On the morning of Feb. 5, Abdelaziz Suleiman left home to buy groceries at a market in his hometown of El Daein, in eastern Darfur.
He never returned.
The last his family heard from him was on April 11, when men claiming to have abducted Mr. Suleiman called with an ultimatum. The family had 48 hours to pay 259 million Sudanese pounds (about $430,000) – about 350 times their collective yearly income – or Mr. Suleiman would be killed.
Why We Wrote This
Abductions have become a weapon in Sudan’s civil war, adding to the misery of civilians already living through violence and hunger.
They didn’t have the money, and now, “I don’t know if he’s dead or alive,” says his wife, Hayat Suleiman Issa, wiping away tears as she sits in her modest home, surrounded by the couple’s five children.
The family’s ordeal exemplifies a disturbing pattern across Darfur, a region of western Sudan, where systematic kidnappings have emerged as a brutal feature of the country’s grinding civil war. As the conflict between the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the national army grinds into its third year, the RSF-controlled area has become a hotbed for abductions.
A system of fear and profit
Abdulqader Suleiman, Abdelaziz’s brother, says the kidnappers didn’t identify themselves as RSF fighters, but told the family the ransom was “reparations” for RSF losses in a recent battle.
The Monitor was not able to independently verify the family’s account, nor others in this story, but their stories align with similar cases documented by local activists and rights monitors, as well as posts by other victims’ families on social media. The recurrent nature of these cases suggests that the RSF – already accused of ethnic violence and other war crimes – now finances its operations in part by holding civilians for ransom. The group denies this claim.
“The RSF has turned abductions into a business,” says Drar Adam Drar, co-founder of the Darfur-based Human Rights and Advocacy Network for Democracy (HAND).
Now in its third year, the civil war in Sudan has forced approximately 15 million people – nearly one-third of the country’s population – to flee their homes.
In Darfur, those who remain face bombings, ethnic violence, and hunger. Kidnappings have now become another source of terror.
Experts say the RSF specifically targets non-Arabs for abduction. That echoes the atrocities that gave birth to the group two decades ago, when the Sudanese government unleashed Arab militias known as Janjaweed against non-Arab communities in Darfur. These militias killed hundreds of thousands and displaced millions more, in what the United States and others labeled a genocide. The armed groups were later formalized as the RSF under commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, commonly known as Hemedti.
Now, with the RSF in control of Darfur again, many analysts and activists argue that the kidnappings are not only intended to finance the war, but also contribute to an unofficial campaign of ethnic cleansing.
“With most victims being from specific African ethnic groups, this isn’t just ransom, it’s demographic warfare” says Ali Mansour, a journalist and political analyst from Darfur.
“Hunted and forgotten”
In mid-December 2024, miner Osman Abdeljabbar was on leave in his hometown, Nyala, when he says seven men in RSF uniforms abducted him at a bus depot. He was blindfolded with his own shirt and hurled into a vehicle, which took him to a makeshift detention center.
It was a filthy apartment building, where about 20 hostages were spread over five rooms. Some told him they had been there for more than two months. Mr. Abdeljabbar says the conditions were squalid, with only one meal a day and a jerry can in the room acting as a communal toilet.
Mr. Abdeljabbar also noticed that one room in the apartment functioned as a communication center, where the abductors appeared to have reliable internet and phone service to contact victims’ families. That was in stark contrast to the intentional communications blackouts that the RSF regularly implements across much of Darfur.
The evening Mr. Abdeljabbar was brought to the facility, he says the fighters demanded 5 million Sudanese pounds (about $8,300) for his release. After frantic negotiations, his family scraped together 2 million pounds, and he was freed the following day.
“I was told by other hostages that those who could not pay were killed,” Mr. Abdeljabbar says quietly.
In an interview, RSF spokesperson Ibrahim Mukhayer denied that the group holds any civilian detainees and insisted that security in Darfur is improving.
But victims say otherwise. In El Daein, a pharmacist – who asked not to be identified for his family’s safety – says he was held for over a month in inhumane conditions by the RSF until his family paid a ransom of 45 million pounds (roughly $75,000).
Meanwhile, a video recently circulated online showing a kidnapped man in the Darfuri town of Zalingei being tortured by members of a local militia aligned with the RSF. His family was told to pay 10 million pounds. In another circulating video, a man is beaten as kidnappers demand an astronomical ransom, 30 billion pounds ($50 million).
“These aren’t rogue cases,” says Mr. Mansour, the political analyst. “This is organized. It’s systematic. And it reflects total state collapse.”
Abdelbasit al-Haj, a Sudanese lawyer who specializes in crimes committed during the Darfur conflict, argues that “these unlawful detentions and extortions, when done systematically during conflict, qualify as a war crime, possibly a crime against humanity.”
With no signs of the war abating, Mr. Drar from HAND hopes that international pressure can bring these crimes to a halt.
“We urgently need a global response,” he says. “Darfur’s civilians are being hunted and forgotten.”
This piece was published in collaboration with Egab.
