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A nurse named Nawal Khalil had been serving as a healthcare worker for the past three years within the South El Fasher hospital as the city became captured on Sunday by RSF paramilitaries. She was actively caring for the sick, including an elderly woman requiring a blood transfusion, when the offensive started.

“Six injured soldiers were killed plus civilian patients in their beds – including some women,” she says. “I don’t know what happened to my other patients. I had to run 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 closeby army headquarters. She escaped from the city and walked for a day, injured and without food, to reach the town of Garney. “Along the route, they seized my mobile and money,” she explains. “I was left with nothing.”

More than 1,000 people – featuring females and minors – journeyed by walking for 48 hours to get to the settlement of Tawila 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 under the control of the Sudan Liberation Army faction under Abdul Wahid Mohamed al-Nur's leadership.

On Tuesday, the allied Joint Forces – that cooperate with the Sudanese army – accused the RSF with murdering over 2,000 civilians after the city's capture. United Nations officials stated there were videos featuring numerous unarmed males either being shot or deceased, encircled by RSF combatants.”

Contextual Information

Hostilities commenced in Khartoum back on April 15, 2023 when an intensifying power struggle between the two main factions within the military government ultimately became violent.

From one perspective exist the official Sudanese army, that stay mostly faithful towards General al-Burhan, the nation's actual leader. Challenging him exist the irregular troops of the RSF paramilitary group, a collection of militias which support the ex-warlord Gen Mohamed Hamdan 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 known as the Janjaweed, which soon became linked with extensive brutalities. During 2013, Bashir converted the organization to become the RSF, using them to quell a recent insurrection in South Darfur.

The fighting has thrown Sudan into “one of the worst humanitarian nightmares in contemporary history, according to UN officials. It has created the planet's biggest displacement catastrophe, forcing more than 10 million persons 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 remain trapped by the RSF and associated armed groups in Garney, southwest from El Fasher. Several are previous army members from Sudan's armed forces, the collaborative forces and other armed groups that had been fighting alongside the army. They are reportedly being held as they lack funds for ransom requests of between 5m and 10m Sudanese pounds (£6,000 to £12,000), per those who escaped who reached Tawila. Individuals incapable of paying have been detained for days, and occasionally released only after developing critical health conditions.

The SLA-AW has apparently permitted military personnel escaping El Fasher to enter Tawila on condition they surrender their weapons.

The individual Adam Yagoub, aged 28, a chauffeur from Sennar in central Sudan, barely avoided execution subsequent to his seizure by three militiamen on camels close to Garney.

“They wanted to cut my head off with a blade,” he tells, showing his arm, which one militant assaulted with the stock of a Kalashnikov. “Subsequently one identified me – his brother had worked with me – and urged them not to execute me. We were 18 people who left El Fasher together, but only eight made it to Tawila. I think the others are dead.”

Yagoub says he observed 22 corpses close to what he described as a fraudulent water source utilized by RSF forces and partner armed groups in the area connecting Garney and Tawila. “This is an ambush,” he says. “People walk all day without water, and when they reach it, the militiamen await. They killed 22 men there and took the bodies away to hide them.”

Another nurse who escaped El Fasher South hospital following Sunday's assault stated RSF combatants came in through one gate and opened fire on patients in the emergency ward, murdering no less than eight. “We escaped through a different gate, but they hit me on the head with a rifle,” he says.

Via a recorded message this past Wednesday, the leader of the RSF, Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, declared that any fighter or official who breached the rights of any person” would be held accountable.

Many of those who escaped from El Fasher passed hours concealing themselves near military artillery prior to escaping westward under cover of darkness. Families already uprooted from the city’s Abu Shouk camp had to displace once more, seeking refuge in the Daraja Oula neighbourhood before finally moving toward Tawila.

Those captured by the RSF in Garney were apparently provided {water mixed with flour|flour