🔗 Share this article

Nawal Khalil had been serving as a nurse for three years at El Fasher South hospital when the city was seized last Sunday by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). She was busy treating patients, among them an older female patient requiring a blood transfusion, when the attack began.

“They murdered six wounded military personnel and civilians in their beds – among them female victims,” she states. “I don’t know what happened regarding my other patients. I needed to escape as they invaded the hospital.”

Khalil, 27, was shot in the right foot and her thigh while RSF combatants gained control of the closeby army headquarters. She fled 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 describes. “I possessed nothing remaining.”

In excess of 1,000 persons – featuring females and minors – journeyed by walking for 48 hours to get to the settlement of Tawila located in northern Darfur after running from El Fasher, which fell under control after a year-and-a-half-long siege.

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

On Tuesday, the allied Joint Forces – who are allied with Sudan’s army – accused the RSF of killing more than 2,000 civilians after the city's capture. The UN said that footage existed featuring numerous unarmed males who were shot or found dead, surrounded by RSF fighters.”

Background Context

Fighting broke out in Khartoum on 15 April 2023 as a growing contest for power among the two primary factions within the military government eventually resulted in fatalities.

On one side exist the official Sudanese army, which maintain general loyalty to Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the nation's actual leader. Opposing him stand the paramilitary forces belonging to the RSF, a collection of militias who follow the former warlord Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti.

The RSF was initially founded by the former dictatorial ruler Bashir's regime as an Arab anti-rebellion militia named the Janjaweed, that rapidly became associated with massive human rights violations. Back in 2013, Bashir reformed the faction into the RSF, sending them to suppress a recent insurrection in southern Darfur.

The war has pushed Sudan into among the most severe humanitarian crises in contemporary history, as per UN representatives. It has generated the planet's biggest displacement catastrophe, scattering more than 10 million people internally plus 4 million who escaped to bordering states, generating growing stress on Chad and South Sudan.

Present Circumstances

Based on eyewitness accounts, thousands more civilians stay confined by RSF forces and allied militias within Garney, south-west of El Fasher. Many are former soldiers from the Sudanese army, the allied Joint Forces and other militant organizations which had been combatting together with the army. They are reportedly being held since they cannot pay ransom demands of between 5m and 10m Sudanese pounds (around six to twelve thousand pounds), based on survivor accounts 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 military personnel escaping El Fasher to enter Tawila provided they give up their weapons.

The individual Adam Yagoub, twenty-eight years old, a driver from Sennar in central Sudan, barely avoided execution subsequent to his seizure by three militiamen on camels close to Garney.

“They intended to behead me with a knife,” he tells, showing his arm, which one militant assaulted with the butt of an AK-47 rifle. “Subsequently one identified me – his sibling had collaborated with me – and begged them not to kill me. There were 18 of us who exited El Fasher as a group, yet merely eight reached Tawila. I think the others are dead.”

Yagoub says he saw 22 bodies near what he called a “fake well” utilized by RSF forces and partner armed groups between Garney and Tawila. “It’s a trap,” he explains. “Individuals travel all day lacking water, and upon arriving there, the militias are waiting. They killed 22 men there and removed the corpses to obscure them.”

An additional nurse who escaped El Fasher South hospital following Sunday's assault reported RSF militiamen penetrated via one entrance and opened fire on patients within the emergency department, murdering no less than eight. “We escaped through a different gate, but they hit me on the head with a firearm,” he says.

In a video statement last Wednesday, the RSF commander, General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, declared that any fighter or officer who had “violated the right of any person” would be held accountable.

Many of those who escaped from El Fasher passed hours hiding near the army’s artillery unit before fleeing west under cover of darkness. Already displaced families from the city’s Abu Shouk camp were forced to move again, seeking refuge in the Daraja Oula neighbourhood before eventually heading for Tawila.

People apprehended by RSF forces in Garney were reportedly given {water mixed with flour|flour