🔗 Share this article

Nawal Khalil had been serving as a healthcare worker for three years within the South El Fasher hospital after the city fell seized last Sunday by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). She was actively caring for the sick, including an elderly woman requiring a blood transfusion, when the offensive started.

“They murdered six wounded military personnel plus civilian patients in their beds – among them female victims,” she says. “I don’t know what happened to my other patients. I was forced to flee as they invaded the hospital.”

Khalil, 27, was shot in the right foot and thigh while RSF combatants gained control of the adjacent military command center. She escaped from the city and traveled on foot for one day, wounded and without nourishment, to reach the town of Garney. “During the journey, they took my phone and currency,” she describes. “I possessed nothing remaining.”

More than 1,000 people – comprising women and children – traveled on foot for two days to get to the settlement of Tawila located in northern Darfur after fleeing El Fasher, which was seized following an 18-month blockade.

This settlement, about 34 miles (55km) west away from El Fasher, remains under the authority by the SLA faction commanded by Abdul Wahid Mohamed al-Nur.

This past Tuesday, the Joint Forces – which partner with Sudan's military – blamed the RSF for slaughtering in excess of 2,000 non-combatants since the fall of the city. The UN reported that visual evidence showed featuring numerous unarmed males being shot or lying dead, with RSF militiamen around them.”

Contextual Information

Fighting broke out in Khartoum back on April 15, 2023 when an intensifying power struggle involving the two key groups of the armed forces leadership ultimately became violent.

From one perspective exist the official Sudanese army, that stay mostly faithful to Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the nation's actual leader. Opposing him exist the irregular troops belonging to the RSF, an assembly of militia groups who follow the former warlord General Dagalo, known as Hemedti.

The RSF was originally established by the previous authoritarian leader Omar al-Bashir as a pro-Arab counterinsurgency force known as the Janjaweed, which quickly became synonymous with extensive brutalities. Back in 2013, Bashir transformed the group into the Rapid Support Forces, deploying them to crush a fresh rebellion in South Darfur.

The fighting has thrown Sudan into “one of the worst humanitarian nightmares in recent history”, according to UN officials. It has produced the planet's biggest displacement catastrophe, dispersing over 10 million individuals inside the nation plus 4 million who escaped to adjacent nations, creating increasing strain on Chad and South Sudan.

Current Situation Updates

Per observer reports, many additional civilians continue to be held by the RSF and allied militias in the Garney area, in the southwestern direction from El Fasher. Numerous are ex-military personnel from the Sudanese army, the Joint Forces and other militant organizations which had been combatting together with the army. Reports indicate they're imprisoned as they lack funds for ransom requests ranging from 5 to 10 million Sudanese pounds (around six to twelve thousand pounds), according to survivors who reached Tawila. People who cannot afford payment have been held for multiple days, and sometimes freed only when becoming gravely ill.

The SLA-AW has apparently permitted military personnel escaping El Fasher to access Tawila provided they give up their weapons.

The individual Adam Yagoub, twenty-eight years old, a chauffeur from Sennar in central Sudan, barely avoided execution following his capture by three camel-riding militiamen close to Garney.

“They intended to behead me with a knife,” he informs, displaying his arm, which one of the fighters hit with the butt of an AK-47 rifle. “Subsequently one identified me – his sibling had collaborated with me – and begged them not to kill me. We were 18 people who departed El Fasher collectively, but only eight made it to Tawila. I assume the others died.”

Yagoub says he observed 22 corpses close to what he described as a deceptive well 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 get to it, the militias are waiting. They slaughtered 22 men on that spot and took the bodies away to obscure them.”

A different medical worker who escaped El Fasher South hospital after the attack on Sunday reported RSF militiamen penetrated via one entrance and began shooting at patients within the emergency department, causing at least eight fatalities. “We fled through another gate, yet they assaulted my head using a rifle,” he says.

Through a video declaration this past Wednesday, the RSF commander, General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, referred to as Hemedti, declared that any fighter or commander who infringed upon the rights of any civilian would be punished.

Numerous individuals who fled El Fasher utilized hours concealing themselves near military artillery prior to escaping westward during nighttime. Already displaced families originating from the urban Abu Shouk settlement had to displace once more, taking asylum in the Daraja Oula district before eventually heading for Tawila.

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