Published On 4/11/2025
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Last update: 19:40 (Mecca time)
Abu al-Qasim Omar Qandul, head of the Native Administration in Shataya locality in the Darfur region, said on Tuesday that the administration paid a ransom to the Rapid Support Forces in order to release displaced persons they had kidnapped while fleeing from El Fasher to the Tawila area.
Qandul added that the Rapid Support siege of citizens in El Fasher for 500 days without food or treatment, and the intense battles that followed, forced a large number of citizens to leave the city.
He explained that the citizens go out to the Tawila area, the closest safe area to El Fasher. On the way, the Rapid Support Forces arrest them, then subject them to investigation, and then ask for money in order to release them, according to Qandul.
He added, “I know people who had ransom money taken from their families to release them. We paid 38 million pounds in two installments (the dollar is equivalent to 3,700 pounds) in order to release 5 people.”
He confirmed that these people who were released arrived in the Tawila area.
Regarding those fleeing to Tawila, Qandul said that their number is 70,000 people, and there are still citizens in El Fasher, and the humanitarian situation there is bad.
On October 26, the Rapid Support Forces seized the city of El Fasher and committed massacres against civilians, according to local and international organizations and human rights reports.
On the 29th of the same month, Rapid Support Commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (Hemedti) acknowledged that violations had occurred in El Fasher, claiming to open an investigation in this regard.