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A nurse named Nawal Khalil had been working as a nurse for the past three years within the South El Fasher hospital as the city became captured on Sunday by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). She was busy treating patients, featuring one senior woman in need of a transfusion, as the assault commenced.

“Six injured soldiers were killed and civilians in their beds – some of them women,” she states. “The outcome remains unknown for my remaining patients. I needed to escape after they raided the medical facility.”

Khalil, aged 27, received a gunshot wound to her right foot and thigh as RSF fighters took control of the adjacent military command center. She ran from the urban area and traveled on foot for one day, injured and without food, to reach the town of Garney. “During the journey, they seized my mobile and cash,” she explains. “I ended up with nothing.”

In excess of 1,000 persons – comprising women and children – journeyed by walking for 48 hours to arrive at Tawila town in North Darfur following their escape from El Fasher, which was seized after an 18-month siege.

This settlement, around 55 kilometers to the west away from El Fasher, is under the control by the SLA faction led by Abdul Wahid Mohamed al-Nur (SLA-AW).

This past Tuesday, the Joint Forces – who are allied with Sudan’s army – accused the RSF with murdering over 2,000 civilians following the urban center's takeover. The UN said that footage existed depicting dozens of weaponless men who were shot or found dead, encircled by RSF combatants.”

Contextual Information

Hostilities commenced in Khartoum during April of 2023 when an intensifying power struggle involving the two key groups of the armed forces leadership finally turned deadly.

On one side are the Sudanese armed forces, who remain broadly loyal towards General al-Burhan, the de facto head of state. Opposing him exist the irregular troops belonging to the RSF, a gathering of armed factions that obey the former warlord Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, called Hemedti.

The RSF was initially founded by the former dictatorial ruler Bashir's regime as an Arab counterinsurgency militia known as the Janjaweed, which soon became linked with widespread atrocities. Back in 2013, Bashir converted the organization into the RSF, using them to quell a fresh rebellion within South Darfur.

The war has pushed Sudan into among the most severe humanitarian crises in recent history”, based on UN statements. It has generated the world’s worst displacement crisis, scattering more than 10 million people internally along with 4 million refugees into neighbouring countries, generating growing stress upon Chad and South Sudan.

Present Circumstances

Per observer reports, thousands more civilians stay confined by RSF forces and allied militias in the Garney area, in the southwestern direction from El Fasher. Several are previous army members from the Sudanese army, the allied Joint Forces and other armed groups that were previously aligned with the military. They are apparently detained because they cannot afford ransom demands between five and ten million Sudanese pounds (£6,000 to £12,000), per those who escaped who arrived in Tawila. People who cannot afford payment have been detained for days, and in some cases released only after developing critical health conditions.

The SLA-AW has apparently permitted government troops fleeing El Fasher to access Tawila provided they give up their weapons.

A man named Adam Yagoub, aged 28, a driver from Sennar in central Sudan, barely avoided execution subsequent to his seizure by three armed men mounted on camels close to Garney.

“They planned to decapitate me using a knife,” he recounts, showing 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 begged them not to kill me. We were 18 people who left El Fasher together, but only eight made it to Tawila. I assume the others died.”

Yagoub says he saw 22 bodies near what he called a deceptive well utilized by RSF forces and associated militias between Garney and Tawila. “This is an ambush,” he explains. “Persons journey daily without hydration, and upon arriving there, the militiamen await. They slaughtered 22 men on that spot and took the bodies away to obscure them.”

A different medical worker who ran from South El Fasher hospital subsequent to Sunday's offensive 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.

Via a recorded message last Wednesday, the leader of the RSF, General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, called Hemedti, said that any soldier or official who breached the rights of any individual would face consequences.

Numerous individuals who fled from El Fasher passed hours concealing themselves near military artillery before running west under cover of darkness. Families already uprooted originating from the urban Abu Shouk settlement had to displace once more, seeking refuge in the Daraja Oula neighbourhood prior to ultimately traveling to Tawila.

Individuals seized by the RSF within Garney reportedly received {water mixed with flour|flour