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The volunteer nurse Nawal Khalil had been volunteering as a healthcare worker for the past three years within the South El Fasher hospital when the city was taken over on Sunday by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). She was actively caring for the sick, including an elderly woman who needed a blood transfusion, as the assault commenced.

“Six injured soldiers were killed and civilians in their beds – including some women,” she recounts. “The outcome remains unknown for my remaining patients. I needed to escape after they raided the medical facility.”

Khalil, aged 27, was shot in the right foot and her thigh while RSF combatants gained control of the nearby military headquarters. She escaped from the city and walked for a day, wounded and without nourishment, to reach the town of Garney. “During the journey, they confiscated my phone and currency,” she describes. “I possessed nothing remaining.”

Over a thousand individuals – including women and children – walked for two days to get to the settlement of Tawila within North Darfur after fleeing El Fasher, which fell under control following an 18-month blockade.

Tawila, about 34 miles (55km) 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 allied Joint Forces – which partner with Sudan's military – charged the RSF with murdering over 2,000 civilians following the urban center's takeover. United Nations officials stated there were videos featuring numerous unarmed males being shot or lying dead, encircled by RSF combatants.”

Contextual Information

Conflict erupted in Khartoum on 15 April 2023 as an escalating power struggle among the two primary factions within the military government finally turned deadly.

Among the combatants stand the Sudanese military forces, that stay mostly faithful to Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the nation's actual leader. Opposing him exist the irregular troops of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), an assembly of militia groups who follow the former warlord General Dagalo, known as Hemedti.

The RSF was initially founded by the previous authoritarian leader Bashir's regime as an Arab counterinsurgency militia named the Janjaweed, which soon became linked with extensive brutalities. In 2013, Bashir reformed the faction into the RSF, sending them to suppress a new uprising in South Darfur.

The conflict has plunged Sudan into “one of the worst humanitarian nightmares in modern times, based on UN statements. It has generated the world’s worst displacement crisis, scattering more than 10 million people internally and 4 million who have fled into neighbouring countries, putting mounting pressure upon Chad and South Sudan.

Ongoing Developments

Based on eyewitness accounts, many additional civilians continue to be held by the RSF and allied militias in Garney, south-west of El Fasher. Many are former soldiers from the Sudanese army, the Joint Forces plus additional armed factions that were previously aligned with the military. They are reportedly being held because they cannot afford ransom requests between five and ten million Sudanese pounds (£6,000 to £12,000), based on survivor accounts who made it to Tawila. Those unable to pay remain imprisoned for several days, and in some cases freed only when developing critical health conditions.

Reports suggest the SLA-AW has authorized military personnel escaping El Fasher to access Tawila on condition they surrender their weapons.

A man named Adam Yagoub, 28, a chauffeur from Sennar from central Sudanese regions, closely avoided death subsequent to his seizure by three militiamen on camels in the Garney vicinity.

“They planned to decapitate me with a knife,” he recounts, exhibiting his limb, which one of the fighters hit with the stock of a Kalashnikov. “Then one of them recognised me – his brother was my colleague – and begged them not to kill me. Our group contained 18 individuals who exited El Fasher as a group, but only eight made it to Tawila. I believe the remainder perished.”

Yagoub says he witnessed 22 deceased individuals close to what he described as a fraudulent water source utilized by RSF forces and partner armed groups along the Garney-Tawila route. “It represents a trap,” he comments. “Individuals travel all day lacking water, and when they reach it, the militias are waiting. They slaughtered 22 men on that spot and removed the corpses to hide them.”

Another nurse who escaped El Fasher South hospital following Sunday's assault said RSF fighters entered via one entrance and opened fire on patients in the ER section, killing at least eight. “We fled through another gate, but they hit me on the head using a rifle,” he says.

Through a video declaration on Wednesday, the leader of the RSF, Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, said that any soldier or officer who had “violated the right of any person” would be held accountable.

Numerous individuals who fled from El Fasher passed hours concealing themselves near military artillery prior to escaping westward during nighttime. Already displaced families 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