After escaping the violence in the Sudanese city of El-Fasher, 16-year-old Mounir Abderahmane had to travel over dry plains for 11 days to reach the Tine refugee transit camp in Chad.
Abderahmane was at the Saudi hospital tending to his father, a regular army soldier who had been injured fighting the militia a few days prior, when the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) arrived in the city in late October.
"They called for seven nurses and led them into a room. His voice broke with emotion as he told AFP, "We heard gunshots and I saw blood seeping out for under the door."
Abderahmane and his father, who passed away a few days later while traveling west to Chad, left the city that same day.

Atrocity accusations have been made against both sides. The Janjaweed, a predominantly Arab militia that was given weapons by the Sudanese government to murder mostly black African tribes in Darfur twenty years ago, is where the RSF got its start.
Nearly 2.7 million people were relocated and an estimated 300,000 individuals were killed in those ethnic cleansing actions between 2003 and 2008.
"Never turn around."
Escapees from the Tine camp in eastern Chad, which is more than 300 kilometers (185 miles) from El-Fasher, claimed that drone assaults had increased in the city on October 24, right before the RSF took control of it.
According to 53-year-old Hamid Souleymane Chogar, residents crowded into improvised shelters to flee the bombs, with only "peanut shells" for nourishment.

"Every time I went up to get some air, I saw new corpses in the street, often those of local people I knew," he said.
Chogar fled in the night, taking advantage of a pause.
According to 53-year-old Hamid Souleymane Chogar, residents crowded into improvised shelters to flee the bombs, with only "peanut shells" for nourishment.
He claimed that after being crippled by the Janjaweed in 2011, he had to be lifted into a cart that zigzagged around the city between the bodies and rubble.
To avoid being discovered, they went silently and without lights.
Mahamat Ahmat Abdelkerim, 53, and his wife and six children rushed into a nearby home as the headlights of an RSF truck flashed through the night.

Days before, a drone had killed the seventh child.
"There were about 10 bodies in there, all civilians," he stated. "Their corpses were still dripping blood."
A shell hit Mouna Mahamat Oumour, 42, and her family as they were escaping.
"My aunt's body was ripped to pieces as I turned around. She sobbed, "We covered her with a cloth and continued."
"We continued walking without ever turning around."
Extortion
They observed bodies stacked up in the massive trench the RSF had dug around the city's southern perimeter.
Samira Abdallah Bachir, 29, claimed that in order to avoid stepping on any of the remains, she and her three small children had to climb down into the ditch.

After crossing the trench, evacuees had to pass through checkpoints on the two main highways that led out of El-Fasher, where there were reports of theft and rape.
The fighters wanted $800 to $1,600 in cash for safe passage at each barrier.
According to UN estimates, around 90,000 people have left El-Fasher in the last two weeks, many of them going days without eating.
"People are being relocated from Tine to reduce crowding and make room for new refugees," stated 42-year-old Ameni Rahmani of Doctors Without Borders (MSF), a medical charity.
Since April 2023, the RSF and army have been at odds over control of Sudan's gold and oil, which has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths, nearly 12 million displaced people, and what the UN refers to as the world's largest famine crisis.