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The volunteer nurse Nawal Khalil had been volunteering as a healthcare worker for three years at El Fasher South hospital when the city was taken over on Sunday by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). She was occupied with patient care, including an elderly woman in need of a transfusion, when the attack began.

“Six injured soldiers were killed plus civilian patients in their beds – some of them women,” she says. “The outcome remains unknown for my remaining patients. I needed to escape when they stormed the hospital.”

Khalil, 27, was shot in the right foot and her thigh as RSF fighters took control of the nearby military headquarters. She ran from the urban area and journeyed by foot for 24 hours, hurt and lacking sustenance, to get to the settlement of Garney. “Along the route, they seized my mobile and currency,” she describes. “I possessed nothing remaining.”

More than 1,000 people – featuring females and minors – walked for two days to reach the town of Tawila located in northern Darfur after running from 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 SLA-AW group under Abdul Wahid Mohamed al-Nur's leadership.

This past Tuesday, the collaborative 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 reported that visual evidence showed showing “dozens of unarmed men either being shot or deceased, surrounded by RSF fighters.”

Contextual Information

Conflict erupted in Khartoum on 15 April 2023 when an intensifying power struggle involving the two key groups of the armed forces leadership eventually resulted in fatalities.

On one side are the Sudanese armed forces, that stay mostly faithful to General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the de facto head of state. Against him exist the irregular troops of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a collection of militias which support the ex-warlord General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, referred to as Hemedti.

The Rapid Support Forces were first created by the previous authoritarian leader Omar al-Bashir as an Arab counterinsurgency militia called the Janjaweed, which soon became linked with massive human rights violations. In 2013, Bashir transformed the group to become the RSF, using them to quell a fresh rebellion within South Darfur.

The conflict has plunged Sudan into “one of the worst humanitarian nightmares in contemporary history, based on UN statements. It has generated 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.

Ongoing Developments

Per observer reports, numerous more non-combatants stay confined by RSF forces and associated armed groups in the Garney area, in the southwestern direction from El Fasher. Numerous are ex-military personnel from Sudan's armed forces, the allied Joint Forces and other armed groups that were previously aligned with the military. They are reportedly being held since they cannot pay ransom requests of between 5m and 10m Sudanese pounds (around six to twelve thousand pounds), based on survivor accounts who arrived in Tawila. Individuals incapable of paying have been detained for days, and occasionally freed only when developing critical health conditions.

Reports suggest the SLA-AW has authorized military personnel escaping El Fasher to enter Tawila if they relinquish their arms.

Adam Yagoub, twenty-eight years old, a chauffeur from Sennar within central Sudan, narrowly escaped being killed following his capture by three camel-riding militiamen near Garney.

“They intended to behead me with a knife,” he recounts, displaying his arm, which one of the fighters hit with the stock of a Kalashnikov. “Subsequently one identified me – his brother was my colleague – and urged them not to execute me. We were 18 people who left El Fasher together, yet merely eight reached Tawila. I assume the others died.”

Yagoub says he saw 22 bodies near what he called a deceptive well utilized by RSF forces and allied militias between Garney and Tawila. “This is an ambush,” he explains. “People walk all day without water, and when they reach it, the armed groups lie in wait. They killed 22 men there and took the bodies away to conceal them.”

A different medical worker who escaped El Fasher South hospital subsequent to Sunday's offensive reported RSF militiamen penetrated through one gate and commenced firing upon patients in the ER section, murdering no less than eight. “We escaped through a different gate, yet they assaulted my head using a rifle,” he states.

Via a recorded message on Wednesday, the leader 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.

Several people who got away from El Fasher passed hours taking cover close to army artillery positions before fleeing west under cover of darkness. Previously displaced households originating from the urban Abu Shouk settlement were forced to move again, finding shelter in Daraja Oula area before eventually heading for Tawila.

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