Aboutengue, Chad – In June 2023, Sudanese Rapid Support Forces (RSF) burst into Yahiya Adam’s house and shot dead his brother and father.
They covered him with bullets and dumped his body on the road in El-Geneina, the capital of West Darfur.
Adam, 27, was semi-conscious and bleeding from his neck, shoulders and arms. He lay on the ground as the blood flowing from his body mixed with the hot sand.
His eyes focused on the door of his house, where he saw RSF fighters raping his three sisters in turn.
He heard them screaming for help, but could do nothing to save them.
“They were all raped… and I saw it with my own eyes. I really saw this happening. I saw everything,” Adam said, his voice trailing off.
“There were around 20 RSF fighters at my house,” he told Al Jazeera.
Exodus
About a year ago, hundreds of thousands of civilians from the agricultural Masalit tribe (often referred to as non-Arabs) saw their families murdered and their community expelled to eastern Chad.
The exodus occurred after West Darfur Governor Khamis Abkar accused the RSF and allied nomadic fighters (often called Arabs) of committing genocide against the Masalit during a live broadcast on 6 June 2023.
Abakar, who led the Sudanese Alliance, a Masalit armed group, was arrested and murdered right after the interview.
A few hours later, images circulating on social media showed an RSF truck driving over his corpse, while women threw stones at his bruised body.
RSF fighters then reportedly began attacking and burning houses, terrifying Masalit families and forcing them to flee across the porous border, several kilometers away, into Chad. Somewhere between 10,000 and 15,000 people were killed in El-Geniena alone, according to a report by a UN panel of experts.
RSF denied carrying out the violence, saying it had tried to protect the governor and that the high death toll was the cause. result of decades-old “tribal conflict” he blames the army.
The Rapid Support Forces strongly condemn the recent assassination of West Darfur Governor Khamis Abdullah Abkar by outlaws amid persistent tribal conflict in the state. We are holding Sudanese Military Intelligence, a branch of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), and its radicals…
– Rapid Support Forces – قوات الدعم السريع (@RSFSudan) June 15, 2023
“Despite our efforts to protect the governor, the outlaws launched a large-scale raid (…) which resulted in his kidnapping and his tragic assassination, devoid of any humanity,” RSF said on X , formerly Twitter.
But survivors told Al Jazeera that the RSF ambushed and killed their friends and relatives as they tried to escape, limping and staggering across the border after being shot in the back, legs or arms.
Those who survived the violence still bear the mental and physical scars of that terrifying day.
Meeting
Adam showed the bullet scars on his neck, shoulder, ribcage and chest.
After his sisters were raped, he vaguely remembers RSF fighters loading his body into the back of a pickup and dumping it across the Chadian border.
“They left me there to die,” he said. “I had blood all over my body.”
Adam somehow woke up in a nearby clinic run by Doctors Without Borders, known by its French initials, MSF.
He doesn’t know who brought him there but was happy to find out his mother and sisters were still alive.
They had fled to an internally displaced person camp for safety, then headed towards Chad once the roads were clear.
“Friends saw me in the hospital and told my sisters and my mother (when they arrived in Chad) where I was,” he said.
“I was so happy when I saw them. I thought I lost them all. »
The rescue
When the governor of West Darfur was killed, Ahmad Ababakr Bakhit hid at home with his older sister.
RSF fighters burst in and shot him in the right leg and stabbed him in the stomach with a stick.
His older sister acted quickly to save his life, wrapping clothes tightly around his wounds to stop the bleeding, then taking him to a doctor who cleaned his wounds and amputated his leg.
“The doctor didn’t have all the tools. He just had it (to do the amputation),” Bakhit, 27, told Al Jazeera.
“The doctor did everything to save me. »
After the operation, Bakhit’s sister loaded him onto a carro (the Sudanese Arabic term for a cart pulled by a donkey) and took him across the border to Chad.
There he was taken to a clinic where doctors cleaned his wounds and gave him pain medication.
“My sister saved me,” he said matter-of-factly.
Bakhit’s sister now works in a market to support herself, her brother and her mother.
He wants to help her, but is waiting for a prosthetic leg promised to him by the Humanity and Inclusion association.
He plans to go to work once he can walk without assistance again.
Start a new life
At the Humanity and Inclusion center, Mohamad Isaac waits patiently to be examined for a prosthetic leg.
Like countless Masalit men, he narrowly survived the el-Geneina massacre in June 2023.
The 37-year-old said RSF fighters invaded his home, killed his father and nephew and shot him in the leg.
Isaac lost consciousness while lying in a pool of blood and all he remembers is RSF fighters telling him: “The Masalit are finished.”
“They attacked us all after killing (the governor),” he told Al Jazeera. “They were looking for the Masalit everywhere. »
Fortunately, Isaac’s brothers found him alive after his attackers left.
They quickly bandaged his leg and drove him to Chad where doctors amputated his leg and treated his wounds to save his life.
In the following weeks, Isaac began to suffer from depression. One of his two wives left him because he could no longer support himself or his children. His other wife, he said, was “patient with him” and chose to stay.
“I remember thinking, ‘How am I going to live?’ “, Isaac said.
Since losing his leg, he has turned to his faith to overcome his trauma and depression.
Since arriving in Chad, he has taught the Quran to Sudanese children and encouraged them to count their blessings, even after losing their homes, friends and loved ones.
“I teach kids in the camp and kids outside the camp,” he said.
“This is how I started my life again and found meaning again.”
This story was made possible thanks to a reporting trip facilitated and organized by EU humanitarian aid to eastern Chad.
