‘No way to leave’: Sudan paramilitary traps civilians in breadbasket state

After capturing Gezira state two weeks ago, the Rapid Support Forces have prevented civilians from fleeing.

When Sudan’s second largest city, Wad Madani, fell to the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) on December 18, Afnan Hind and her family fled to a nearby town to stay with relatives. But the paramilitary group came there too and prevented residents from leaving.

Hind and her family were trapped by a group that kills civilians, rapes women and girls, and loots citizens of their wealth. Days later, she said, RSF fighters stormed their apartment to steal a car parked outside.

“My uncle just gave them the keys without resistance. He feared for [the girls in the house],” Hind, 21, told Al Jazeera. “There was immense terror of what the RSF were going to ask for.”

According to civilians, UN agencies and local monitors, the RSF is obstructing people from leaving towns and cities in Gezira state, whose capital is Wad Madani. Gezira is the breadbasket for the rest of Sudan and was a haven for hundreds of thousands of displaced people who relocated from the war-torn capital, Khartoum, earlier in the war, which began in April.

About 300,000 people fled – many for a second time – to regions under army control when the the paramilitary attacked Gezira, but many are now denied passage through RSF checkpoints.