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Nawal Khalil had been working as a nurse over a three-year period in the El Fasher South medical facility as the city became captured on Sunday by the RSF fighters. She was busy treating patients, featuring one senior woman who needed a blood transfusion, when the offensive started.

“They murdered six wounded military personnel along with civilians in their beds – among them female victims,” she recounts. “I don’t know what happened to my other patients. I needed to escape after they raided the medical facility.”

Khalil, aged 27, was hit by a bullet in her right foot and thigh during the RSF's seizure of the nearby military headquarters. She fled the city and traveled on foot for one day, injured and without food, to reach the town of Garney. “During the journey, they seized my mobile and currency,” she says. “I was left with nothing.”

In excess of 1,000 persons – featuring females and minors – traveled on foot for two days to reach the town of Tawila within North Darfur after fleeing El Fasher, which fell under control following an 18-month blockade.

Tawila, approximately 34 miles westward 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 – accused the RSF for slaughtering in excess of 2,000 non-combatants since the fall of the city. The UN reported that footage existed depicting dozens of weaponless men who were shot or found dead, encircled by RSF combatants.”

Contextual Information

Hostilities commenced in Khartoum back on April 15, 2023 as a growing contest for power between the two main factions of the armed forces leadership finally turned deadly.

On one side stand the Sudanese military forces, that stay mostly faithful to General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the nation's actual leader. Opposing him are the paramilitaries of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), an assembly of militia groups which support the ex-warlord Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, called Hemedti.

The Rapid Support Forces were first created by the former dictatorial ruler Omar al-Bashir himself as an Arab counterinsurgency militia called the Janjaweed, which soon became linked with widespread atrocities. Back in 2013, Bashir converted the organization into the RSF, deploying them to crush a new uprising within South Darfur.

The conflict has plunged Sudan into a terrible humanitarian disaster in modern times, based on UN statements. It has generated the planet's biggest displacement catastrophe, forcing more than 10 million persons within the country plus 4 million who escaped into neighbouring countries, generating growing stress on both Chad and South Sudan.

Ongoing Developments

According to witnesses, thousands more civilians continue to be held by the RSF and associated armed groups in Garney, south-west of El Fasher. Many are former soldiers from the Sudanese army, the Joint Forces and other armed groups which had been combatting together with the army. Reports indicate they're imprisoned because they cannot afford ransom requests ranging from 5 to 10 million Sudanese pounds (£6,000 to £12,000), according to survivors who reached Tawila. Individuals incapable of paying have been detained for days, and occasionally released only after becoming gravely ill.

The SLA-AW has reportedly allowed army soldiers running from El Fasher to access Tawila if they relinquish their arms.

A man named Adam Yagoub, aged 28, a chauffeur from Sennar within central Sudan, barely avoided execution subsequent to his seizure by three camel-riding militiamen close to Garney.

“They planned to decapitate me with a knife,” he informs, exhibiting his limb, that one combatant struck using an AK-47 rifle butt. “Afterward one remembered me – his brother had worked with me – and urged them not to execute me. There were 18 of us who exited El Fasher as a group, yet merely eight reached Tawila. I believe the remainder perished.”

Yagoub reports he observed 22 corpses close to what he described as a fraudulent water source used by the RSF and allied militias between Garney and Tawila. “This is an ambush,” he comments. “Persons journey daily without hydration, and when they reach it, the armed groups lie in wait. They murdered 22 males at that location and removed the corpses to hide them.”

Another nurse who fled the El Fasher South medical facility following Sunday's assault said RSF fighters entered using one doorway and began shooting at patients in the emergency ward, killing at least eight. “We escaped through a different gate, but they hit me on the head using a rifle,” he recounts.

Via a recorded message this past Wednesday, the head of the RSF, General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, called Hemedti, declared that any fighter or official who breached the rights of any person” would be held accountable.

Several people who got away El Fasher spent hours concealing themselves near military artillery before fleeing west during nighttime. Families already uprooted 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