He was devastated when he learned that the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group had seized the western city of El-Fasher after most of its two and a half years of fighting with Sudan’s army.
Speaking to Al Jazeera over the phone on Sunday, the activist’s voice broke as he spoke of his fear for the civilians still trapped there and of not knowing if he would ever be able to return to his city.
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“It feels like we’ve lost everything”, the 31-year-old said from the nearby town of Tawila. “I just keep thinking about the people who are still there, the families, the children,” he said.
After declaring its ownership of El-Fasher’s final garrison in the city, belonging to the Sixth Armoured Division, on Sunday, the RSF announced its takeover of the city.
It had besieged the capital of North Darfur state for 18 months, attacking people and blocking all aid from entering, engineering a famine that has taken hold for months.
Escape
Mouawia left El-Fasher in early October, cart and walking the roughly 60 kilometers (37 miles) to Tawila, fearing RSF retaliation.
As the RSF’s attacks became more vicious, he had made the decision to leave after realizing that he would no longer be able to assist civilians in the city.
Mouawia, a media graduate, had been injured a few weeks earlier on his way to a clinic he and a group of other volunteers were operating in the western sector of the city.
As they were walking, a shell exploded nearby, causing him to fall to the ground and suffer internal injuries.
He and a companion made the agonizing descent to a doctor’s assistant who could give first aid at a neighbor’s home after a terrifying trek to escape the firefight.
A trip to a hospital confirmed that Mouawia’s wounds had shrapnel in them, but they could not be removed, given the overcrowding and severe lack of resources in the hospital. Mouawia’s stomach is still covered in the shrapnel, which has now recovered.
Everything was altered by the injury. Unable to continue volunteering and with the daily bombardment closing in, he decided to leave el-Fasher through a “safe corridor” for fleeing civilians that the RSF had announced.
He and a second volunteer set out with a small cart, some cash, and their identity documents after they officially presented their clinic to the Ministry of Health.
He said, “We left quietly and prayed to be safe. But as they moved through the “safe corridor”, they realised it was anything but.
Ransom, humiliation
The corridor looped northwest despite Tawila being to the southwest because the RSF had erected enormous sand berms around the city during its siege, leaving just one direction open.
The two men intended to sleep somewhere before continuing their journey, but instead they made the first stop at Garni, which is about 16 kilometers (10 miles) away.
RSF fighters stopped them at a checkpoint and accused them of being soldiers dressed as civilians as they traveled to the outskirts of Garni, which can take up to five hours on foot.
The fighters shouted racial slurs and demanded to know the positions of Sudanese army forces, refusing to listen when Mouawia and his companion showed their passports and explained they were volunteers.
They were detained after being interrogated for hours before being stopped again moments later at a different checkpoint where a fighter discovered Mouawia’s bag with newly printed Sudanese government currency. Any fighter who had an army or its allies in Sudanese slang was snarled as “This is flangi money.”
“Eat it”, the soldier ordered, slapping Mouawia and forcing him to swallow a wad of bills.
Mouawia recalls that he instructed him to turn over everything. The soldiers let them pass after stealing the rest of their phones and cash.
Farther along, two RSF fighters on motorbikes stopped them, accusing them again of being fleeing soldiers.
They allowed them to continue their search for a mosque close to Garni, where they slept until dawn before setting off on their two-day journey to Tawila, finding nothing when they searched them.
The road between Garni and Jughmer, which is about 11 kilometers (7 miles) west, was further obstructed by an RSF four-by-four.
A soldier noticed the scar on Mouawia’s stomach and shouted: “He’s a soldier! I said, “”!
They were dragged from a cart, interrogated, and threatened at gunpoint before being finally released, shaken but still alive.
Hours later, the vehicle returned, the fighters demanding 10 billion Sudanese pounds ($3, 500) – an impossible ransom.
Mouawia recalled saying, “I don’t have 10 billion if you kill me.”
After heated exchanges, the fighters ordered them to call relatives for money and threatened to kill them, and later reduced the amount demanded to 2.5 billion Sudanese pounds ($860).
Desperate, Mouawia contacted a friend in Khartoum, who managed to transfer 1 billion Sudanese pounds, and another volunteer sent 1.5 billion, completing the ransom through a Starlink RSF station located near the checkpoint.
According to Mouawia, one of the fighters allegedly chose to keep some of the money for himself, yelling that he shouldn’t tell his friend in Khartoum about the first billion.
The fighters fled as they feigned kindness, saying, “We’ll return your money if you want,” giving him a WhatsApp number “for protection,” and driving away.
Survival
By that point, exhaustion was already present. The two men slept next to their cart for the night in the small Arida Djangay village.
The next morning, they resumed their journey, only to encounter a new RSF ploy to take money from people on the road: convoys of RSF vehicles demanding “transport fees”.
He claimed that they initially promised to take us for free, but later demanded $1,000,000 [per person]$0.50] from them.
On the way down to Tawila, about 45 minutes away, soldiers stopped their cart at the Silik camp in Korma, west of Garni, and extorted “ticket money” from people to transfer them to RSF vehicles.
When an elderly man protested that he was already at his destination, the soldiers demanded payment anyway.
Mouawia claimed that “people were furious.” He and his companion pleaded for calm, bringing back their earlier assurances of a safe passage, but to no avail.
Eventually, they secured more money to pay off the fighters from friends who sent mobile transfers.
He claimed that “we paid only to survive.”
Finally, a kind-hearted driver agreed to pay 130, 000 pounds ($0.04) via bank transfer to take them to Tawila.
“After everything, I just thanked God we made it alive”, Mouawia said softly.
He finally got some rest after spending time with Tawila, but he now wonders how he will continue.
He said, “We kept going knowing that someone had to keep hope alive even in a place like El-Fasher.”
‘ Everything stopped ‘
El-Fasher, a once bustling city, collapsed on April 15, 2023 as a result of a war. Within days, hospitals and streets were deserted, and people were trapped between bombardment and siege.
“Everything stopped”, Mouawia recalled, going on to detail how he and a group of young residents – doctors, engineers and students – decided to help by reopening a clinic in their neighbourhood.
They had finished cleaning it up and reopening it within a week, relying solely on local donations and shared meals to continue their work.
Regardless of our political beliefs or ideologies, we co-operated, according to Mouawia.
The unity carried them through air raids and shortages. They treated frightened women who had been shot, pregnant women, and displaced families who had just arrived at their door. Their initiative continued to exist despite the bombings even after the end of 2024 when it reached community kitchens and other forms of support.
In May, as the RSF intensified its siege on el-Fasher and launched drone strikes on community kitchens, the volunteers switched to delivering food house to house instead.
He claimed that the meals we prepared for displaced families were their only meals of the day.
Their bravery kept the neighbourhoods together for almost two years, but by the middle of this year, the siege had grown even more severe. The RSF occupied key areas, blocked supply routes and turned hospitals into military zones.
People like Mouawia saw no other choice but to leave as the volunteers themselves turned into targets.
Source: Aljazeera
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