🔗 Share this article

Nawal Khalil had been volunteering as a medical volunteer over a three-year period within the South El Fasher hospital after the city fell captured on Sunday by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). She was busy treating patients, including an elderly woman in need of a transfusion, when the attack began.

“They murdered six wounded military personnel and civilians in their beds – some of them women,” she says. “I am unaware of the fate for my remaining patients. I was forced to flee as they invaded the hospital.”

The 27-year-old Khalil, was hit by a bullet in her right foot and her thigh as RSF fighters took control of the closeby army headquarters. She fled the city and walked for a day, wounded and without nourishment, to arrive at Garney town. “During the journey, they confiscated my phone and currency,” she explains. “I was left with nothing.”

Over a thousand individuals – featuring females and minors – journeyed by walking for 48 hours to reach the town of Tawila located in northern Darfur following their escape from El Fasher, which fell under control after an 18-month siege.

The town of Tawila, about 34 miles (55km) west away from El Fasher, is governed by of the Sudan Liberation Army faction commanded by Abdul Wahid Mohamed al-Nur.

On Tuesday, the collaborative Joint Forces – that cooperate with the Sudanese army – blamed the RSF of killing more than 2,000 civilians after the city's capture. The UN reported there were videos featuring numerous unarmed males being shot or lying dead, with RSF militiamen around them.”

Background Context

Fighting broke out in Sudan's capital back on April 15, 2023 as a growing contest for power among the two primary factions of the armed forces leadership ultimately became violent.

Among the combatants are the Sudanese armed forces, that stay mostly faithful to General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the country’s de facto ruler. Challenging him stand the paramilitary forces of the RSF paramilitary group, a gathering of armed factions that obey the former warlord General Dagalo, known as Hemedti.

The RSF was originally established by the former dictatorial ruler Bashir's regime as a pro-Arab counterinsurgency force named the Janjaweed, which quickly became synonymous with widespread atrocities. In 2013, Bashir converted the organization into the Rapid Support Forces, using them to quell a recent insurrection in southern Darfur.

The war has pushed Sudan into among the most severe humanitarian crises in modern times, according to UN officials. It has created the planet's biggest displacement catastrophe, forcing more than 10 million persons internally and 4 million who have fled into neighbouring countries, generating growing stress on both Chad and South Sudan.

Present Circumstances

Based on eyewitness accounts, thousands more civilians stay confined by RSF forces and allied militias in the Garney area, south-west of El Fasher. Numerous are ex-military personnel belonging to the Sudanese military, the allied Joint Forces and other armed groups that had been fighting alongside the army. They are reportedly being held as they lack funds for ransom demands ranging from 5 to 10 million 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 occasionally released only after falling seriously ill.

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

The individual Adam Yagoub, aged 28, a chauffeur from Sennar in central Sudan, barely avoided execution following his capture by three armed men mounted on camels in the Garney vicinity.

“They planned to decapitate me with a blade,” he recounts, exhibiting his limb, which one of the fighters hit using an AK-47 rifle butt. “Then one of them recognised me – his brother was my colleague – and begged them not to kill me. We were 18 people who departed El Fasher collectively, but only eight made it to Tawila. I believe the remainder perished.”

Yagoub says he witnessed 22 deceased individuals 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 explains. “Individuals travel all day lacking water, and when they get to it, the militias are waiting. They slaughtered 22 men on that spot and took the bodies away to conceal them.”

Another nurse who escaped El Fasher South hospital following Sunday's assault reported RSF militiamen penetrated using one doorway and commenced firing upon patients in the ER section, killing at least eight. “We fled through another gate, yet they assaulted my head using a rifle,” he says.

In a video statement on Wednesday, the leader of the RSF, General Dagalo, referred to as Hemedti, declared that any fighter or official who breached the rights of any person” would be held accountable.

Several people who got away El Fasher spent hours taking cover close to army artillery positions before fleeing west under darkness's protection. Previously displaced households from the city’s Abu Shouk camp were compelled to relocate again, taking asylum in the Daraja Oula district before finally moving toward Tawila.

People apprehended by RSF forces in Garney were apparently provided {water mixed with flour|flour