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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 the RSF fighters. She was actively caring for the sick, featuring one senior woman in need of a transfusion, when the attack began.

“Six injured soldiers were killed plus civilian patients in their beds – among them female victims,” she states. “I don’t know what happened for my remaining patients. I needed to escape after they raided the medical facility.”

The 27-year-old Khalil, was hit by a bullet in her right foot and upper leg as RSF fighters took control of the closeby army headquarters. She fled 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 cash,” she says. “I possessed nothing remaining.”

Over a thousand individuals – including women and children – walked for two days to get to the settlement of Tawila located in northern Darfur after fleeing El Fasher, which was seized after a year-and-a-half-long siege.

The town of Tawila, around 55 kilometers to the west away from El Fasher, is under the control of the Sudan Liberation Army faction commanded by Abdul Wahid Mohamed al-Nur.

This past Tuesday, the Joint Forces – which partner with Sudan's military – charged the RSF for slaughtering in excess of 2,000 non-combatants after the city's capture. The UN reported that visual evidence showed featuring numerous unarmed males who were shot or found dead, surrounded by RSF fighters.”

Historical Background

Hostilities commenced within Khartoum during April of 2023 when an intensifying power struggle between the two main factions of the military regime finally turned deadly.

On one side stand the Sudanese military forces, that stay mostly faithful to General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the de facto head of state. Opposing him stand the paramilitary forces of the RSF paramilitary group, a gathering of armed factions that obey the former warlord General Mohamed Hamdan 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 quickly became synonymous with extensive brutalities. During 2013, Bashir converted the organization to become the RSF, deploying them to crush a recent insurrection in South Darfur.

The conflict has plunged Sudan into among the most severe humanitarian crises in contemporary history, as per UN representatives. It has produced the globe's most severe displacement emergency, dispersing over 10 million individuals inside the nation plus 4 million who escaped to bordering states, generating growing stress on both Chad and South Sudan.

Present Circumstances

According to witnesses, thousands more civilians stay confined by RSF forces and allied militias in Garney, southwest from El Fasher. Many are former soldiers from the Sudanese army, the Joint Forces and other militant organizations which had been combatting together with the army. They are reportedly being held since they cannot pay extortion payments between five and ten million Sudanese pounds (approximately £6,000-£12,000), based on survivor accounts who arrived in Tawila. People who cannot afford payment have been detained for days, and in some cases freed only when developing critical health conditions.

Reports suggest the SLA-AW has authorized government troops fleeing El Fasher to access Tawila on condition they surrender their weapons.

Adam Yagoub, 28, a driver from Sennar in central Sudan, closely avoided death after being captured by three armed men mounted on camels close to Garney.

“They wanted to cut my head off using a knife,” he informs, displaying his arm, which one militant assaulted with the stock of a Kalashnikov. “Then one of them recognised me – his brother had worked with me – and pleaded with them to spare me. We were 18 people who departed El Fasher collectively, but only eight made it to Tawila. I think the others are dead.”

Yagoub reports he witnessed 22 deceased individuals close to what he described as a “fake well” employed by the RSF and partner armed groups along the Garney-Tawila route. “It’s a trap,” he comments. “Persons journey daily without hydration, and when they reach it, the armed groups lie in wait. They slaughtered 22 men on that spot and removed the corpses to conceal them.”

Another nurse who fled the El Fasher South medical facility after the attack on Sunday said RSF fighters entered through one gate and commenced firing upon patients in the ER section, killing at least eight. “We ran out via another entrance, but they hit me on the head with a firearm,” he states.

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

Many of those who escaped El Fasher utilized hours concealing themselves near military artillery prior to escaping westward under darkness's protection. Previously displaced households from the city’s Abu Shouk camp were compelled to relocate again, taking asylum in the Daraja Oula district before eventually heading for Tawila.

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