They burst into the room, yanking the boy out from under a bed. His eyes wide open with terror, they put a gun to his temple. Two shots. Nadifa Ismail ran towards the body, but the intruders shoved the mother out of her home. Moments later, armed men set it ablaze, cremating her child’s body, destroying everything she had.
Weeks later, on 28 February in Sudan’s Darfur region, Ismail, her clothing streaked red with dust, passed the paramilitary group who had executed her 16-year-old son. “Hopefully, it is the last time I will see them,” she said. “They beat me too.”
Ismail was the 212th person that day to make it through the border crossing and into the town of Adré in eastern Chad. Like those who had gone before, the 38-year-old offered detailed testimony that fresh atrocities are happening in Darfur, a vast region in the west of Sudan.
The latest arrivals offer further evidence of ethnic cleansing in Darfur’s unfolding dystopian nightmare. Women raped in front of their children, daughters raped in front of their mothers. Boys shot in the street. Others dragged away and never seen again.
Their statements crystallise concerns that the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) – the powerful paramilitary group in Sudan that killed Ismail’s son – along with other allied Arab militia, remain intent
