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A nurse named Nawal Khalil had been serving as a nurse over a three-year period at El Fasher South hospital as the city became taken over on Sunday by RSF paramilitaries. She was busy treating patients, featuring one senior woman in need of a transfusion, when the offensive started.

“Six injured soldiers were killed and civilians in their beds – some of them women,” she recounts. “I am unaware of the fate to my other patients. I needed to escape after they raided the medical facility.”

Khalil, aged 27, received a gunshot wound to her right foot and upper leg as RSF fighters took control of the adjacent military command center. She fled the city and traveled on foot for one day, hurt and lacking sustenance, to get to the settlement of Garney. “On the way, they confiscated my phone and money,” she describes. “I ended up with nothing.”

More than 1,000 people – comprising women and children – journeyed by walking for 48 hours to reach the town of Tawila in North Darfur after running from El Fasher, which was captured following an 18-month blockade.

This settlement, around 55 kilometers to the west away from El Fasher, is under the control of the SLA-AW group under Abdul Wahid Mohamed al-Nur's leadership.

Last Tuesday, the Joint Forces – who are allied with Sudan’s army – charged the RSF of killing more than 2,000 civilians following the urban center's takeover. The UN reported that visual evidence showed showing “dozens of unarmed men who were shot or found dead, surrounded by RSF fighters.”

Background Context

Conflict erupted within Khartoum on 15 April 2023 as an escalating power struggle involving the two key groups within the military government ultimately became violent.

Among the combatants are the Sudanese armed forces, that stay mostly faithful to General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the country’s de facto ruler. Opposing him are the paramilitaries of the RSF paramilitary group, an assembly of militia groups that obey the former warlord General Dagalo, known as Hemedti.

The RSF was originally established by the former dictatorial ruler Bashir's regime as an Arab anti-rebellion militia named the Janjaweed, which quickly became synonymous with massive human rights violations. Back in 2013, Bashir reformed the faction into the Rapid Support Forces, deploying them to crush a fresh rebellion within South Darfur.

The conflict has plunged Sudan into among the most severe humanitarian crises in modern times, as per UN representatives. It has produced the planet's biggest displacement catastrophe, forcing more than 10 million persons internally along with 4 million refugees into neighbouring countries, putting mounting pressure on both Chad and South Sudan.

Ongoing Developments

According to witnesses, many additional civilians remain trapped by the RSF and partner militias in Garney, south-west of 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 since they cannot pay ransom demands ranging from 5 to 10 million Sudanese pounds (approximately £6,000-£12,000), per those who escaped who reached Tawila. Individuals incapable of paying remain imprisoned for several days, and occasionally let go solely after falling seriously ill.

The SLA-AW has apparently permitted army soldiers running from El Fasher to access Tawila provided they give up their weapons.

Adam Yagoub, twenty-eight years old, a chauffeur from Sennar within central Sudan, narrowly escaped being killed following his capture by three militiamen on camels near Garney.

“They intended to behead me with a knife,” he informs, showing his arm, which one of the fighters hit using an AK-47 rifle butt. “Subsequently one identified me – his brother was my colleague – and pleaded with them to spare me. We were 18 people who left El Fasher together, however just eight arrived in Tawila. I believe the remainder perished.”

Yagoub says he observed 22 corpses close to what he described as a deceptive well employed by the RSF and allied militias along the Garney-Tawila route. “It represents a trap,” he comments. “Persons journey daily without hydration, and when they get to it, the militiamen await. They killed 22 men there and carried the bodies off to hide them.”

Another nurse who ran from South El Fasher hospital after the attack on Sunday stated RSF combatants came in using one doorway and began shooting at patients in the emergency ward, killing at least eight. “We fled through another gate, however they struck my head with a rifle,” he says.

Via a recorded message on Wednesday, the head of the RSF, Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, referred to as Hemedti, declared that any fighter or official who breached the rights of any civilian would be punished.

Many of those who escaped El Fasher utilized hours taking cover close to army artillery positions prior to escaping westward under darkness's protection. Already displaced families from Abu Shouk camp in the city were forced to move again, 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