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The volunteer nurse Nawal Khalil had been working as a medical volunteer for three years in the El Fasher South medical facility as the city became seized last Sunday by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). She was occupied with patient care, including an elderly woman requiring a blood transfusion, when the attack began.

“They murdered six wounded military personnel along with civilians in their beds – some of them women,” she says. “I don’t know what happened for my remaining patients. I had to run when they stormed the hospital.”

Khalil, 27, received a gunshot wound to her right foot and her thigh during the RSF's seizure of the adjacent military command center. She escaped from the city and walked for a day, wounded and without nourishment, to get to the settlement of Garney. “Along the route, they confiscated my phone and cash,” she explains. “I was left with nothing.”

More than 1,000 people – 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 after an 18-month siege.

The town of Tawila, approximately 34 miles westward from El Fasher, is governed by of the SLA-AW group commanded by Abdul Wahid Mohamed al-Nur.

This past Tuesday, the collaborative Joint Forces – which partner with Sudan's military – blamed the RSF of killing more than 2,000 civilians after the city's capture. The UN said that visual evidence showed showing “dozens of unarmed men being shot or lying dead, with RSF militiamen around them.”

Historical Background

Fighting broke out in Khartoum on 15 April 2023 as an escalating power struggle among the two primary factions within the military government finally turned deadly.

Among the combatants stand the Sudanese military forces, who remain broadly loyal to General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the nation's actual leader. Against him are the paramilitaries of the RSF paramilitary group, a collection of militias which support the ex-warlord Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, referred to as Hemedti.

The RSF was originally established by the previous authoritarian leader Omar al-Bashir himself as a pro-Arab counterinsurgency force named the Janjaweed, which quickly became synonymous with widespread atrocities. Back in 2013, Bashir reformed the faction to become the RSF, deploying them to crush a new uprising within 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, dispersing over 10 million individuals within the country along with 4 million refugees into neighbouring countries, putting mounting pressure on Chad and South Sudan.

Ongoing Developments

Per observer reports, many additional civilians remain trapped by the RSF and partner militias in the Garney area, in the southwestern direction from El Fasher. Many are former soldiers belonging to the Sudanese military, the collaborative forces plus additional armed factions which had been combatting together with the army. Reports indicate they're imprisoned since they cannot pay ransom demands between five and ten million Sudanese pounds (£6,000 to £12,000), according to survivors who made it to Tawila. People who cannot afford payment have been held for multiple days, and in some cases released only after developing critical health conditions.

The SLA-AW has apparently permitted army soldiers running from El Fasher to enter Tawila if they relinquish their arms.

A man named Adam Yagoub, aged 28, a driver from Sennar in central Sudan, narrowly escaped being killed following his capture by three militiamen on camels close to Garney.

“They intended to behead me using a knife,” he informs, displaying his arm, which one militant assaulted with the butt of an AK-47 rifle. “Then one of them recognised me – his brother had worked with me – and begged them not to kill me. Our group contained 18 individuals who left El Fasher together, but only eight made it to Tawila. I think the others are dead.”

Yagoub states he witnessed 22 deceased individuals close to what he described as a “fake well” used by the RSF and partner armed groups between Garney and Tawila. “It represents a trap,” he explains. “Persons journey daily without hydration, and when they reach it, the militias are waiting. They slaughtered 22 men on that spot and removed the corpses to conceal them.”

Another nurse who ran from South El Fasher hospital subsequent to Sunday's offensive stated RSF combatants came in through one gate and opened fire on patients in the ER section, murdering no less than eight. “We escaped through a different gate, yet they assaulted my head using a rifle,” he recounts.

In a video statement on Wednesday, the head of the RSF, General Dagalo, known as Hemedti, said that any soldier or official who breached the rights of any person” would be held accountable.

Numerous individuals who fled El Fasher utilized hours hiding near the army’s artillery unit prior to escaping westward under cover of darkness. Already displaced families from the city’s Abu Shouk camp had to displace once more, finding shelter in Daraja Oula area prior to ultimately traveling to Tawila.

Those captured by the RSF in Garney were apparently provided {water mixed with flour|flour