, according to survivors and section monitors. The Sudan Doctors Network enactment the decease toll from the RSF onslaught astatine 1,500 successful the archetypal fewer days aft the city’s fall, but the existent fig could beryllium acold higher.

While acknowledging that some crimes person been committed by its forces, the RSF has mostly denied immoderate of the worst accusations against it, and insists that it is “liberating” territory.

But successful el-Fasher, astir of the victims person been from the chiefly sedentary “non-Arab” population, who person lived successful fearfulness of the nomadic “Arab” fighters who comprise astir of the RSF.

The targeted taste unit has forced tens of thousands of radical to fly to neighbouring villages, but galore radical person been abducted for ransom by RSF fighters on the way.

According to section monitors, planetary non-government organisations, and victims’ families, it’s apt that thousands of radical person desperately wired wealth consecutive to RSF fighters to nationalist banks via banking applications.

Monitors told Al Jazeera that ransoms scope from anyplace betwixt $20 to $20,000.

“There is simply a ample fig among the displaced people who person been detained, and the RSF is asking for a truly large magnitude from their families,” said Mohamed*, a section alleviation idiosyncratic successful Tawila with the Emergency Response Room (ERR), a grassroots inaugural spearheading the assistance effect crossed Sudan.

Mathilde Vu, the Sudan advocacy manager for the Norwegian Refugee Council, told Al Jazeera that galore civilians are reportedly being detained arsenic they fly and asked to wage a “transportation fee” to scope Tawila.

Many children person been separated from their parents, arsenic good arsenic women and children from their husbands, she said.

In addition, the United Nations estimates that much than 70,000 radical person been uprooted from el-Fasher since October 26 and that implicit 40,000 of them headed towards Tawila.

Of this number, Vu noted that lone astir 6,000 radical person arrived successful Tawila truthful far.

“This is simply a wide indicator that radical are disappearing oregon are being held back,” she told Al Jazeera.

This representation drawback taken from handout video footage released connected Sudan's paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) Telegram relationship connected October 26, 2025, shows RSF fighters holding weapons and celebrating successful the streets of El-Fasher successful Sudan's Darfur.

Ransom videos

Some families who mislaid interaction with loved ones successful el-Fasher received ransom videos from unidentified kidnappers.

Local monitors and planetary alleviation agencies, who asked to stay anonymous to support their teams connected the ground, said that RSF fighters look to beryllium the kidnappers successful astir cases.

However, transgression gangs and different “Arab” militias aligned with the RSF whitethorn besides beryllium implicated.

One video circulating implicit societal media, which has been authenticated by Al Jazeera’s verification team, Sanad, showed a antheral being held for ransom.

In the video, Abbas al-Sadiq, who is simply a science prof astatine el-Fasher University, pleaded for 1 of his colleagues to wage a ransom that amounts to astir $3,330.

“Please ligament the wealth to the [account] fig I sent you and delight bash it present due to the fact that we don’t person a batch of time. They are conscionable giving maine 10 minutes,” said al-Sadiq successful the video.

Noon Baramaki, a writer from el-Fasher, told Al Jazeera that al-Sadiq was released connected Saturday aft his ransom was paid. A workfellow of al-Sadiq besides reported connected societal media that al-Sadiq has been released, but Al Jazeera has been incapable to scope him.

Baramki stressed that countless different radical person been abducted, yet their families are frightened to talk to the property retired of fearfulness that the RSF volition someway find retired and past termination their loved ones.

“People are truly frightened to marque immoderate statements due to the fact that they don’t privation to beryllium the crushed that anyone they emotion gets wounded oregon killed,” Baramki told Al Jazeera.

Reunited

A fig of quality reports person documented that the RSF and allied gangs are executing radical who can’t wage the ransoms that person been demanded.

For astir families successful el-Fasher – who for 18 months were surviving nether a brutal RSF siege that led to a famine – paying a ransom that is thousands oregon adjacent hundreds of dollars is highly hard if not impossible.

Mabrooka, whose hubby and member were abducted, considers herself lucky. She said that she relied connected donations from friends and household members successful Tawila successful bid to promptly stitchery 12,000 Sudanese pounds ($20), which the kidnappers accepted.

Once the wealth was wired, her member and hubby were released connected November 1. They managed to marque it to Tawila contempt limping and staggering from the exhaustion and beatings they endured successful captivity, arsenic good arsenic from the deficiency of nutrient and h2o they were given.

“When they yet arrived successful Tawila, I cried and cried and cried tears of joy. I retrieve hugging them and greeting them,” Mabrooka told Al Jazeera. “Thank God they made it.”

While she is present reunited with her hubby and brother, she said they are inactive surviving successful fear.

The household believes that the RSF could soon onslaught Tawila adjacent to proceed to persecute non-Arabs and decorativeness disconnected what galore alleviation agencies, monitors and experts are describing arsenic a imaginable genocide.

“Honestly, we are terrified that aft the RSF finishes disconnected el-Fasher, they’ll travel aft america here,” Mabrooka said.

“We are scared,” she told Al Jazeera. “Thank God [my hubby and brother] returned, but radical present are inactive scared.”