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A nurse named Nawal Khalil had been volunteering as a nurse over a three-year period at El Fasher South hospital after the city fell taken over on Sunday by RSF paramilitaries. She was busy treating patients, including an elderly woman requiring a blood transfusion, as the assault commenced.

“They murdered six wounded military personnel along with civilians in their beds – among them female victims,” she states. “I don’t know what happened to my other patients. I was forced to flee when they stormed the hospital.”

Khalil, 27, was shot in the right foot and thigh as RSF fighters took control of the closeby army headquarters. She fled the city and journeyed by foot for 24 hours, wounded and without nourishment, to reach the town of Garney. “On the way, they took my phone and money,” 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 was captured after an 18-month siege.

The town of Tawila, about 34 miles (55km) west away from El Fasher, is governed by of the Sudan Liberation Army faction under Abdul Wahid Mohamed al-Nur's leadership.

This past Tuesday, the allied Joint Forces – who are allied with Sudan’s army – charged the RSF for slaughtering in excess of 2,000 non-combatants following the urban center's takeover. The UN said that visual evidence showed featuring numerous unarmed males either being shot or deceased, with RSF militiamen around them.”

Contextual Information

Fighting broke out within Khartoum on 15 April 2023 as a growing contest for power among the two primary factions of the armed forces leadership finally turned deadly.

Among the combatants exist the official Sudanese army, who remain broadly loyal towards General al-Burhan, the de facto head of state. Opposing him are the paramilitaries of the RSF paramilitary group, an assembly of militia groups that obey the former warlord Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, called Hemedti.

The Rapid Support Forces were first created by the former dictatorial ruler Bashir's regime as an Arab anti-rebellion militia called the Janjaweed, which quickly became synonymous with widespread atrocities. Back in 2013, Bashir converted the organization into the Rapid Support Forces, using them to quell a new uprising in South Darfur.

The conflict has plunged Sudan into “one of the worst humanitarian nightmares in recent history”, as per UN representatives. It has produced the globe's most severe displacement emergency, forcing more than 10 million persons within the country and 4 million who have fled into neighbouring countries, putting mounting pressure upon Chad and South Sudan.

Current Situation Updates

According to witnesses, thousands more civilians remain trapped by the RSF and associated armed groups in Garney, in the southwestern direction from El Fasher. Numerous are ex-military personnel from the Sudanese army, the allied 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 (around six to twelve thousand pounds), according to survivors who reached Tawila. People who cannot afford payment have been held for multiple days, and sometimes freed only when falling seriously ill.

The SLA-AW has reportedly allowed army soldiers running from El Fasher to enter Tawila provided they give up their weapons.

A man named Adam Yagoub, aged 28, a chauffeur from Sennar within central Sudan, barely avoided execution subsequent to his seizure by three armed men mounted on camels in the Garney vicinity.

“They wanted to cut my head off with a blade,” he tells, displaying his arm, which one of the fighters hit using an AK-47 rifle butt. “Then one of them recognised 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 think the others are dead.”

Yagoub reports he observed 22 corpses in proximity to what he termed a “fake well” employed by the RSF and allied militias along the Garney-Tawila route. “It’s a trap,” he explains. “Individuals travel all day lacking water, and when they get to it, the militias are waiting. They killed 22 men there and carried the bodies off to obscure them.”

Another nurse who fled the El Fasher South medical facility following Sunday's assault said RSF fighters entered using one doorway and opened fire on patients within the emergency department, causing at least eight fatalities. “We ran out via another entrance, but they hit me on the head using a rifle,” he states.

Through a video declaration last Wednesday, the head of the RSF, Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, called Hemedti, said that any soldier or officer who had “violated the right of any civilian would be punished.

Many of those who escaped El Fasher spent hours hiding near the army’s artillery unit prior to escaping westward during nighttime. Already displaced families from Abu Shouk camp in the city were forced to move again, finding shelter in Daraja Oula area prior to ultimately traveling to Tawila.

Individuals seized by the RSF within Garney reportedly received {water mixed with flour|flour