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Nawal Khalil had been serving as a healthcare worker for the past three years at El Fasher South 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 offensive started.

“They murdered six wounded military personnel plus civilian patients in their beds – some of them women,” she states. “I don’t know what happened regarding my other patients. I needed to escape after they raided the medical facility.”

Khalil, aged 27, received a gunshot wound to her right foot and upper leg while RSF combatants gained control of the closeby army headquarters. She escaped from the city and traveled on foot for one day, hurt and lacking sustenance, to get to the settlement of Garney. “Along the route, they seized my mobile and money,” she describes. “I possessed nothing remaining.”

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, around 55 kilometers to the west of El Fasher, remains under the authority of the SLA-AW group commanded by Abdul Wahid Mohamed al-Nur.

Last Tuesday, the allied Joint Forces – who are allied with Sudan’s army – accused the RSF for slaughtering in excess of 2,000 non-combatants since the fall of the city. The UN reported there were videos showing “dozens of unarmed men who were shot or found dead, with RSF militiamen around them.”

Background Context

Conflict erupted within Khartoum back on April 15, 2023 when an intensifying power struggle among the two primary factions within the military government ultimately became violent.

On one side stand the Sudanese military forces, who remain broadly loyal towards General al-Burhan, the country’s de facto ruler. Against him are the paramilitaries of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a collection of militias that obey the former warlord General Dagalo, called Hemedti.

The Rapid Support Forces were first created by the former dictatorial ruler Bashir's regime as a pro-Arab counterinsurgency force known as the Janjaweed, that rapidly became associated with widespread atrocities. In 2013, Bashir converted the organization into the RSF, deploying them to crush a new uprising within South Darfur.

The fighting has thrown Sudan into “one of the worst humanitarian nightmares in recent history”, as per UN representatives. It has created the planet's biggest displacement catastrophe, scattering more than 10 million people internally along with 4 million refugees to bordering states, putting mounting pressure on both Chad and South Sudan.

Ongoing Developments

Based on eyewitness accounts, many additional civilians remain trapped by the RSF and associated armed groups in Garney, south-west of El Fasher. Numerous are ex-military personnel from the Sudanese army, the collaborative forces and other militant organizations which had been combatting together with the army. They are reportedly being held because they cannot afford ransom requests ranging from 5 to 10 million Sudanese pounds (£6,000 to £12,000), based on survivor accounts who made it to Tawila. People who cannot afford payment have been held for multiple days, and sometimes released only after becoming gravely ill.

The SLA-AW has apparently permitted military personnel escaping El Fasher to enter Tawila if they relinquish their arms.

The individual Adam Yagoub, aged 28, a chauffeur from Sennar from central Sudanese regions, barely avoided execution after being captured by three armed men mounted on camels in the Garney vicinity.

“They intended to behead me using a knife,” he recounts, exhibiting his limb, which one of the fighters hit using an AK-47 rifle butt. “Afterward one remembered me – his sibling had collaborated with me – and urged them not to execute me. There were 18 of us who departed El Fasher collectively, but only eight made it to Tawila. I think the others are dead.”

Yagoub says he saw 22 bodies in proximity to what he termed a deceptive well used by the RSF and allied militias along the Garney-Tawila route. “It represents a trap,” he comments. “Individuals travel all day lacking water, and upon arriving there, the armed groups lie in wait. They slaughtered 22 men on that spot and removed the corpses to hide them.”

An additional nurse who escaped El Fasher South hospital after the attack on Sunday stated RSF combatants came in using one doorway and opened fire on patients in the emergency ward, causing at least eight fatalities. “We escaped through a different gate, yet they assaulted my head with a firearm,” he recounts.

In a video statement this past Wednesday, the RSF commander, General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, referred to as Hemedti, declared that any fighter or commander who infringed upon the rights 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 darkness's protection. Already displaced families 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.

Individuals seized by the RSF in Garney were reportedly given {water mixed with flour|flour