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The volunteer nurse Nawal Khalil had been working as a medical volunteer for the past three years within the South El Fasher hospital after the city fell taken over on Sunday by RSF paramilitaries. She was busy treating patients, among them an older female patient in need of a transfusion, when the attack began.

“They murdered six wounded military personnel along with civilians in their beds – among them female victims,” she recounts. “I don’t know what happened regarding my other patients. I was forced to flee after they raided the medical facility.”

The 27-year-old Khalil, was shot in the right foot and upper leg while RSF combatants gained control of the closeby army headquarters. She fled the city and journeyed by foot for 24 hours, wounded and without nourishment, to arrive at Garney town. “Along the route, they took my phone and money,” she explains. “I was left with nothing.”

In excess of 1,000 persons – including women and children – journeyed by walking for 48 hours to arrive at Tawila town in North Darfur after running from El Fasher, which was seized after a year-and-a-half-long siege.

This settlement, around 55 kilometers to the west from El Fasher, remains under the authority of the Sudan Liberation Army faction under Abdul Wahid Mohamed al-Nur's leadership.

This past Tuesday, the allied Joint Forces – who are allied with Sudan’s army – blamed the RSF for slaughtering in excess of 2,000 non-combatants following the urban center's takeover. The UN reported that footage existed depicting dozens of weaponless men being shot or lying dead, encircled by RSF combatants.”

Contextual Information

Conflict erupted in Khartoum during April of 2023 as a growing contest for power between the two main factions of the military regime eventually resulted in fatalities.

On one side are the Sudanese armed forces, which maintain general loyalty towards General al-Burhan, the nation's actual leader. Opposing him are the paramilitaries of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a gathering of armed factions that obey the former warlord General Dagalo, referred to as Hemedti.

The RSF was initially founded by the former dictatorial ruler Bashir's regime as an Arab counterinsurgency militia known as the Janjaweed, which soon became linked with massive human rights violations. During 2013, Bashir transformed the group to become the RSF, deploying them to crush a recent insurrection in South Darfur.

The conflict has plunged Sudan into “one of the worst humanitarian nightmares in contemporary history, according to UN officials. It has produced the world’s worst displacement crisis, forcing more than 10 million persons within the country plus 4 million who escaped to bordering states, generating growing stress on both Chad and South Sudan.

Ongoing Developments

Per observer reports, numerous more non-combatants remain trapped by the RSF and allied militias in the Garney area, southwest from El Fasher. Several are previous army members belonging to the Sudanese military, the allied Joint Forces and other armed groups which had been combatting together with the army. They are apparently detained as they lack funds for extortion payments of between 5m and 10m Sudanese pounds (around six to twelve thousand pounds), according to survivors who arrived in Tawila. Individuals incapable of paying have been detained for days, and sometimes released only after falling seriously ill.

The SLA-AW has apparently permitted army soldiers running from El Fasher to access Tawila on condition they surrender their weapons.

A man named Adam Yagoub, 28, a driver from Sennar within central Sudan, barely avoided execution subsequent to his seizure by three armed men mounted on camels close to Garney.

“They wanted to cut my head off with a knife,” 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 pleaded with them to spare me. We were 18 people who exited El Fasher as a group, yet merely eight reached Tawila. I assume the others died.”

Yagoub states he observed 22 corpses close to what he described as a “fake well” employed by the RSF and associated militias between Garney and Tawila. “It’s a trap,” he explains. “Persons journey daily without hydration, and when they reach it, the militias are waiting. They killed 22 men there and carried the bodies off to hide them.”

A different medical worker who fled the El Fasher South medical facility subsequent to Sunday's offensive reported RSF militiamen penetrated via one entrance and commenced firing upon patients in the ER section, killing at least eight. “We escaped through a different gate, yet they assaulted my head using a rifle,” he states.

Through a video declaration last Wednesday, the head of the RSF, General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, referred to as Hemedti, stated that any military personnel or official who breached the rights of any civilian would be punished.

Several people who got away from El Fasher passed hours taking cover close to army artillery positions before fleeing west under cover of darkness. Previously displaced households from Abu Shouk camp in the city were forced to move again, seeking refuge in the Daraja Oula neighbourhood prior to ultimately traveling to Tawila.

Those captured by the RSF in Garney were reportedly given {water mixed with flour|flour