Savewith a NBCUniversal ProfileCreate your free profile or log in to save this articleNov. 1, 2025, 6:00 AM EDTBy Sara MonettaThe blood is visible from space as bodies pile up from a slaughter unprecedented in recent times. Surrounded by a sand barrier built during an 18-month siege, most of the 250,000 people in el-Fasher, in western Sudan, have been trapped as paramilitary fighters from the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have rampaged through the city. Experts estimate tens of thousands have been killed in the past week. With the key regional capital under a communications blackout, it has been left to eyewitness accounts as well as satellite imagery and video shared on social media to reveal the scale of what is unfolding in el-Fasher and the surrounding Darfur region, prompting humanitarian organizations to warn that the northeast African nation is returning to its genocidal past. NBC News spoke to one of the few residents who made it out.After the Sudanese military withdrew from the city, Mutaz Mohamed Musa said he joined thousands of people attempting to leave el-Fasher on Saturday. But almost immediately they came under shellfire, before they were surrounded by RSF fighters in pickup trucks, he said.“They opened direct fire on civilians,” Musa, 42, said in a voice note Thursday, adding that it was “extremely intense and people scattered in all directions” as they were chased and run over by the trucks. He said he thought only about 150 people made it past the berm — the sand wall built around el-Fasher by the RSF as it laid siege to the city. Musa was captured along with dozens of others, and he said RSF fighters executed people in front of him. “They would ask a man to run,” he said. “Once you start running, they shoot you.”He was freed after his family agreed to pay a ransom over the phone, he said, adding that he made his way to Tawila, a small town around 30 miles west of el-Fasher, arriving on Tuesday.