The 'killing fields' where thousands have been targeted - and 'made to bury their relatives'

Thousands who fled a key frontline city in Sudan's war as it fell to paramilitaries were targeted in killing fields around it by the group, after the military's top brass secured their own safe passage.

Warning: Some readers may find content in this article distressing. More than 60,000 people are still missing and humanitarians fear that Al Fashir's remaining 200,000 residents are being held hostage by Rapid Support Forces (RSF) fighters.

In our investigation with Sudan War Monitor and Lighthouse Reports, we can reveal the harrowing fate of civilians and soldiers who fled the city in the hours after senior commanders and officers left the infantry division. Some 70,000 people have escaped Al Fashir since it was captured on 26 October, according to the DTM matrix of the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), but fewer than 10,000 people are accounted for in the nearest safe displacement zones.

In an effort to track down the missing, we analysed dozens of videos and followed crowds of civilians on their way out. In this first video, we see a group, and two men - the first with a yellow hoodie and black jacket walking beside a dirt berm along with women and children.

In a later video, we see a crowd of captives that includes the two men - in the same yellow hoodie and red turban. A video of men sitting on the ground under RSF armed guard shows the women walking through freely, showing they had been separated.

In another video, we see the man in a red turban in a queue of men who start to run as RSF fighters chase and beat them. A source on the ground told us that this single group had around 2,000 captives and only 200 of them arrived at the nearest displacement shelter in Tawila, around 45 miles from Al Fashir.

We geolocated one of the videos of the group walking approximately 5km (three miles) from the nearby town of Geurnei. There, hundreds were rounded up in school buildings.

'They would execute people in front of us' The families of doctors held there told Sky News the RSF asked them to pay ransoms to secure their release. A man who survived captivity in Geurnei with his wife told us he was held with around 300-400 families after being robbed and harassed on his way out of Al Fashir.

"We got to the school and they caught up with us. They starting targeting people - elderly and young - and took them to be detained," said Abdelhamid.

"They would select people and execute them in front of us and then say - 'bury your brother' - and we would cover them with soil. I saw them kill 18 people with my own eyes and then people had to bury them with their bare hands." Satellite images from 30 October show mounds of dirt that appear to be new graves added to an existing cemetery, near school buildings in Geurnei.

Read more:UAE is 'main backer' behind Sudan war - intelligence officerTens of thousands killed in two days in Sudan city, analysts believe Others were executed in the fields outside of Al Fashir. In a video shared on social media, a vehicle is shown pursuing civilians in the countryside.

The driver films as two fighters, one in an RSF patch, stop an unarmed man. One asks what the man is carrying, and shoots him at point-blank range.

The car continues forward, accelerating towards and narrowly avoiding two unarmed men. He asks one man if he is carrying anything and says he is "acting as if you are Arab".

After the driver says "kill them all.