The friends and family of a missing man in Khartoum discovered he had been murdered when the murderers sent a gruesome video of his body to all of his WhatsApp contacts. The man’s family believe that the paramilitary group the Rapid Support Forces was behind the killing – as the man had supposedly been caught filming them looting a home. The video is proof of just one more human rights abuse since a new war began in the country in April.
Warning: Some of the content in this article may be disturbing to some readers.
The men killed Shihab Shakkab. Then, they used Shakkab’s phone to send a video of his murder to all of his contacts.
The video, which lasts slightly longer than a minute, shows Shakkab, lifeless but with his eyes frozen open. He’s on the marble floor of a home, wearing a bloody t-shirt. A chain around his torso ties him to a red post.
You can hear the voice of the man filming Shakkab’s body, though you don’t see him.
He addresses the victim’s brother, Osama Shakkab.
"Here’s your brother, look at the state he’s in. Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth. As he did to our brothers, we are doing the same thing to him. I will send you the photos he took along with this photo. Look closely at these photos and you’ll see that he is reaping what he sowed,” the man says.
He touches the face of the victim, putting his fingers in his eyes and poking his cheeks.
“You see, there? He’s dead, his eyes are extinguished. He’s dead, dead, dead.”
You can also hear the voice of another man, also offscreen, who whispers words to the man filming, which he then repeats.
On July 30, Shakkab’s friends, family and neighbours in the central Al Ardha neighbourhood posted calls on Twitter and Facebook for anyone with information about Shakkab’s murder or the whereabouts of his body to reach out to them.
Once news of the video reached Shakkab’s neighbors, many of them also spoke out about the horrific "mutilation of his body". Many blame the Sudanese paramilitary group the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which the victim had allegedly encountered the day before his death.
The RSF are a paramilitary group that originally reported to the country’s military intelligence department. Many members are former Arab militiamen who participated in the conflict in Darfur. Used as supplementary forces to the army of the former dictator Omar Al Bashir, deposed in 2019, they allied with the Sudanese Army to overthrow the civilian government in the 2021 coup d’état.
However, the leader of the RSF, General Mohamed Hamdan Dogolo has since turned against the military regime.
‘The video remained online for 24 hours as a story on Shihab’s WhatsApp’
Mosaab Aljak is a shopkeeper who lives in Omdurman and was good friends with Shakkab. He spoke to our team.
On July 28, Shihab Sakkak came across a group of the Rapid Support Forces who were pillaging homes in the Al Ardha neighbourhood, in the centre of Omdurman. He started filming them with his telephone to document their crimes. However, a neighbour started filming Shihab filming the RSF and that video got back to the RSF who control the neighbourhood.
The next evening, RSF fighters stormed into his home where Shihab was with a friend. The fighters demanded that he turn over his telephone. They came across the videos that he had filmed of them the night before. They let his friend go, but they shot Shihab in the leg and took him away to an unknown location.
About ten hours later, they published the video of his body on his WhatsApp account. Someone narrating the video said “because he filmed us, apparently stealing something, we are making an example out of him for others.” The video stayed up for 24 hours.
‘My friend’s assassins wanted to get a ransom’
We weren’t sure if Shihab was still alive or was dead. But without any news from him or the men who took him, we concluded that he was dead.
On July 30, I was contacted by someone anonymous who claimed that they had found Shihab, but they wanted money in exchange for information. They said that our friend was in detention but alive.
But I didn’t believe him – it was clear that my friend’s assassins wanted to get a ransom on top of killing him. So, we didn’t respond.
I worked with neighbours and his family to try and find out more about what happened to him, both by word of mouth and social media. We were hoping, at least, to find his body in order to bury him. And we did finally find his body on August 2 near some water to the east of the city.
Because the area is far from Al Arda and rain has made travel very difficult, we had to bury Shihab there, not far from the waterway. He was only 46 and was the father to two children. May he rest in peace.
Rapid Support Forces blamed by family and Sudanese army
Shakkab’s friends and family blame the Rapid Support Forces. The Sudanese Army as well as the Association of Professional Pharmacists – a Sudanese union that fights for rights and the democratic process – both condemned Shakkab’s murder and also blamed the RSF.
In a Twitter statement addressed to Pramila Patten, the special representative of the United Nations Secretary-General, RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Dogolo said that his force “reaffirms its unwavering commitment to international humanitarian law, its respect for the fundamental principles of human rights, and its rejection of any abuses or assaults against civilians during the ongoing war,” while also promising “the RSF's full cooperation with the UN in investigating any allegations of human rights violations.” The post didn’t mention the accusations about Shakkab’s death specifically.
The FRANCE 24 Observers team wasn’t able to establish proof that the RSF had killed Shakkab from the video alone. We put these allegations to the RSF on social media on August 3, but they did not respond. If they do respond, we will update this article to include it.
Since armed fighting between the Sudanese Army and the RSF broke out in April 2023, at least 1,135 civilians have been killed, according to the Ministry of Health, which added that this number is likely "the tip of the iceberg.” Other international NGOs like ACLED say that there have been over 3,900 deaths.
Activists and human rights groups report that at least 580 civilians have been killed in Khartoum alone since the start of the conflict.
