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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 RSF paramilitaries. She was actively caring for the sick, featuring one senior woman who needed a blood transfusion, when the offensive started.

“They killed six wounded soldiers plus civilian patients in their beds – among them female victims,” she says. “I am unaware of the fate for my remaining patients. I had to run when they stormed the hospital.”

Khalil, 27, was hit by a bullet in her right foot and upper leg as RSF fighters took control of the nearby military headquarters. She escaped from the city and traveled on foot for one day, hurt and lacking sustenance, to arrive at Garney town. “On the way, they seized my mobile and currency,” she explains. “I was left with nothing.”

More than 1,000 people – featuring females and minors – traveled on foot for two days to arrive at Tawila town within North Darfur after fleeing El Fasher, which fell under control after an 18-month siege.

This settlement, approximately 34 miles westward of El Fasher, remains under the authority of the SLA-AW group commanded by Abdul Wahid Mohamed al-Nur.

Last Tuesday, the collaborative Joint Forces – that cooperate with the Sudanese army – blamed the RSF for slaughtering in excess of 2,000 non-combatants after the city's capture. The UN reported that footage existed showing “dozens of unarmed men either being shot or deceased, with RSF militiamen around them.”

Contextual Information

Conflict erupted in Khartoum on 15 April 2023 when an intensifying power struggle involving the two key groups within the military government finally turned deadly.

From one perspective stand the Sudanese military forces, who remain broadly loyal towards General al-Burhan, the de facto head of state. Challenging him exist the irregular troops of the RSF paramilitary group, a collection of militias who follow the former warlord General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, called Hemedti.

The Rapid Support Forces were first created by the ex-dictator Omar al-Bashir himself as an Arab counterinsurgency militia called the Janjaweed, which quickly became synonymous with extensive brutalities. During 2013, Bashir transformed the group into the RSF, sending them to suppress a fresh rebellion in southern Darfur.

The war has pushed Sudan into among the most severe humanitarian crises in contemporary history, according to UN officials. It has created the world’s worst displacement crisis, dispersing over 10 million individuals internally and 4 million who have fled into neighbouring countries, generating growing stress upon Chad and South Sudan.

Ongoing Developments

According to witnesses, thousands more civilians continue to be held by the RSF and associated armed groups within Garney, in the southwestern direction from El Fasher. Several are previous army members from the Sudanese army, the collaborative 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 (approximately £6,000-£12,000), according to survivors who arrived in Tawila. People who cannot afford payment remain imprisoned for several days, and sometimes let go solely after developing critical health conditions.

Reports suggest the SLA-AW has authorized army soldiers running from El Fasher to come into Tawila provided they give up their weapons.

Adam Yagoub, twenty-eight years old, a driver from Sennar in central Sudan, narrowly escaped being killed following his capture by three camel-riding militiamen in the Garney vicinity.

“They planned to decapitate me using a knife,” he tells, showing his arm, which one militant assaulted with the butt of an AK-47 rifle. “Afterward one remembered me – his sibling had collaborated with me – and urged them not to execute me. We were 18 people who departed El Fasher collectively, but only eight made it to Tawila. I believe the remainder perished.”

Yagoub states he witnessed 22 deceased individuals in proximity to what he termed a “fake well” employed by the RSF and associated militias between Garney and Tawila. “This is an ambush,” he explains. “People walk all day without water, and upon arriving there, the armed groups lie in wait. They slaughtered 22 men on that spot and took the bodies away to hide them.”

An additional nurse who escaped El Fasher South hospital following Sunday's assault said RSF fighters entered through one gate and began shooting at patients in the ER section, causing at least eight fatalities. “We escaped through a different gate, yet they assaulted my head using a rifle,” he recounts.

Through a video declaration last Wednesday, the head of the RSF, General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, said that any soldier or official who breached the rights of any civilian would be punished.

Numerous individuals who fled El Fasher utilized hours taking cover close to army artillery positions before fleeing west during nighttime. Previously displaced households from the city’s Abu Shouk camp had to displace once more, seeking refuge in the Daraja Oula neighbourhood before finally moving toward Tawila.

People apprehended by RSF forces in Garney were apparently provided {water mixed with flour|flour