In January 2024, Ahmed Abubakr Imam picked up a rifle to defend his community.

The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) had just captured four of the five provinces in Sudan’s sprawling western region of Darfur – South, East, Central and West – in a lightning attack as it advanced in its war against the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and its allies.

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It was now threatening to capture North Darfur, leaving thousands of people like Imam terrified.

He knew that the largely nomadic – often referred to as “Arab” – RSF was notorious for abducting and raping women and girls and extrajudicially killing men and boys from predominantly sedentary “non-Arab” communities.

Like thousands of non-Arabs in North Darfur, Imam joined the Popular Resistance, which are neighbourhood defence groups backed by the SAF.

“The RSF militia clearly doesn’t distinguish between civilians and fighters,” the 27-year-old told Al Jazeera.

Nowhere to go

Since an all-out civil war erupted between the SAF and the RSF in April 2023, the latter has nearly consolidated control over its stronghold in Darfur.

Both sides have committed grave abuses, yet the RSF is implicated in additional atrocities such as genocide and systematic sexual violence, according to United Nations experts and local and international monitors.

In April 2024, the RSF imposed a crippling siege on North Darfur’s capital el-Fasher, where some 260,000 people are languishing and withering away from hunger.

Many women, children, and some men have been able to escape to nearby Tawila, a town about 45 miles (70 kilometres) east, which is dealing with its own catastrophic cholera epidemic.

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On the road, those escaping el-Fasher are forced to pay the equivalent of $300 each to RSF fighters and hand over their jewellery and belongings.

However, men have frequently been detained and killed after being suspected by the RSF of being fighters, while women and children have been abducted, residents say.

These risks have compelled hundreds of thousands of people to stay in el-Fasher until the RSF is repelled or the city falls.

“If the militia RSF didn’t target civilians, then all the civilians would have left el-Fasher by now,” Imam told Al Jazeera.

Some, like Imam, are on the front lines, while others are trying to gather enough food and supplies to feed their starving communities or document atrocities for the outside world.

Imam is the oldest of several brothers and sisters, the youngest of whom is just three years old. He fears they could all be raped or killed if the RSF reaches them.

“I’m the oldest sibling … so I have a responsibility to protect my family,” he said.

Al Jazeera sent written questions to the RSF’s press office, asking for the group to comment on accusations that it targets civilians trying to escape el-Fasher. The RSF did not respond before publication.

‘Kill box’

According to the Yale Humanitarian Research Lab, which is using satellite imagery to monitor developments in North Darfur, the RSF is now making it nearly impossible for people to escape the city, even if they want to.

On August 28, the research lab revealed that the RSF has built approximately 31 kilometres (19 miles) of desert berms (barriers) around el-Fasher.

About 22 kilometres (13.6 miles) form a semicircle from the west to the north of the city and an additional nine kilometres (9 miles) impede any attempt to escape east.

“With these berms, RSF is creating a literal kill box around El-Fasher,” the Yale report said.

Mohamed Zakaria, a journalist in el-Fasher, said the desert berms stand about 3 metres high.

He said that nobody is able to climb the walls unless they are pulled up, and that all other roads out of el-Fasher have been blocked.

On top of that, he stressed that civilians in Abu Shouk displacement camp, northwest of el-Fasher, are deciding whether to stay and face a potential RSF attack, or escape, knowing the dangers.

Local monitors told Al Jazeera that about 80 percent of the camp’s roughly 190,000 people have already fled, either to el-Fasher and surrounding villages or to Tawila.

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Abu Shouk was built to accommodate people fleeing the state-backed “Arab” Janjaweed militias, which terrorised non-Arab communities during the first Darfur war in 2003.  Many of these militias were later repackaged into the RSF.

On August 22, the United Nations accused the RSF of summarily executing 16 men from Abu Shouk, as part of a wider attack that killed dozens of people.

The ongoing assault on Abu Shouk follows the RSF’s attack on Zamzam camp, south of el-Fasher, in April, which uprooted half a million people and killed more than a thousand.

“Right now, there is [artillery] shelling targeting Abu Shouk from every direction …they are also carrying out incursions and kidnapping campaigns,” Zakaria warned.

“The same scenario that occurred in Zamzam is occurring in Abu Shouk,” he told Al Jazeera.

Starvation

The RSF’s chokehold siege on el-Fasher is also exacerbating the man-made starvation in the city, according to UN agencies and local relief volunteers.

According to the UN, food stocks are almost entirely depleted and food convoys have recently been attacked by drones.

Families typically survive on tree leaves or an animal feed known locally as “ambaz”, produced by pressing the residue of peanut and sunflower seeds into a slurry for consumption.

Yet even ambaz is beginning to run out, warns Magdy Yousef, a resident of el-Fasher and a member of the Emergency Response Rooms (ERRs), grassroots initiatives providing service provisions to beleaguered civilians.

Yousef told Al Jazeera that ERRs volunteers are trying to purchase food, run community kitchens and provide medicine to help some of the most vulnerable people in the city. At best, most people are surviving on a single meal a day.

“There are only five community kitchens remaining in el-Fasher… each one provides a meal to just 3,000 people,” Yousef said.

“We have reached the point of famine,” he added.

Due to the dire starvation in el-Fasher, Yousef said some families –  children, women and the elderly – are risking their lives to reach Tawila every day.

He accepted that it’s too dangerous for men of fighting age, such as himself, to try to escape.

“The RSF is targeting all young men leaving the city, so most are staying put, despite the starvation and hunger [in el-Fasher],” Yousef said.

“Maybe their families can try to leave, but it’s far too dangerous for young men.”