‘No one recognised him, even as he said his name': last video of rescued man shows horror of Sudan torture camps

The Guardian

09-04-2025

In the last video of Alwaleed Abdeen, taken in the school turned prison in which he had been held for six months, he was so emaciated that friends could barely recognise him – even when he spoke his name to the camera held by his rescuers.
Lying on a dirty floor as he spoke, the 35-year-old's bones were visible through his skin after months of detention and torture at the hands of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary, which controlled most of Sudan's capital, Khartoum until late March.
The video was taken by soldiers from the Sudanese government army, and was among many recorded as they drove the RSF out of the city and made grim discoveries of graves and prisons, revealing the conditions many residents endured under the RSF.
'Honestly, I was shocked by what I saw on that video – I couldn't believe my eyes, seeing his body so thin from the hunger, the sickness and torture he endured,' says Mohammed Awad, a neighbour of Abdeen's. 'Whoever can torture and kill a peaceful person like Alwaleed so brutally, they are a person of no faith, no morality, no humanity.'
Like Abdeen, Awad had remained in the wealthy Arkaweet neighbourhood of Khartoum despite it becoming overrun by the RSF, whose senior commanders took over abandoned houses as their lodgings or used them to store weapons.
Abdeen stayed because his elderly parents refused to leave. He had been briefly detained by RSF forces on several occasions since the war between the RSF and army began in April 2023, before he finally disappeared in October 2024.
Awad says he does not know how Abdeen was captured but that many in the area were taken prisoner while trying to reach markets to buy food.
Last month, the Sudan Tribune reported that 50,000 people have been forcibly disappeared by the RSF during the war, based on data from the Sudanese Group for Defending Rights and Freedoms.
Awad said citizens who remained in Khartoum struggled to access food, water, electricity and medical care after health facilities were taken over by the RSF; shortages which led to Abdeen's mother dying from illness during his detention.
'They brutally arrested citizens and tortured them without any care for their rights, especially in Arkaweet,' says Awad. 'Our homes, women, were not safe. They threatened by gunpoint to steal, loot, beat and abuse.'
The video of Abdeen in detention was taken in Jebel Awliya, on the road south out of Khartoum. In another video from the area, the same soldier recorded images of bodies and says they died of hunger and thirst.
The news that Abdeen had died later in hospital prompted a wave of mourning on Sudanese social media because of his popularity in the city, where he was a well-known figure.
Abdeen was considered a force in Sudan's entrepreneur scene, helping co-found the Khartoum edition of Ted Talks and innovation hubs such as 249 Startups, which helped young entrepreneurs. He also won fellowships to study in the UK and US.
As friends shared their memories, many wished that final video was not their lasting memory of him and posted images of him healthy and happy.
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'I want to have the image of the Alwaleed I remember,' says Dalia Yousif, who considered him a business mentor.
She says he was a kind, generous man, who was always eager to help others and did so by championing Sudanese entrepreneurs, not only in the capital but in marginalised areas such as Darfur.
'He was passionate about what he was doing but also about what other people were doing. So he was always trying to not just grow himself but also empower others to grow with him,' says Yousif.
Reem Gaafar, a neighbour of Abdeen's, who met him at an arts workshop, says his death brought home the reality and violence facing people in Sudan. She had hoped he had escaped the area, as many in Arkaweet had.
She initially refused to watch the prison video, having avoided such imagery throughout the war. But then her sister told her the man pictured was one of their neighbours.
'I screamed. I was in shock, my mum came running to my room. The shock of seeing him in that way, to know that all of this time he was in that situation,' she says. 'All this time we were living our lives and he's been in this awful situation, detained, starved. No one even recognised him from that video, even as he said his name. It was like you were looking an old, sick man.'
'I am ashamed because I know this happened to thousands of people, some in worse situations, to women, but when you see it happen to someone you know, it is a whole different thing.'