BBC testifies to the Battle of Khartoum

The BBC heard the evidence of the crimes committed by fighters who were withdrawing in the battle that raged for control over the capital of Sudan.

The city kept paramilitary forces for fast support (RSF) from the beginning of the brutal civil war in the country almost two years ago – but the army has taken over much of it and believes it is on its way to take the rest.

A re -capital would be a huge victory for the military and a turning point in the war, although I would not end the conflict in itself.

In recent weeks, the troops have been mostly surrounded by Khartoum, coming from the south after breaking through the central Sudan, and they cleaned the city districts in the north and east, squeezing the remaining RSF fighters in the center.

The huge areas of the restored territory are completely destroyed.

We drove next to the block after a block of damaged and burned buildings – some of them blushed with fire, many subjugated with bullet holes

The roadways in front of them were full of vandalized vehicles, pieces of discarded furniture, dirty remains of robbed goods and other debris.

But even in places that look intact, terror is fresh.

In Hi Yusuf, Khartum district east of the Nile River, residents described chaos and violence that they fled from the RSF fighter turned to civilians.

“It was a shock, they suddenly came,” says Intisar Adam Suleiman.

Two of her sons, 18-year-old Muzamil and 21-year-old Mudather, sat next to the house with a friend. RSF soldiers ordered them inside, then shot them in the back as they walked into the door, says Ms. Suleiman.

Muzamil escaped with a bullet in the leg, but “our friend died immediately,” he told me.

“Then the men wanted to get into the house, and my mother tried to close the door, pushing and pushing. They spotted the phone on the ground, grabbed him and left. I left and called my friend’s father so he could come and do first aid, but we couldn’t save him.”

Mudather died the next morning because she was decimated by the Bank of Blood at the hospital due to a long stop of electricity and could not get the transfusion he needed.

Mrs. Suleiman says she knew the RSF soldiers and that she had been hired before to try to deny the violence.

One of them told her, “We came for death, we are people of death.”

She says she told them, “If you came to death, this is not a place to death.”

Still, too much death is what Mrs. Suleiman saw in this war.

So many people died, she says, “I’m used to these traumas.”

Several streets removed, Asma Mubarak Abdel Karim tells me that she and a group of women caught up in the fight as the Sudanese forces closed.

He says they faced the withdrawal of RSF soldiers who accused them of accusing the army because they were on the market on the territory of the army.

“They fired at the ground around us, around our feet, frightening us,” she says, explaining that they then pulled a woman into an empty house and raped her.

He says the RSF fighter held his wife under weapons and told her, “Come with us.”

He beat her with weapons, says Ms Karim.

“And then we heard the shooting and the man ordered her,” Reduce! Do this! Do it! “Then the fighting around us intensified and we couldn’t hear anymore – the bullets fell in the area, so we hid in the house.”

She wipes tears when asked what is the best thing in the situation now.

“Safety,” he says quietly, “the best thing is security. That’s how they bothered us.”

RSF spokesman denied reports, saying that the group controlled “without any major crime” for two years and that “massive killings” were recorded in areas taken by the army.

The army and the Allied militia were accused of conducting widespread beasts after returning the territory, especially in the Central State of Gazi.

The UN and now say that both sides have committed war crimes, but have been singled out for criticism of mass rape and charges of genocide.

These are not just soldiers of RSF feet on the move.

Top officials left their homes in a nearby wealthy suburb of Karfuri.

Elite RSF was installed in Khartoum’s institution before the paramilitary group and the army turned to each other in April 2023.

The carfuri is now creepy empty and thoroughly robbed.

Not even the house of RSF deputy commander, Abdel Rahim Hamdan Dagalo and the brother of the group leader, was not spared.

A large empty pool in the yard is scattered with garbage.

Sofes in spacious rooms roll over, windows windows, gold jewelry boxes are naked, high waist sefar gates are pulled out.

The army says that he believes that most of the older leadership of the RSF is now outside the city and that those who are still fighting for the heart of Khartoum are younger commanders and soldiers with a lower rank.

We were told that the army uses unmanned aircraft to reject leaflets, urging the remaining fighters to leave, not to fight the street.

The samples presented to us are written in Arabic, but also French, obviously directed towards foreign fighters from neighboring Chad.

“Lay the weapon, switch to civilian clothing and leave the area to save your life,” one says.

In the north Khartoum, closer to the Nile, the RSF was thrown out a few months ago, but peace is regularly pierced by the sound of shelling while the army shoots in the positions of the group across the river.

Many people here say that they finally feel safe enough to sleep at night, but they are still reviewing great damage.

Zeinab Osman al-Haj showed me the wreckage of his house, telling me that the RSF fighters would come at night and break the door if he did not open them.

“They filled backpacks and even food supply, sugar and flour and oil, soap, they took it,” before they eventually burned the house, she says.

“This was not a war,” she says, pointing to a crowd of ash in which a library of her brother once stood, the extinguished frames in the destroyed bedrooms.

“This was a chaos: there was theft and theft and robbery, that’s it.”

Several streets down we meet Hussein Abbas.

He is almost 70 years old, walks with a reed and pulls a tortured suitcase down an empty street towards the celestial outline of burned and tortured buildings.

He tells us that he has been displaced three times from leaving the capital seven days after the war began.

“The moment I put down here, I almost cried,” he says, as tears start to roll down his cheeks. “For two years, two years I haven’t seen this place. We have suffered a lot, extreme suffering.”

Survivors like Mr. Abbas are slowly coming back to try to save their homes.

The army now has an advantage in this terrible war, but there is still a lot of suffering for the people of Sudan.