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The volunteer nurse Nawal Khalil had been volunteering as a nurse for the past three years at El Fasher South hospital when the city was captured on Sunday by the RSF fighters. She was busy treating patients, among them an older female patient requiring a blood transfusion, as the assault commenced.

“Six injured soldiers were killed along with civilians in their beds – some of them women,” she states. “I am unaware of the fate for my remaining patients. I needed to escape when they stormed the hospital.”

Khalil, aged 27, was hit by a bullet in her right foot and thigh while RSF combatants gained control of the adjacent military command center. She fled the city and traveled on foot for one day, wounded and without nourishment, to get to the settlement of Garney. “On the way, they confiscated my phone and money,” she says. “I ended up with nothing.”

More than 1,000 people – including women and children – traveled on foot for two days to reach the town of Tawila in North Darfur after fleeing El Fasher, which fell under control following an 18-month blockade.

This settlement, approximately 34 miles westward of 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 – which partner with Sudan's military – charged the RSF of killing more than 2,000 civilians after the city's capture. The UN said that footage existed depicting dozens of weaponless men being shot or lying dead, encircled by RSF combatants.”

Contextual Information

Fighting broke out within Khartoum on 15 April 2023 when an intensifying power struggle among the two primary factions of the military regime ultimately became violent.

From one perspective exist the official Sudanese army, who remain broadly loyal to General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the de facto head of state. Challenging him are the paramilitaries of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a gathering of armed factions which support the ex-warlord General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, referred to as Hemedti.

The RSF was initially founded by the former dictatorial ruler Bashir's regime as an Arab anti-rebellion militia known as the Janjaweed, which soon became linked with extensive brutalities. During 2013, Bashir reformed the faction into the Rapid Support Forces, deploying them to crush a fresh rebellion in South Darfur.

The fighting has thrown Sudan into “one of the worst humanitarian nightmares in recent history”, based on UN statements. It has generated the planet's biggest displacement catastrophe, dispersing over 10 million individuals within the country and 4 million who have fled to bordering states, creating increasing strain upon Chad and South Sudan.

Current Situation Updates

Per observer reports, thousands more civilians stay confined by RSF forces and associated armed groups in the Garney area, south-west of El Fasher. Numerous are ex-military personnel from the Sudanese army, the collaborative forces plus additional armed factions 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 (approximately £6,000-£12,000), per those who escaped who arrived in Tawila. Individuals incapable of paying have been detained for days, and in some cases released only after falling seriously ill.

Reports suggest the SLA-AW has authorized military personnel escaping El Fasher to enter Tawila on condition they surrender their weapons.

A man named Adam Yagoub, twenty-eight years old, a motorist originating from Sennar from central Sudanese regions, barely avoided execution following his capture by three camel-riding militiamen in the Garney vicinity.

“They planned to decapitate me using a knife,” he recounts, exhibiting his limb, which one of the fighters hit using an AK-47 rifle butt. “Then one of them recognised me – his brother was my colleague – 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 assume the others died.”

Yagoub states he witnessed 22 deceased individuals close to what he described as a fraudulent water source used by the RSF and allied militias along the Garney-Tawila route. “This is an ambush,” he comments. “Persons journey daily without hydration, and when they reach it, the militias are waiting. They slaughtered 22 men on that spot and took the bodies away to hide them.”

Another nurse who ran from South El Fasher hospital after the attack on Sunday reported RSF militiamen penetrated through one gate 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 with a rifle,” he says.

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

Many of those who escaped El Fasher utilized hours taking cover close to army artillery positions before running west under cover of darkness. Already displaced families from the city’s Abu Shouk camp had to displace once more, finding shelter in Daraja Oula area before finally moving toward Tawila.

Those captured by the RSF in Garney were apparently provided {water mixed with flour|flour