🔗 Share this article

The volunteer nurse Nawal Khalil had been working as a healthcare worker over a three-year period within the South El Fasher hospital after the city fell taken over on Sunday by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). She was actively caring for the sick, featuring one senior woman in need of a transfusion, when the offensive started.

“Six injured soldiers were killed and civilians in their beds – including some women,” she says. “I am unaware of the fate to my other patients. I was forced to flee as they invaded the hospital.”

Khalil, aged 27, was hit by a bullet in her right foot and upper leg during the RSF's seizure of the nearby military headquarters. She escaped from the city and journeyed by foot for 24 hours, hurt and lacking sustenance, to reach the town of Garney. “On the way, they seized my mobile and cash,” she describes. “I was left with nothing.”

Over a thousand individuals – comprising women and children – traveled on foot for two days to reach the town of Tawila located in northern Darfur after running from El Fasher, which fell under control after an 18-month siege.

The town of Tawila, approximately 34 miles westward of El Fasher, remains under the authority of the Sudan Liberation Army faction led by Abdul Wahid Mohamed al-Nur (SLA-AW).

This past Tuesday, the allied Joint Forces – which partner with Sudan's military – accused the RSF with murdering over 2,000 civilians after the city's capture. United Nations officials stated that footage existed showing “dozens of unarmed men either being shot or deceased, surrounded by RSF fighters.”

Historical Background

Hostilities commenced in Khartoum on 15 April 2023 as an escalating power struggle among the two primary factions of the armed forces leadership finally turned deadly.

From one perspective are the Sudanese armed forces, which maintain general loyalty towards General al-Burhan, the country’s de facto ruler. Challenging him stand the paramilitary forces of the RSF paramilitary group, an assembly of militia groups who follow the former warlord General Dagalo, referred to as Hemedti.

The RSF was originally established by the previous authoritarian leader Omar al-Bashir himself as a pro-Arab counterinsurgency force named the Janjaweed, which quickly became synonymous with widespread atrocities. In 2013, Bashir reformed the faction 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 created the planet's biggest displacement catastrophe, dispersing over 10 million individuals inside the nation along with 4 million refugees to adjacent nations, generating growing stress on Chad and South Sudan.

Current Situation Updates

Based on eyewitness accounts, thousands more 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 the Sudanese army, the Joint Forces and other militant organizations that had been fighting alongside the army. Reports indicate they're imprisoned as they lack funds for ransom demands of between 5m and 10m Sudanese pounds (around six to twelve thousand pounds), according to survivors who arrived in Tawila. People who cannot afford payment have been held for multiple days, and sometimes freed only when becoming gravely ill.

The SLA-AW has reportedly allowed government troops fleeing El Fasher to come into Tawila if they relinquish their arms.

Adam Yagoub, 28, a motorist originating from Sennar from central Sudanese regions, narrowly escaped being killed after being captured by three militiamen on camels in the Garney vicinity.

“They planned to decapitate me using a knife,” he tells, exhibiting his limb, which one militant assaulted using an AK-47 rifle butt. “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, however just eight arrived in Tawila. I think the others are dead.”

Yagoub says he saw 22 bodies near what he called a fraudulent water source used by the RSF and allied militias between Garney and Tawila. “It represents a trap,” he says. “Individuals travel all day lacking water, and upon arriving there, the militias are waiting. They slaughtered 22 men on that spot and carried the bodies off to conceal them.”

An additional nurse who ran from South El Fasher hospital after the attack on Sunday stated RSF combatants came in through one gate and began shooting at 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.

Through a video declaration this past Wednesday, the RSF commander, Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, called Hemedti, declared that any fighter or officer who had “violated the right of any individual would face consequences.

Numerous individuals who fled El Fasher spent hours concealing themselves near military artillery prior to escaping westward during nighttime. Previously displaced households from Abu Shouk camp in the city were compelled to relocate again, seeking refuge in the Daraja Oula neighbourhood prior to ultimately traveling to Tawila.

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