🔗 Share this article

A nurse named Nawal Khalil had been working as a medical volunteer over a three-year period within the South El Fasher hospital when the city was seized last Sunday by the RSF fighters. She was busy treating patients, including an elderly woman requiring a blood transfusion, when the attack began.

“They killed six wounded soldiers along with civilians in their beds – including some women,” she recounts. “The outcome remains unknown for my remaining patients. I needed to escape after they raided the medical facility.”

Khalil, aged 27, was hit by a bullet in her right foot and her thigh while RSF combatants gained control of the nearby military headquarters. She escaped from the city and walked for a day, wounded and without nourishment, to arrive at Garney town. “Along the route, they seized my mobile and cash,” she describes. “I possessed nothing remaining.”

Over a thousand individuals – comprising women and children – walked for two days to arrive at Tawila town located in northern Darfur following their escape from El Fasher, which was seized after a year-and-a-half-long siege.

This settlement, around 55 kilometers to the west away from El Fasher, is governed by of the SLA-AW group commanded by Abdul Wahid Mohamed al-Nur.

Last Tuesday, the collaborative Joint Forces – that cooperate with the Sudanese army – charged the RSF of killing more than 2,000 civilians since the fall of the city. United Nations officials stated that visual evidence showed featuring numerous unarmed males being shot or lying dead, with RSF militiamen around them.”

Historical Background

Fighting broke out in Khartoum during April of 2023 as a growing contest for power involving the two key groups of the armed forces leadership finally turned deadly.

Among the combatants are the Sudanese armed 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 who follow the former warlord General Dagalo, known as Hemedti.

The RSF was initially founded by the previous authoritarian leader Omar al-Bashir as an Arab counterinsurgency militia named the Janjaweed, that rapidly became associated with extensive brutalities. In 2013, Bashir transformed the group into the RSF, using them to quell a new uprising in southern Darfur.

The war has pushed Sudan into a terrible humanitarian disaster in modern times, based on UN statements. It has generated the world’s worst displacement crisis, scattering more than 10 million people inside the nation along with 4 million refugees to bordering states, putting mounting pressure on both Chad and South Sudan.

Ongoing Developments

Per observer reports, many additional civilians continue to be held by the RSF and associated armed groups in Garney, south-west of El Fasher. Numerous are ex-military personnel from Sudan's armed forces, the Joint Forces plus additional armed factions that had been fighting alongside the army. They are apparently detained as they lack funds for ransom requests of between 5m and 10m Sudanese pounds (£6,000 to £12,000), per those who escaped who made it to Tawila. Those unable to pay remain imprisoned for several days, and sometimes let go solely after becoming gravely ill.

Reports suggest the SLA-AW has authorized army soldiers running from El Fasher to enter Tawila if they relinquish their arms.

A man named Adam Yagoub, aged 28, a motorist originating from Sennar within central Sudan, narrowly escaped being killed after being captured by three camel-riding militiamen close to Garney.

“They intended to behead me with a blade,” he informs, showing his arm, which one of the fighters hit with the butt of an AK-47 rifle. “Subsequently one identified me – his sibling had collaborated with me – and begged them not to kill me. Our group contained 18 individuals who exited El Fasher as a group, but only eight made it to Tawila. I think the others are dead.”

Yagoub states he observed 22 corpses near what he called a fraudulent water source used by the RSF and allied militias in the area connecting Garney and Tawila. “This is an ambush,” he explains. “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 removed the corpses to obscure them.”

A different medical worker who escaped El Fasher South hospital after the attack on Sunday said RSF fighters entered using one doorway and opened fire on patients in the emergency ward, killing at least eight. “We escaped through a different gate, yet they assaulted my head with a rifle,” he says.

In a video statement last Wednesday, the leader of the RSF, General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, called Hemedti, said that any soldier or officer who had “violated the right of any person” would be held accountable.

Many of those who escaped from El Fasher passed hours hiding near the army’s artillery unit prior to escaping westward during nighttime. Families already uprooted originating from the urban Abu Shouk settlement were compelled to relocate again, 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