Hani lay face down as the blood from his two neighbours’ heads seeped into the sand around him.
The bullet wounds were still fresh and rifle barrels were warm in the hands of the Arab militiamen standing above him.
The two women’s lives had ended on the outskirts of the Sudanese city of El Fasher because they had dared to move.
They were among dozens that were shot for disobeying the order to lie still by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) rebels who caught them fleeing a possible genocide just a few miles away.
For those like Hani whose lives were spared, it would not be the end of the ordeal. Their journey to freedom would go through a gauntlet of murder, torture, robbery, kidnapping, humiliation and blackmail.
Only four of the 200 who left the city together would survive.
Their lives were spared mostly through good fortune – but also partly down to the speed at which they could summon millions of Sudanese dollars while traipsing through the desert with nothing but the possessions they could carry.
The extraordinary and harrowing story of survival was obtained by The Telegraph through a voice message sent by Hani after escaping El Fasher in recent days.
There is mounting evidence the city in the Darfur region, where no journalists have been allowed to report for more than two years, is at the centre of one of this century’s worst ethnic massacres.
More people may have died in the past week there than in the entire Gaza war, researchers now believe.
Evidence of graves and bodies from satellite pictures suggested “a velocity of killing that can only be compared with the Rwandan genocide,” according to the Yale School of Public Health’s Humanitarian Research Lab.
But witness testimony remains sparse.
Hani spoke from a refugee camp run by international aid groups operating inside territory controlled by the RSF.
His group of 200 people had only just left the piles of bodies and pools of blood in El Fasher when they quickly encountered RSF troops, he said as he recounted the first shootings.
“My head was on the ground, and I could see, to my right, two women of my neighbours lying dead, blood flowing from their heads.”
When the guns went silent, militiamen then climbed into their pickups and started to run over the bodies of the living and the dead.
Some of this was filmed, but The Telegraph has chosen not to publish the graphic footage.
The moment shortly after RSF militiamen ran over the bodies of Sudanese who had attempted to escape
The moment shortly after RSF militiamen ran over the bodies of Sudanese who had attempted to escape
About 65 survived and escaped into the brush – only to run into another band of RSF fighters who opened fire randomly, killing another 15.
“We kept running, trying to escape,” Hani recalled.
Later, coming across three checkpoints, they were beaten and intimidated, but allowed to continue.
At the fourth checkpoint, what little luck the survivors had ran out.
The militiamen demanded a ransom of 10 million Sudanese pounds, more than £2,000 per person, and gave them only two hours to get the money.
The race was now on to reach friends, relatives, whoever they could, and plead with them to transfer the money into the militiamen’s accounts in whichever way possible.
“Only four of us managed to pay,” Hani said.
“The rest were killed. They killed children, the elderly, and women. I cannot describe the scene, it was unbearable to watch people die right in front of you, each with a single bullet.”
The Telegraph could not independently verify Hani’s testimony, but his version of events chimes with similar eyewitness accounts slowly emerging.
Detailed analysis of satellite research, meanwhile, suggests the killings may be far more widespread than what has been confirmed so far.
The RSF is an Arab-based militia who are killing black African groups to steal their land. The attacks appear to have all the hallmarks of genocide.
One woman, who recently made it out and declined to be named, said: “Fathers were killed, brothers kidnapped, and women were raped in front of us. At that point, you only think about how to survive. They were like monsters.”
“Our families were killed, and we have no news about the rest. We don’t know if they are dead or alive. Sometimes I wish they were dead, it’s better than being tortured. The suffering is unbearable, and I never want to witness such things again.”
El Fasher had been the last stronghold of the Sudanese army in the Darfur region and more than a quarter of a million people had been sheltering inside when the RSF finally broke the siege and took control about a week ago.
As many as 200,000 are feared trapped in the city. With communications links blocked and few escaping, refugees and aid workers fear the killing is continuing unseen.
Nathaniel Raymond, the Yale lab’s executive director, said: “We are looking at a mass casualty event that could exceed in a week the amount of people who have died in two years in Gaza.
“That’s the speed of killing we’re at, based on what we’re seeing with piles of bodies on the ground.”
The US state department concluded in January that members of the RSF had committed genocide in Sudan. Mr Raymond has said the current killings are part of “the final battle of the Darfur genocide that began 20 years ago”.
Almost 70,000 people have died in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run health authorities there.
Most of those who have escaped from El Fasher have arrived at an aid camp in Tawila, some 25 miles away, where Hani gave his initial testimony to the UNFPA, a United Nations agency.
Doctors Without Borders, the international medical charity also called MSF, said some 170 children had arrived unaccompanied to its clinic in Tawila.
“People are arriving extremely emaciated,” said Sylvain Penicaud, a coordinator for the charity.
One patient at the clinic, called Abdallah, said he had escaped amid intense shelling and gunfire on the day of the takeover.
He said: “People left in chaos, carrying children, some in wheelbarrows, some on donkey carts, some on their feet. No one walking around was untouched, everyone was injured.”
He estimated he had seen more than 1,000 bodies on the road. “Some were killed by thirst, some by exhaustion, some by their injuries, the bleeding,” he said.
Displaced Sudanese at an aid camp in Tawila, having fled El Fasher after the city fell to the RSF
Displaced Sudanese at an aid camp in Tawila, having fled El Fasher after the city fell to the RSF Credit: AFP via Getty Images
Another resident said that the city fell into chaos when RSF forces stormed and captured the final army positions.
Ismail Isaac said RSF forces “demanded that citizens participate in celebrations, threatening that anyone who dared not to join them would be labelled a soldier and an agent, and would be summarily executed with live ammunition”.
Large numbers of wounded defenders from militia allied to the army were being treated in a Saudi maternity hospital in the city. The RSF forces arrived and quickly began going through the wards, killing every fighter they found and their relatives.
One resident said that one of his relatives, a female doctor called Safaa Mohamed Adam Al-Imam, had been working in the hospital when the RSF arrived.
She ran away and fled the city towards Qarni. There she was shot dead at a checkpoint. Her brother had been killed the previous day.
Those still inside the city said streets and many residential neighbourhoods were now deserted. Residents had been herded into civil buildings where they were being given food and water, but were not allowed to leave.
António Guterres, the UN Secretary General, said the war was “spiralling out of control”. He said: “People are dying of malnutrition, disease and violence.”
He noted that there had been “credible reports of widespread executions since the RSF entered the city”.
More than 60,000 are estimated to have escaped El Fasher, but only 10,000 have made it safely to the aid camp in Tawila.
Sudan’s civil war between the army and its paramilitary rival, the Arab RSF, broke out two years ago and has since killed as many as 150,000 and seen 14m leave their homes.
The RSF has its origins in the Janjaweed militia that were involved in the 2013 Darfur genocide.
The United Arab Emirates has been widely accused of supporting the RSF with arms and mercenaries. The country strongly denies backing the paramilitaries and says it has been trying to broker a ceasefire.
The army itself has had backing from Egypt, Iran, Russia and others.
Telegraph Media