TAWILA, Sudan (AFP) — Sudanese mother Amira wakes up every day trembling, haunted by scenes of mass rapes she saw while fleeing the western city of El-Fasher after it was overrun by paramilitaries.

Following an 18-month siege marked by starvation and bombardment, El-Fasher — the last army stronghold in the western Darfur region — fell on 26 October to the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which have been at war with the military since April 2023.

Reports have since emerged of mass killings, sexual violence, attacks on aid workers, looting and abductions in a city where communications have largely been cut off.

“The rapes were gang rapes. Mass rape in public, rape in front of everyone and no one could stop it,” Amira said from a makeshift shelter in Tawila, some 70 kilometers west of El-Fasher. 

The mother of four spoke during a webinar organized by campaign group Avaaz with several survivors of the recent violence.

Avaaz gave the survivors who participated in the webinar pseudonyms for their safety.

Doctors Without Borders said more than 300 survivors of sexual violence had sought care from its teams in Tawila after a previous RSF assault on the nearby Zamzam camp, which displaced more than 380,000 people last spring. 

“The RSF have carried out widespread sexual violence across towns and villages in Sudan to humiliate, assert control and to forcefully displace families and communities from their homes,” Amnesty International warned in April.