🔗 Share this article

Nawal Khalil had been working as a nurse over a three-year period in the El Fasher South medical facility as the city became seized last Sunday by the RSF fighters. She was actively caring for the sick, featuring one senior woman requiring a blood transfusion, when the offensive started.

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

Khalil, 27, was shot in the right foot and her thigh while RSF combatants gained control of the adjacent military command center. She escaped from the city and walked for a day, injured and without food, to get to the settlement of Garney. “During the journey, they confiscated my phone and money,” she says. “I was left with nothing.”

More than 1,000 people – featuring females and minors – traveled on foot for two days to get to the settlement of Tawila in North Darfur after fleeing El Fasher, which was seized after an 18-month siege.

This settlement, approximately 34 miles westward from El Fasher, is governed by by the SLA faction commanded by Abdul Wahid Mohamed al-Nur.

This past Tuesday, the Joint Forces – which partner with Sudan's military – charged the RSF for slaughtering in excess of 2,000 non-combatants following the urban center's takeover. The UN said there were videos showing “dozens of unarmed men either being shot or deceased, encircled by RSF combatants.”

Background Context

Conflict erupted in Sudan's capital back on April 15, 2023 as a growing contest for power involving the two key groups of the armed forces leadership finally turned deadly.

From one perspective stand the Sudanese military forces, who remain broadly loyal to General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the nation's actual leader. Challenging him are the paramilitaries of the RSF paramilitary group, an assembly of militia groups which support the ex-warlord General Dagalo, called Hemedti.

The Rapid Support Forces were first created by the ex-dictator Bashir's regime as a pro-Arab counterinsurgency force named the Janjaweed, that rapidly became associated with extensive brutalities. During 2013, Bashir transformed the group to become the RSF, using them to quell a new uprising in southern Darfur.

The conflict has plunged Sudan into among the most severe humanitarian crises in recent history”, as per UN representatives. It has generated the world’s worst displacement crisis, scattering more than 10 million people inside the nation along with 4 million refugees into neighbouring countries, putting mounting pressure upon Chad and South Sudan.

Ongoing Developments

Based on eyewitness accounts, many additional civilians remain trapped by the RSF and associated armed groups in the Garney area, south-west of El Fasher. Numerous are ex-military personnel belonging to the Sudanese military, the Joint Forces and other armed groups which had been combatting together with the army. They are reportedly being held as they lack funds for extortion payments of between 5m and 10m Sudanese pounds (around six to twelve thousand pounds), based on survivor accounts who made it to Tawila. Individuals incapable of paying have been held for multiple days, and in some cases freed only when becoming gravely ill.

The SLA-AW has reportedly allowed government troops fleeing El Fasher to enter Tawila provided they give up their weapons.

A man named Adam Yagoub, aged 28, a chauffeur from Sennar in central Sudan, barely avoided execution after being captured by three camel-riding militiamen close to Garney.

“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 brother was my colleague – and urged them not to execute me. Our group contained 18 individuals who exited El Fasher as a group, yet merely eight reached Tawila. I assume the others died.”

Yagoub says he witnessed 22 deceased individuals close to what he described as a “fake well” used by the RSF and partner armed groups in the area connecting Garney and Tawila. “This is an ambush,” he comments. “Persons journey daily without hydration, and when they get to it, the armed groups lie in wait. They slaughtered 22 men on that spot and took the bodies away to hide them.”

A different medical worker who ran from South El Fasher hospital following Sunday's assault reported RSF militiamen penetrated using one doorway and opened fire on patients within the emergency department, causing at least eight fatalities. “We ran out via another entrance, however they struck my head with a firearm,” he says.

Via a recorded message this past Wednesday, the head of the RSF, Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, called Hemedti, declared that any fighter or commander who infringed upon the rights of any civilian would be punished.

Several people who got away El Fasher utilized hours taking cover close to army artillery positions before running west under cover of darkness. Families already uprooted from Abu Shouk camp in the city were forced to move again, finding shelter in Daraja Oula area before finally moving toward Tawila.

People apprehended by RSF forces within Garney reportedly received {water mixed with flour|flour