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Nawal Khalil had been serving as a nurse over a three-year period at El Fasher South hospital as the city became captured on Sunday by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). She was actively caring for the sick, among them an older female patient in need of a transfusion, as the assault commenced.

“They murdered six wounded military personnel along with civilians in their beds – some of them women,” she says. “The outcome remains unknown regarding my other patients. I had to run after they raided the medical facility.”

Khalil, 27, received a gunshot wound to her right foot and upper leg as RSF fighters took control of the nearby military headquarters. She escaped from the city and journeyed by foot for 24 hours, hurt and lacking sustenance, to get to the settlement of Garney. “During the journey, they confiscated my phone and money,” she says. “I was left with nothing.”

Over a thousand individuals – comprising women and children – journeyed by walking for 48 hours to arrive at Tawila town located in northern Darfur after fleeing El Fasher, which was seized following an 18-month blockade.

Tawila, about 34 miles (55km) west of El Fasher, is governed by of the SLA-AW group commanded by Abdul Wahid Mohamed al-Nur.

This past Tuesday, the Joint Forces – that cooperate with the Sudanese army – blamed the RSF for slaughtering in excess of 2,000 non-combatants since the fall of the city. The UN said that footage existed featuring numerous unarmed males being shot or lying dead, encircled by RSF combatants.”

Contextual Information

Fighting broke out in Sudan's capital on 15 April 2023 when an intensifying power struggle involving the two key groups within the military government eventually resulted in fatalities.

Among the combatants are the Sudanese armed forces, which maintain general loyalty to Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the de facto head of state. Against him exist the irregular troops of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), an assembly of militia groups who follow the former warlord General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, called Hemedti.

The RSF was initially founded by the ex-dictator Omar al-Bashir as an Arab anti-rebellion militia known as the Janjaweed, that rapidly became associated with extensive brutalities. During 2013, Bashir transformed the group into the RSF, sending them to suppress a new uprising within South Darfur.

The conflict has plunged Sudan into “one of the worst humanitarian nightmares in contemporary history, as per UN representatives. It has produced the globe's most severe displacement emergency, dispersing over 10 million individuals within the country plus 4 million who escaped into neighbouring countries, creating increasing strain upon Chad and South Sudan.

Ongoing Developments

Based on eyewitness accounts, numerous more non-combatants continue to be held by the RSF and associated armed groups in Garney, southwest from El Fasher. Many are former soldiers from the Sudanese army, the allied Joint Forces and other militant organizations that had been fighting alongside the army. They are apparently detained because they cannot afford extortion payments between five and ten million Sudanese pounds (around six to twelve thousand pounds), based on survivor accounts who reached Tawila. Those unable to pay have been detained for days, and sometimes released only after developing critical health conditions.

The SLA-AW has reportedly allowed government troops fleeing El Fasher to enter Tawila provided they give up their weapons.

The individual Adam Yagoub, twenty-eight years old, a chauffeur from Sennar from central Sudanese regions, narrowly escaped being killed after being captured by three militiamen on camels in the Garney vicinity.

“They planned to decapitate me with a blade,” he recounts, showing his arm, that one combatant struck with the stock of a Kalashnikov. “Subsequently one identified me – his brother had worked with me – and urged them not to execute me. There were 18 of us who left El Fasher together, but only eight made it to Tawila. I think the others are dead.”

Yagoub says he observed 22 corpses near what he called a fraudulent water source utilized by RSF forces and partner armed groups along the Garney-Tawila route. “It’s a trap,” he says. “Individuals travel all day lacking water, and when they reach it, the militiamen await. They murdered 22 males at that location and carried the bodies off to hide them.”

An additional nurse who fled the El Fasher South medical facility subsequent to Sunday's offensive said RSF fighters entered via one entrance and began shooting at patients in the emergency ward, murdering no less than eight. “We ran out via another entrance, yet they assaulted my head with a rifle,” he states.

Through a video declaration on Wednesday, the RSF commander, General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, stated that any military personnel or commander who infringed upon the rights of any person” would be held accountable.

Several people who got away from El Fasher passed hours hiding near the army’s artillery unit before running west under cover of darkness. Families already uprooted originating from the urban Abu Shouk settlement were compelled to relocate again, taking asylum in the Daraja Oula district before finally moving toward Tawila.

People apprehended by RSF forces within Garney reportedly received {water mixed with flour|flour