At just 19 years old, Alawia Babiker Ahmed experienced unbearable loss and unimaginable courage. While fleeing the brutal civil war ravaging Sudan’s Darfur region, she suffered a miscarriage—and soon after, rescued a child whose mother had been killed.

“I was bleeding as I walked,” Alawia told the BBC, recalling the harrowing 70-kilometre journey on foot from the besieged city of el-Fasher to the small town of Tawila. Yet, even through her own trauma, she remembered others had it worse.

As airstrikes rained down and militias loomed, Alawia and her family found a baby crying beside his mother’s lifeless body on the roadside. “We covered the mother and took the child with us,” she said.

Sudan has been engulfed in a devastating civil conflict since April 2023, when fighting erupted between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The crisis has displaced more than 12 million people and plunged the nation into one of the world’s worst humanitarian emergencies.

Darfur has been at the heart of the conflict. The RSF now controls most of the region, except el-Fasher, which remains under army control. Fierce battles have raged around the city as RSF forces attempt to take it, and in April they declared plans to form a rival government, sparking fears of Sudan’s potential breakup.

With the violence escalating, Alawia and her family were forced to flee el-Fasher once again. Along the way, her 21-year-old brother, Marwan Mohamed Adam, was attacked by RSF-aligned gangs. He was beaten on his neck, arms, and legs and robbed of his meager belongings.

Marwan believes he survived only because he lied about his origin. “They asked where I was from. I said Shaqra instead of el-Fasher. Those who admitted to being from el-Fasher were taken and executed,” he said.

The trauma was visible everywhere. “You feel like you’re already dead,” Marwan said, describing the scene of bodies lying on the road. Another survivor, Khadija Ismail Ali, told the BBC she saw corpses “scattered all over the streets.” She lost 11 family members in the shelling of el-Fasher, and three of her children died from thirst during their escape.

Khadija’s family had already been displaced multiple times—first when RSF-linked militias attacked their village, el-Tarkuniya, stealing their crops. From there, they fled to the famine-stricken Zamzam camp, then to el-Fasher, and now to Tawila.

The medical charity Alima reported that most families who fled lost their land and farms, and that child malnutrition in Tawila has reached critical levels.

During their journey, Alawia’s sister dropped their last bits of food—leftover beans with salt—while dodging bombs. “We carried it in our hands to feed the children,” Alawia said.

Desperate for water, they followed a woman’s directions to a nearby village, unaware that it was under RSF control. The fighters took their remaining money—20,000 Sudanese pounds (about $33)—along with their clothes and even Alawia’s worn-out shoes. “They even refused to give us water,” she said.

When they found a well in el-Koweim, RSF guards denied them access, even for the orphaned child. Alawia tried to push her way forward but was beaten back. Exhausted and dehydrated, the family finally reached Tawila. Alawia collapsed and was taken to a hospital.

After receiving medical treatment, the family sought out the relatives of the rescued child and successfully reunited him with extended family members.

Now living in Tawila, Alawia and her family have found temporary shelter with a local host family. “Life is OK, thank God,” she said, “but we worry about what’s next.”

Her brother Marwan dreams of going abroad to continue his education and build a new life—a dream shared by millions of Sudanese whose lives have been torn apart by a war with no end in sight.