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The volunteer nurse Nawal Khalil had been volunteering as a nurse for three years at El Fasher South hospital after the city fell seized last Sunday by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). She was busy treating patients, featuring one senior woman requiring a blood transfusion, when the offensive started.

“Six injured soldiers were killed and civilians in their beds – including some women,” she recounts. “I don’t know what happened regarding my other patients. I had to run after they raided the medical facility.”

The 27-year-old Khalil, 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 traveled on foot for one day, wounded and without nourishment, to arrive at Garney town. “On the way, they confiscated my phone and money,” she explains. “I possessed nothing remaining.”

More than 1,000 people – including women and children – traveled on foot 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.

Tawila, approximately 34 miles westward away from El Fasher, is governed by of the Sudan Liberation Army faction under Abdul Wahid Mohamed al-Nur's leadership.

Last Tuesday, the 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. United Nations officials stated there were videos showing “dozens of unarmed men being shot or lying dead, with RSF militiamen around them.”

Historical Background

Fighting broke out in Khartoum during April of 2023 when an intensifying power struggle among the two primary factions of the armed forces leadership finally turned deadly.

On one side exist the official Sudanese army, that stay mostly faithful towards General al-Burhan, the de facto head of state. Against him exist the irregular troops of the RSF paramilitary group, a collection of militias who follow the former warlord General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti.

The RSF was initially founded by the former dictatorial ruler Omar al-Bashir as a pro-Arab counterinsurgency force known as the Janjaweed, which quickly became synonymous with widespread atrocities. During 2013, Bashir converted the organization into the Rapid Support Forces, deploying them to crush a new uprising within South Darfur.

The war has pushed Sudan into a terrible humanitarian disaster in recent history”, based on UN statements. It has generated the planet's biggest displacement catastrophe, forcing more than 10 million persons inside the nation along with 4 million refugees into neighbouring countries, putting mounting pressure on Chad and South Sudan.

Present Circumstances

According to witnesses, numerous more non-combatants continue to be held by the RSF and partner militias in the Garney area, south-west of El Fasher. Many are former soldiers from the Sudanese army, the Joint Forces plus additional armed factions which had been combatting together with the army. They are reportedly being held because they cannot afford ransom demands of between 5m and 10m Sudanese pounds (£6,000 to £12,000), per those who escaped who arrived in Tawila. People who cannot afford payment remain imprisoned for several days, and in some cases freed only when becoming gravely ill.

The SLA-AW has reportedly allowed army soldiers running from El Fasher to access Tawila if they relinquish their arms.

The individual Adam Yagoub, aged 28, a driver from Sennar in central Sudan, narrowly escaped being killed after being captured by three militiamen on camels in the Garney vicinity.

“They wanted to cut my head off using a knife,” he tells, displaying his arm, which one militant assaulted with the stock of a Kalashnikov. “Afterward one remembered me – his brother had worked with me – and begged them not to kill 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 saw 22 bodies close to what he described as a deceptive well used by the RSF and allied militias between Garney and Tawila. “It represents a trap,” he comments. “Persons journey daily without hydration, and upon arriving there, the militiamen await. They slaughtered 22 men on that spot and carried the bodies off to conceal them.”

An additional nurse who fled the El Fasher South medical facility following Sunday's assault reported RSF militiamen penetrated using one doorway and commenced firing upon patients within the emergency department, murdering no less than eight. “We fled through another gate, however they struck my head with a firearm,” he says.

Via a recorded message on Wednesday, the RSF commander, Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, called Hemedti, stated that any military personnel or officer who had “violated the right of any person” would be held accountable.

Several people who got away El Fasher spent hours taking cover close to army artillery positions before fleeing west under cover of darkness. Families already uprooted from the city’s Abu Shouk camp were compelled to relocate again, taking asylum in the Daraja Oula district before finally moving toward Tawila.

Individuals seized by the RSF within Garney reportedly received {water mixed with flour|flour