Nawal Khalil had been working as a medical volunteer over a three-year period at El Fasher South hospital after the city fell seized last Sunday by the RSF fighters. She was actively caring for the sick, including an elderly woman in need of a transfusion, as the assault commenced.
“Six injured soldiers were killed and civilians in their beds – including some women,” she recounts. “I don’t know what happened for my remaining patients. I had to run when they stormed the hospital.”
Khalil, aged 27, was shot in the right foot and thigh while RSF combatants gained control of the nearby military headquarters. She escaped from the city and walked for a day, hurt and lacking sustenance, to get to the settlement of Garney. “On the way, they seized my mobile and money,” she explains. “I ended up with nothing.”
In excess of 1,000 persons – comprising women and children – walked for two days to arrive at Tawila town located in northern Darfur following their escape from El Fasher, which was seized following an 18-month blockade.
Tawila, around 55 kilometers to the west away from El Fasher, is under the control of the Sudan Liberation Army faction led by Abdul Wahid Mohamed al-Nur (SLA-AW).
This past Tuesday, the allied Joint Forces – which partner with Sudan's military – accused the RSF with murdering over 2,000 civilians following the urban center's takeover. The UN said that visual evidence showed featuring numerous unarmed males who were shot or found dead, encircled by RSF combatants.”
Fighting broke out within Khartoum during April of 2023 as an escalating power struggle involving the two key groups of the armed forces leadership ultimately became violent.
Among the combatants exist the official Sudanese army, which maintain general loyalty to Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the de facto head of state. Against him are the paramilitaries of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a gathering of armed factions who follow the former warlord General Dagalo, called Hemedti.
The RSF was initially founded by the former dictatorial ruler Omar al-Bashir himself as an Arab anti-rebellion militia named the Janjaweed, that rapidly became associated with massive human rights violations. Back in 2013, Bashir reformed the faction into the RSF, deploying them to crush a fresh rebellion within South Darfur.
The war has pushed Sudan into among the most severe humanitarian crises in modern times, as per UN representatives. It has generated the planet's biggest displacement catastrophe, dispersing over 10 million individuals internally plus 4 million who escaped into neighbouring countries, creating increasing strain on Chad and South Sudan.
Per observer reports, thousands more civilians remain trapped by the RSF and allied militias in Garney, southwest from El Fasher. Many are former soldiers from the Sudanese army, the Joint Forces plus additional armed factions that were previously aligned with the military. Reports indicate they're imprisoned because they cannot afford ransom demands ranging from 5 to 10 million Sudanese pounds (£6,000 to £12,000), per those who escaped who reached Tawila. Individuals incapable of paying have been held for multiple days, and in some cases freed only when becoming gravely ill.
Reports suggest the SLA-AW has authorized army soldiers running from El Fasher to enter Tawila on condition they surrender their weapons.
The individual Adam Yagoub, twenty-eight years old, a driver from Sennar in central Sudan, barely avoided execution subsequent to his seizure by three armed men mounted on camels close to Garney.
“They wanted to cut my head off with a knife,” he recounts, exhibiting his limb, that one combatant struck using an AK-47 rifle butt. “Afterward one remembered me – his brother was my colleague – and begged them not to kill me. There were 18 of us who left El Fasher together, yet merely eight reached Tawila. I assume the others died.”
Yagoub states he witnessed 22 deceased individuals near what he called a “fake well” employed by the RSF and associated militias along the Garney-Tawila route. “It’s a trap,” he says. “Individuals travel all day lacking water, and upon arriving there, the militias are waiting. They murdered 22 males at that location and took the bodies away to hide them.”
Another nurse who fled the El Fasher South medical facility following Sunday's assault said RSF fighters entered through one gate and opened fire on patients in the emergency ward, murdering no less than eight. “We ran out via another entrance, yet they assaulted my head using a rifle,” he says.
Via a recorded message on Wednesday, the head of the RSF, Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, referred to as 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 concealing themselves near military artillery before fleeing west under cover of darkness. Already displaced families from Abu Shouk camp in the city were compelled to relocate again, taking asylum in the Daraja Oula district before eventually heading for Tawila.
People apprehended by RSF forces in Garney were reportedly given {water mixed with flour|flour
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