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The volunteer nurse Nawal Khalil had been working as a healthcare worker for three years at El Fasher South hospital when the city was captured on Sunday by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). She was occupied with patient care, among them an older female patient in need of a transfusion, when the attack began.

“They murdered six wounded military personnel plus civilian patients in their beds – among them female victims,” she recounts. “I don’t know what happened for my remaining patients. I needed to escape when they stormed the hospital.”

Khalil, aged 27, received a gunshot wound to her right foot and upper leg as RSF fighters took control of the nearby military headquarters. She escaped from the city and journeyed by foot for 24 hours, injured and without food, to get to the settlement of Garney. “Along the route, they confiscated my phone and cash,” she says. “I was left with nothing.”

Over a thousand individuals – featuring females and minors – journeyed by walking for 48 hours to arrive at Tawila town within North Darfur after running from El Fasher, which was captured following an 18-month blockade.

This settlement, approximately 34 miles westward from El Fasher, is under the control of the SLA-AW group under Abdul Wahid Mohamed al-Nur's leadership.

This past Tuesday, the allied Joint Forces – who are allied with Sudan’s army – charged the RSF for slaughtering in excess of 2,000 non-combatants after the city's capture. The UN said that visual evidence showed showing “dozens of unarmed men who were shot or found dead, with RSF militiamen around them.”

Background Context

Fighting broke out in Sudan's capital during April of 2023 as an escalating power struggle among the two primary factions of the military regime ultimately became violent.

From one perspective are the Sudanese armed forces, that stay mostly faithful to General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the de facto head of state. Opposing him exist the irregular troops of the RSF paramilitary group, an assembly of militia groups who follow the former warlord General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, referred to as Hemedti.

The RSF was initially founded by the ex-dictator Bashir's regime as a pro-Arab counterinsurgency force called the Janjaweed, that rapidly became associated with massive human rights violations. In 2013, Bashir reformed the faction into the RSF, sending them to suppress a new uprising in South Darfur.

The fighting has thrown Sudan into “one of the worst humanitarian nightmares in recent history”, as per UN representatives. It has created the globe's most severe displacement emergency, dispersing over 10 million individuals within the country and 4 million who have fled to bordering states, putting mounting pressure on Chad and South Sudan.

Ongoing Developments

Based on eyewitness accounts, thousands more civilians stay confined by RSF forces and allied militias within Garney, southwest from El Fasher. Several are previous army members belonging to the Sudanese military, the Joint Forces plus additional armed factions that were previously aligned with the military. They are reportedly being held because they cannot afford extortion payments ranging from 5 to 10 million Sudanese pounds (£6,000 to £12,000), based on survivor accounts who made it to Tawila. Individuals incapable of paying have been detained for days, and in some cases let go solely after developing critical health conditions.

The SLA-AW has apparently permitted army soldiers running from El Fasher to enter Tawila if they relinquish their arms.

A man named Adam Yagoub, 28, a motorist originating from Sennar from central Sudanese regions, narrowly escaped being killed after being captured by three armed men mounted on camels close to Garney.

“They planned to decapitate me with a knife,” he tells, showing his arm, that one combatant struck with the stock of a Kalashnikov. “Then one of them recognised me – his brother was my colleague – and urged them not to execute me. We were 18 people 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 “fake well” utilized by RSF forces and partner armed groups along the Garney-Tawila route. “It’s a trap,” he comments. “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.”

Another nurse who fled the El Fasher South medical facility after the attack on Sunday stated RSF combatants came in via one entrance and opened fire on patients in the ER section, killing at least eight. “We ran out via another entrance, however they struck my head using a rifle,” he recounts.

In a video statement last Wednesday, the RSF commander, Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, referred to as 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 hiding near the army’s artillery unit before fleeing west under cover of darkness. Already displaced families 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 in Garney were reportedly given {water mixed with flour|flour