How 11 doctors survived the siege of El Fasher

By sunrise, Dr Ibrahim was among a smaller group of 15 people – including Dr Khattab, seven civilians and six Sudanese Armed Forces soldiers.

Exposed in the daylight, they were soon captured by RSF fighters who chased them down on camels and motorbikes.

Two armed soldiers were executed immediately in front of the group. The remaining four were killed later, after confessing to being in the army.

“When I was abducted, I did not think I would live to see another day….I hoped only for a quick death,” Dr Ibrahim said.

He was bound, his hands pulled over his head, and tied to a tree, where he was forced to stand under the sun. In the two days they held him there he was given water only once.

At one point, he was ordered to use an RSF fighter’s phone to contact his father on Facebook. Over a video call, his father negotiated a ransom down from 50 million Sudanese pounds, about $14,000, to 15 million Sudanese pounds, roughly $4,200.

After the payment was made, Dr Ibrahim was blindfolded and driven to a remote area, where he was told to walk toward distant lights. There, he reached the relative safety of Tawila, some 50 miles west of El Fasher – a journey that takes three days by foot.

He hadn’t eaten for four days by the time he was received in Tawila by the Sudanese American Physicians Association, which welcomed him at its clinic and offered him work.