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The volunteer nurse Nawal Khalil had been serving as a nurse over a three-year period within the South El Fasher hospital after the city fell seized last Sunday by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). She was actively caring for the sick, among them an older female patient requiring a blood transfusion, when the offensive started.

“Six injured soldiers were killed and civilians in their beds – some of them women,” she recounts. “I am unaware of the fate to my other patients. I was forced to flee after they raided the medical facility.”

Khalil, aged 27, received a gunshot wound to her right foot and her thigh while RSF combatants gained control of the closeby army headquarters. She fled the city and walked for a day, wounded and without nourishment, to get to the settlement of Garney. “On the way, they took my phone and currency,” she explains. “I was left with nothing.”

In excess of 1,000 persons – comprising women and children – journeyed by walking for 48 hours to get to the settlement of Tawila in North Darfur after running from El Fasher, which was seized after a year-and-a-half-long siege.

Tawila, approximately 34 miles westward of El Fasher, is under the control by the SLA faction under Abdul Wahid Mohamed al-Nur's leadership.

On Tuesday, the allied Joint Forces – which partner with Sudan's military – charged the RSF for slaughtering in excess of 2,000 non-combatants since the fall of the city. United Nations officials stated that footage existed featuring numerous unarmed males who were shot or found dead, surrounded by RSF fighters.”

Background Context

Conflict erupted in Khartoum on 15 April 2023 as an escalating power struggle among the two primary factions of the armed forces leadership eventually resulted in fatalities.

On one side are the Sudanese armed forces, which maintain general loyalty to General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the country’s de facto ruler. Opposing him are the paramilitaries of the RSF paramilitary group, a gathering of armed factions which support the ex-warlord General Dagalo, known as Hemedti.

The Rapid Support Forces were first created by the former dictatorial ruler Bashir's regime as an Arab anti-rebellion militia named the Janjaweed, that rapidly became associated with extensive brutalities. In 2013, Bashir converted the organization into the RSF, using them to quell a recent insurrection within South Darfur.

The war has pushed Sudan into “one of the worst humanitarian nightmares in recent history”, based on UN statements. It has generated the globe's most severe displacement emergency, forcing more than 10 million persons inside the nation and 4 million who have fled to bordering states, generating growing stress upon Chad and South Sudan.

Ongoing Developments

Based on eyewitness accounts, many additional civilians remain trapped by the RSF and partner militias in the Garney area, south-west of El Fasher. Several are previous army members from Sudan's armed forces, the collaborative forces and other militant organizations that had been fighting alongside the army. Reports indicate they're imprisoned since they cannot pay ransom requests ranging from 5 to 10 million Sudanese pounds (around six to twelve thousand pounds), according to survivors who arrived in Tawila. Those unable to pay have been detained for days, and sometimes freed only when developing critical health conditions.

Reports suggest the SLA-AW has authorized military personnel escaping El Fasher to come into Tawila on condition they surrender their weapons.

The individual Adam Yagoub, aged 28, a driver from Sennar within central Sudan, narrowly escaped being killed subsequent to his seizure by three camel-riding militiamen near Garney.

“They wanted to cut my head off with a blade,” he informs, displaying his arm, which one of the fighters hit with the butt of an AK-47 rifle. “Then one of them recognised me – his brother had worked with me – and urged them not to execute me. There were 18 of us who left El Fasher together, yet merely eight reached Tawila. I think the others are dead.”

Yagoub reports he observed 22 corpses near what he called a fraudulent water source utilized by RSF forces and associated militias between Garney and Tawila. “It’s a trap,” he explains. “People walk all day without water, and when they reach it, the armed groups lie in wait. They slaughtered 22 men on that spot and carried the bodies off to conceal them.”

A different medical worker who escaped El Fasher South hospital after the attack on Sunday said RSF fighters entered via one entrance and commenced firing upon patients within the emergency department, killing at least eight. “We fled through another gate, but they hit me on the head with a rifle,” he recounts.

Through a video declaration last Wednesday, the head of the RSF, General Dagalo, referred to as Hemedti, stated that any military personnel or commander who infringed upon the rights of any civilian would be punished.

Many of those who escaped El Fasher spent hours hiding near the army’s artillery unit before running west during nighttime. Families already uprooted from Abu Shouk camp in the city had to displace once more, taking asylum in the Daraja Oula district before finally moving toward Tawila.

Those captured by the RSF within Garney reportedly received {water mixed with flour|flour