‘Here you will die’: detainees speak of executions, starvation and beatings at hands of Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces

Lying between the makeshift graves is a mattress, a large bloodstain visible in the midday sun. A name is scrawled in Arabic on its ragged fabric: Mohammed Adam.Who was Adam? Had he ended up here, in a bleak corner of a remote military installation in Sudan’s Khartoum state? Had his body been stretchered on the mattress from the detention centre nearby and dumped into one of hundreds of unmarked graves?Almost two years into Sudan’s catastrophic civil war, Adam’s likely demise reflects the unanswered questions being asked across the country. The conflict is characterised by unrecorded killings, enforced disappearances, by families searching vainly for lost loved ones. No one knows exactlyhow manyhave died.View image in fullscreenA view inside a filthy ‘torture chamber’ run by the RSF. Although water bottles are chained to the door, detainees claimed these were rarely filled.Photograph: Mark Townsend/The GuardianSimilarly it is a conflict contaminated by myriad war crimes. Few episodes may prove to be more egregious than what evolved within the amber-bricked building several hundred metres from where Adam’s mattress was found.The building housed an apparent torture centre under the command of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). As calls start for an investigation into the magnitude of what unfolded inside, attempts to identify the bodies within hundreds of unmarked graves nearby will hopefully begin.Possible clues to who may lie in the hastily dug graves might be found in an A3-size notebook found by the Guardian on the grubby floor of the torture centre. On each page, carefully written in ballpoint pen, are listed 34 names in Arabic. Some have been crossed out.Whoever the detainees were, they suffered. They were beaten repeatedly, and daily life was unswervingly horrific. Scores were rammed into rooms no bigger than a squash court. Survivors describe being wedged so tightly they could only sit with knees tucked under their chin.A corner of the room doubled as a toilet. When the Guardian visits, the air is thick with flies; the stench unbearable. Graffiti covers the walls. Some pleads for mercy. One message reads: “Here you will die.”Behind a mesh door with manacles swinging from it are several windowless rooms 2 metres square that doubled as torture chambers, say Sudanese military officers.Map and satellite image showing where graves were foundAccording to statements given to doctors, detainees were repeatedly thrashed with wooden sticks by RSF guards. Others were shot at point-blank range.In an area used by the RSF guards, bullet holes have scarred the ceiling.Those not tortured to death faced gradual starvation. Speaking on a military base in the city of Shendi, Dr Hosham al-Shekh says detainees have revealed that they received a modest cup of lentil soup, about 200ml, a day.Such sustenance yielded about 10% of the calories required to maintain body weight. Swiftly, they wasted away.Physically broken, the detainees were also psychologically shattered. Trapped in a twilight world with no hope of exercise – no space to move – many of them were rendered almost mute by the trauma of their existence.View image in fullscreenSergeant Mohammed Amin beside a makeshift grave, one of hundreds that make up a large burial site on a former RSF military base.Photograph: Mark Townsend/The GuardianAtrocity experts say the size of the makeshift burial site is unprecedented in terms of the ongoing Sudanese war. So far, nothing has come close to matching its magnitude.Military sources who have inspected the site say each corpse is commemorated by a breeze block that serves as a headstone. A number of the graves – their mounds of earth conspicuously bigger than others – are framed by at least 10 breeze blocks.Jean-Baptiste Gallopin, ofHuman Rights Watch, urged the Sudanese military to grant “unhindered access” to independent monitors, including the UN, to collect evidence.The experiences of detainees also reflect the wider war. From the start, Sudan’s conflict was marked byethnically motivated attacksand detainees reported being racially abused in the torture centre.skip past newsletter promotionSign up toGlobal DispatchFree newsletterGet a different world view with a roundup of the best news, features and pictures, curated by our global development teamEnter your email addressSign upPrivacy Notice:Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see ourPrivacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the GooglePrivacy PolicyandTerms of Serviceapply.after newsletter promotion“They were racially abused a lot. They suffered verbal harassment, racism,” says Shekh.All were derided as belonging to the “56 state” a reference to the year Sudan achieved independence and a construct that the RSF guards told inmates they wanted to “destroy”.View image in fullscreenA room where scores of detainees were held in conditions so cramped they could hardly move. The only light came though a slight gap in the window.Photograph: Mark Townsend/The GuardianUnderlining the misery of their situation is the fact that all were seemingly detained for minor, arbitrary reasons.Most were reportedly detained after preventing RSF troops from looting their homes. Some, says Shekh, were arrested after refusing to hand over their smartphone.Although all those found in the centre were civilians, during the visit the Guardian also finds several official Sudanese military ID cards among the detritus on the facility’s floor.Also among the debris were boxes of syringes and discarded packets of prescription drugs, some of which can make users feel lightheaded and drowsy. Military sources believe RSF troops may have used the drugs to numb the monotonous reality of guard duty.It is a claim underscored by frequent reports of drugged-up RSF fighters as well as a recent discovery eight kilometres south of the torture centre. Several weeks ago, close to Sudan’s main oil refinery, Sudanese army intelligence officers found an industrial-scale factoryproducing the banned drug Captagon, capable of making 100,000 pills an hour.View image in fullscreenAlthough all the detainees found in the centre were civilians, a number of Sudanese army ID’s were discovered on its floor.Photograph: Mark Townsend/The GuardianEvidence was found thatthe amphetaminewas used locally and smuggled abroad.The discovery of the RSF torture centre and nearby large-scale Captogan factory raise unfavourable comparisons withSyria, whose former president, Bashar al-Assad, turned his country into theworld’s largest narco state.Similarly, the grisly finds at the military base north of Khartoum appear to be part of a network of RSF torture centres around the capital. Military sources said they had recently found another in southern Khartoum. There, Egyptians were among those tortured, some to death.As the battle for the capital intensifies and the military – itself accused of myriad war crimes and abuses – posts steady advances against its nemesis, more grisly discoveries are inevitable. Slowly, shockingly, the true scale of Sudan’s terrible secrets will come to light.4:28How social media can help catch war criminals – video