🔗 Share this article

The volunteer nurse Nawal Khalil had been serving as a nurse over a three-year period at El Fasher South hospital as the city became seized last Sunday by the RSF fighters. She was occupied with patient care, including an elderly woman who needed a blood transfusion, when the offensive started.

“Six injured soldiers were killed plus civilian patients in their beds – including some women,” she states. “The outcome remains unknown to my other patients. I was forced to flee when they stormed the hospital.”

Khalil, 27, was shot in the right foot and her thigh while RSF combatants gained control of the adjacent military command center. She ran from the urban area and walked for a day, injured and without food, to arrive at Garney town. “Along the route, they seized my mobile and money,” she says. “I was left with nothing.”

More than 1,000 people – including women and children – walked for two days to get to the settlement of Tawila within North Darfur after running from El Fasher, which was seized after a year-and-a-half-long siege.

This settlement, around 55 kilometers to the west from El Fasher, remains under the authority by the SLA faction commanded by Abdul Wahid Mohamed al-Nur.

Last Tuesday, the collaborative Joint Forces – which partner with Sudan's military – blamed the RSF for slaughtering in excess of 2,000 non-combatants after the city's capture. The UN said there were videos depicting dozens of weaponless men either being shot or deceased, surrounded by RSF fighters.”

Background Context

Hostilities commenced in Khartoum during April of 2023 as a growing contest for power among the two primary factions of the military regime eventually resulted in fatalities.

On one side exist the official Sudanese army, who remain broadly loyal towards General al-Burhan, the de facto head of state. Challenging him stand the paramilitary forces of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), an assembly of militia groups that obey the former warlord General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, called Hemedti.

The RSF was originally established by the ex-dictator Bashir's regime as an Arab anti-rebellion militia called the Janjaweed, which quickly became synonymous with widespread atrocities. Back in 2013, Bashir converted the organization to become the RSF, deploying them to crush a recent insurrection in South Darfur.

The conflict has plunged Sudan into “one of the worst humanitarian nightmares in contemporary history, based on UN statements. It has produced the planet's biggest displacement catastrophe, scattering more than 10 million people inside the nation and 4 million who have fled to adjacent nations, generating growing stress on Chad and South Sudan.

Present Circumstances

Based on eyewitness accounts, thousands more civilians stay confined by RSF forces and allied militias in the Garney area, southwest from El Fasher. Many are former soldiers from Sudan's armed forces, the allied Joint Forces and other militant organizations that had been fighting alongside the army. They are apparently detained as they lack funds for ransom demands ranging from 5 to 10 million Sudanese pounds (around six to twelve thousand pounds), per those who escaped who made it to Tawila. Those unable to pay remain imprisoned for several days, and in some cases let go solely after becoming gravely ill.

The SLA-AW has reportedly allowed army soldiers running from El Fasher to access Tawila on condition they surrender their weapons.

A man named Adam Yagoub, aged 28, a chauffeur from Sennar within central Sudan, barely avoided execution following his capture by three armed men mounted on camels in the Garney vicinity.

“They intended to behead me with a knife,” he informs, exhibiting his limb, that one combatant struck with the stock of a Kalashnikov. “Then one of them recognised me – his brother was my colleague – and begged them not to kill me. We were 18 people who exited El Fasher as a group, however just eight arrived in Tawila. I believe the remainder perished.”

Yagoub reports he observed 22 corpses near what he called a fraudulent water source utilized by RSF forces and allied militias in the area connecting Garney and Tawila. “This is an ambush,” he comments. “Individuals travel all day lacking water, and when they reach it, the armed groups lie in wait. They murdered 22 males at that location and removed the corpses to obscure them.”

Another nurse who escaped El Fasher South hospital following Sunday's assault reported RSF militiamen penetrated using one doorway and opened fire on patients in the ER section, killing at least eight. “We escaped through a different gate, but they hit me on the head using a rifle,” he states.

Via a recorded message last Wednesday, the leader of the RSF, General 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 from El Fasher passed hours taking cover close to army artillery positions before fleeing west under cover of darkness. Previously displaced households from Abu Shouk camp in the city were forced to move again, finding shelter in Daraja Oula area before finally moving toward Tawila.

Individuals seized by the RSF in Garney were reportedly given {water mixed with flour|flour