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Nawal Khalil had been working as a medical volunteer for the past three years at El Fasher South hospital when the city was seized last Sunday by the RSF fighters. She was actively caring for the sick, featuring one senior 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 recounts. “The outcome remains unknown to my other patients. I needed to escape after they raided the medical facility.”

Khalil, aged 27, received a gunshot wound to her right foot and thigh while RSF combatants gained control of the adjacent military command center. She escaped from the city and journeyed by foot for 24 hours, wounded and without nourishment, to reach the town of Garney. “During the journey, they confiscated my phone and currency,” she says. “I was left with nothing.”

Over a thousand individuals – comprising women and children – traveled on foot for two days to arrive at Tawila town in North Darfur after fleeing El Fasher, which fell under control after a year-and-a-half-long siege.

The town of Tawila, around 55 kilometers to the west of El Fasher, is governed by by the SLA faction commanded by Abdul Wahid Mohamed al-Nur.

On Tuesday, the allied Joint Forces – which partner with Sudan's military – charged the RSF of killing more than 2,000 civilians after the city's capture. United Nations officials stated there were videos showing “dozens of unarmed men being shot or lying dead, surrounded by RSF fighters.”

Contextual Information

Hostilities commenced in Sudan's capital back on April 15, 2023 as an escalating power struggle among the two primary factions of the armed forces leadership ultimately became violent.

From one perspective exist the official Sudanese army, which maintain general loyalty towards General al-Burhan, the de facto head of state. Challenging him stand the paramilitary forces of the RSF paramilitary group, a collection of militias who follow the former warlord General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti.

The RSF was initially founded by the former dictatorial ruler Omar al-Bashir himself as a pro-Arab counterinsurgency force named the Janjaweed, which quickly became synonymous with massive human rights violations. Back in 2013, Bashir converted the organization into the RSF, using them to quell a new uprising within South Darfur.

The fighting has thrown Sudan into among the most severe humanitarian crises in contemporary history, based on UN statements. It has produced the planet's biggest displacement catastrophe, scattering more than 10 million people inside the nation and 4 million who have fled into neighbouring countries, creating increasing strain on both Chad and South Sudan.

Ongoing Developments

Per observer reports, thousands more civilians stay confined by RSF forces and partner militias in the Garney area, in the southwestern direction from El Fasher. Many are former soldiers from Sudan's armed forces, the allied Joint Forces and other militant organizations that were previously aligned with the military. Reports indicate they're imprisoned since they cannot pay extortion payments between five and ten million Sudanese pounds (approximately £6,000-£12,000), based on survivor accounts who reached Tawila. Those unable to pay have been detained for days, and occasionally released only after developing critical health conditions.

The SLA-AW has apparently permitted army soldiers running from El Fasher to come into Tawila on condition they surrender their weapons.

A man named Adam Yagoub, twenty-eight years old, a chauffeur from Sennar in central Sudan, barely avoided execution following his capture by three camel-riding militiamen close to Garney.

“They intended to behead me with a knife,” he tells, showing his arm, which one militant assaulted with the butt of an AK-47 rifle. “Afterward one remembered me – his brother was my colleague – and pleaded with them to spare me. We were 18 people who exited El Fasher as a group, yet merely eight reached Tawila. I believe the remainder perished.”

Yagoub says he saw 22 bodies near what he called a fraudulent water source utilized by RSF forces and partner armed groups between Garney and Tawila. “It represents a trap,” he comments. “People walk all day without water, and upon arriving there, the militiamen await. They killed 22 men there and removed the corpses to obscure them.”

An additional nurse who ran from South El Fasher hospital after the attack on Sunday said RSF fighters entered using one doorway and opened fire on patients in the ER section, causing at least eight fatalities. “We fled through another gate, but they hit me on the head using a rifle,” he states.

In a video statement on Wednesday, the leader of the RSF, General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, called Hemedti, stated that any military personnel or officer who had “violated the right of any individual would face consequences.

Numerous individuals who fled from El Fasher passed hours concealing themselves near military artillery before fleeing west under darkness's protection. Already displaced families originating from the urban Abu Shouk settlement were compelled to relocate again, finding shelter in Daraja Oula area before finally moving toward Tawila.

People apprehended by RSF forces in Garney were reportedly given {water mixed with flour|flour