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Nawal Khalil had been serving as a healthcare worker for the past three years within the South El Fasher hospital as the city became taken over on Sunday by the RSF fighters. She was busy treating patients, featuring one senior woman who needed a blood transfusion, as the assault commenced.

“They murdered six wounded military personnel along with civilians in their beds – including some women,” she says. “I am unaware of the fate to my other patients. I was forced to flee when they stormed the hospital.”

The 27-year-old Khalil, was hit by a bullet in her right foot and thigh as RSF fighters took control of the closeby army headquarters. She fled the city and walked for a day, hurt and lacking sustenance, to reach the town of Garney. “Along the route, they took my phone and currency,” she says. “I was left with nothing.”

In excess of 1,000 persons – including women and children – journeyed by walking for 48 hours to arrive at Tawila town in North Darfur following their escape from El Fasher, which fell under control after an 18-month siege.

This settlement, around 55 kilometers to the west away from El Fasher, is governed by of the Sudan Liberation Army faction under Abdul Wahid Mohamed al-Nur's leadership.

On Tuesday, the collaborative Joint Forces – that cooperate with the Sudanese army – charged the RSF with murdering over 2,000 civilians since the fall of the city. United Nations officials stated that visual evidence showed showing “dozens of unarmed men either being shot or deceased, surrounded by RSF fighters.”

Background Context

Fighting broke out in Khartoum back on April 15, 2023 as a growing contest for power involving the two key groups of the military regime eventually resulted in fatalities.

On one side exist the official Sudanese army, that stay mostly faithful to General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the country’s de facto ruler. Challenging him stand the paramilitary forces of the RSF paramilitary group, a collection of militias which support the ex-warlord Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, called Hemedti.

The RSF was initially founded by the ex-dictator Omar al-Bashir as an Arab anti-rebellion militia called the Janjaweed, which quickly became synonymous with widespread atrocities. In 2013, Bashir transformed the group into the Rapid Support Forces, sending them to suppress a fresh rebellion in South Darfur.

The war has pushed Sudan into among the most severe humanitarian crises in recent history”, as per UN representatives. It has produced the world’s worst displacement crisis, dispersing over 10 million individuals internally along with 4 million refugees to adjacent nations, putting mounting pressure on Chad and South Sudan.

Current Situation Updates

According to witnesses, many additional civilians remain trapped by the RSF and allied militias in the Garney area, in the southwestern direction from El Fasher. Many are former soldiers from the Sudanese army, the Joint Forces and other armed groups that were previously aligned with the military. Reports indicate they're imprisoned because they cannot afford extortion payments ranging from 5 to 10 million Sudanese pounds (£6,000 to £12,000), per those who escaped who reached Tawila. Those unable to pay remain imprisoned for several days, and in some cases let go solely after developing critical health conditions.

The SLA-AW has apparently permitted military personnel escaping El Fasher to come into Tawila if they relinquish their arms.

A man named Adam Yagoub, 28, a driver from Sennar in central Sudan, closely avoided death following his capture by three camel-riding militiamen near Garney.

“They intended to behead me with a blade,” he recounts, exhibiting his limb, which one of the fighters hit with the stock of a Kalashnikov. “Afterward one remembered me – his brother was my colleague – and pleaded with them to spare me. We were 18 people who exited El Fasher as a group, however just eight arrived in Tawila. I assume the others died.”

Yagoub says he saw 22 bodies in proximity to what he termed a “fake well” employed by the RSF and associated militias along the Garney-Tawila route. “This is an ambush,” he explains. “People walk all day without water, and upon arriving there, the armed groups lie in wait. They killed 22 men there and removed the corpses to hide them.”

Another nurse who fled the El Fasher South medical facility subsequent to Sunday's offensive reported RSF militiamen penetrated via one entrance and commenced firing upon patients within the emergency department, murdering no less than eight. “We fled through another gate, but they hit me on the head with a firearm,” he states.

Via a recorded message this past Wednesday, the RSF commander, General Dagalo, referred to as Hemedti, said that any soldier or officer who had “violated the right of any civilian would be punished.

Numerous individuals who fled El Fasher spent hours taking cover close to army artillery positions before running west during nighttime. Previously displaced households from the city’s Abu Shouk camp had to displace once more, finding shelter in Daraja Oula area before eventually heading for Tawila.

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