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Nawal Khalil had been volunteering as a nurse for the past three years within the South El Fasher hospital as the city became seized last Sunday by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). She was busy treating patients, including an elderly woman who needed a blood 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 regarding my other patients. I was forced to flee after they raided the medical facility.”

Khalil, 27, received a gunshot wound to her right foot and thigh as RSF fighters took control of the adjacent military command center. 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 took my phone and currency,” she describes. “I possessed nothing remaining.”

More than 1,000 people – comprising women and children – journeyed by walking for 48 hours to get to the settlement of Tawila located in northern Darfur after fleeing El Fasher, which fell under control after a year-and-a-half-long siege.

This settlement, around 55 kilometers to the west from El Fasher, is governed by by the SLA faction led by Abdul Wahid Mohamed al-Nur (SLA-AW).

Last Tuesday, the allied Joint Forces – who are allied with Sudan’s army – charged the RSF with murdering over 2,000 civilians following the urban center's takeover. The UN said there were videos showing “dozens of unarmed men either being shot or deceased, encircled by RSF combatants.”

Contextual Information

Hostilities commenced within Khartoum during April of 2023 when an intensifying power struggle between the two main factions of the armed forces leadership eventually resulted in fatalities.

On one side are the Sudanese armed forces, that stay mostly faithful to General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the country’s de facto ruler. Challenging him are the paramilitaries of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a gathering of armed factions who follow the former warlord General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti.

The RSF was initially founded by the ex-dictator Omar al-Bashir himself as an Arab anti-rebellion militia called the Janjaweed, that rapidly became associated with widespread atrocities. Back in 2013, Bashir reformed the faction into the Rapid Support Forces, deploying them to crush a new uprising in South Darfur.

The conflict has plunged Sudan into a terrible humanitarian disaster in contemporary history, as per UN representatives. It has produced the globe's most severe displacement emergency, dispersing over 10 million individuals internally and 4 million who have fled to bordering states, generating growing stress upon Chad and South Sudan.

Present Circumstances

Per observer reports, many additional civilians remain trapped by the RSF and associated armed groups within Garney, south-west of El Fasher. Numerous are ex-military personnel from the Sudanese army, the collaborative forces and other armed groups that had been fighting alongside the army. They are apparently detained since they cannot pay ransom requests ranging from 5 to 10 million Sudanese pounds (£6,000 to £12,000), based on survivor accounts who arrived in Tawila. Individuals incapable of paying remain imprisoned for several days, and occasionally freed only when falling seriously ill.

Reports suggest the SLA-AW has authorized military personnel escaping El Fasher to access Tawila provided they give up their weapons.

Adam Yagoub, 28, a driver from Sennar within central Sudan, closely avoided death subsequent to his seizure by three armed men mounted on camels near Garney.

“They wanted to cut my head off using a knife,” he recounts, showing his arm, which one of the fighters hit with the stock of a Kalashnikov. “Afterward one remembered me – his brother had worked with me – and urged them not to execute me. There were 18 of us who left El Fasher together, yet merely eight reached Tawila. I believe the remainder perished.”

Yagoub says he observed 22 corpses in proximity to what he termed a fraudulent water source utilized by RSF forces and allied militias between Garney and Tawila. “It’s a trap,” he says. “People walk all day without water, and when they get to it, the militiamen await. They slaughtered 22 men on that spot and took the bodies away 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 opened fire on patients in the ER section, causing at least eight fatalities. “We escaped through a different gate, however they struck my head with a rifle,” he states.

Through a video declaration last Wednesday, the RSF commander, General Dagalo, known as Hemedti, declared that any fighter or official who breached the rights of any individual would face consequences.

Many of those who escaped El Fasher utilized hours concealing themselves near military artillery before running west under cover of darkness. Already displaced families from the city’s Abu Shouk camp were compelled to relocate again, seeking refuge in the Daraja Oula neighbourhood before finally moving toward Tawila.

People apprehended by RSF forces in Garney were apparently provided {water mixed with flour|flour