More than 80,000 of the estimated 260,000 civilians in El Fasher, western Darfur, fled when the city fell to Sudan's paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) during a violent assault on Oct. 26—the culmination of a devastating civil war that broke out in April 2023 between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the RSF. Yet the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) tells TIME that only around 7,000 of those who fled have arrived in the nearby camp in Tawila just 60 km away. The tens of thousands of others who fled remain unaccounted for and the fate of those who stayed behind in El Fasher is also unknown.

The U.N. and local aid agencies have relayed reports of cruel executions, in what witnesses have described as “killing fields,” and widespread sexual violence following the RSF’s capture of El

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