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The volunteer nurse Nawal Khalil had been serving as a medical volunteer over a three-year period at El Fasher South hospital as the city became captured on Sunday by RSF paramilitaries. She was actively caring for the sick, featuring one senior woman who needed a blood transfusion, as the assault commenced.

“They killed six wounded soldiers plus civilian patients in their beds – some of them women,” she says. “I am unaware of the fate regarding my other patients. I needed to escape as they invaded the hospital.”

Khalil, 27, received a gunshot wound to her right foot and upper leg as RSF fighters took control of the closeby army headquarters. She fled the city and walked for a day, hurt and lacking sustenance, to get to the settlement of Garney. “During the journey, they confiscated my phone and currency,” she describes. “I was left with nothing.”

Over a thousand individuals – including women and children – walked for two days to reach the town of Tawila within North Darfur after running from El Fasher, which was seized after an 18-month siege.

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

Last Tuesday, the Joint Forces – that cooperate with the Sudanese army – charged the RSF with murdering over 2,000 civilians following the urban center's takeover. The UN reported there were videos depicting dozens of weaponless men being shot or lying dead, with RSF militiamen around them.”

Contextual Information

Hostilities commenced in Khartoum back on April 15, 2023 as an escalating power struggle among the two primary factions within the military government finally turned deadly.

Among the combatants stand the Sudanese military forces, which maintain general loyalty towards General al-Burhan, the nation's actual leader. Opposing him stand the paramilitary forces of the RSF paramilitary group, an assembly of militia groups who follow the former warlord General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, called Hemedti.

The RSF was originally established by the former dictatorial ruler Bashir's regime as a pro-Arab counterinsurgency force named the Janjaweed, that rapidly became associated with extensive brutalities. In 2013, Bashir transformed the group into the Rapid Support Forces, using them to quell a recent insurrection within South Darfur.

The fighting has thrown Sudan into “one of the worst humanitarian nightmares in recent history”, based on UN statements. It has produced the globe's most severe displacement emergency, dispersing over 10 million individuals internally plus 4 million who escaped to adjacent nations, putting mounting pressure on Chad and South Sudan.

Present Circumstances

Based on eyewitness accounts, many additional civilians remain trapped by the RSF and partner militias in the Garney area, south-west of El Fasher. Numerous are ex-military personnel from Sudan's armed forces, the collaborative forces plus additional armed factions which had been combatting together with the army. They are apparently detained because they cannot afford extortion payments of between 5m and 10m Sudanese pounds (£6,000 to £12,000), according to survivors who arrived in Tawila. Those unable to pay remain imprisoned for several days, and sometimes freed only when becoming gravely ill.

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

Adam Yagoub, aged 28, a motorist originating from Sennar within central Sudan, closely avoided death following his capture by three armed men mounted on camels in the Garney vicinity.

“They wanted to cut my head off with a blade,” he tells, showing his arm, that one combatant struck with the butt of an AK-47 rifle. “Afterward one remembered me – his sibling had collaborated with me – and pleaded with them to spare me. We were 18 people who departed El Fasher collectively, yet merely eight reached Tawila. I believe the remainder perished.”

Yagoub reports he witnessed 22 deceased individuals close to what he described as a “fake well” employed by the RSF and partner armed groups between Garney and Tawila. “This is an ambush,” he comments. “People walk all day without water, and upon arriving there, the armed groups lie in wait. They murdered 22 males at that location and carried the bodies off to obscure them.”

An additional nurse who fled the El Fasher South medical facility following Sunday's assault stated RSF combatants came in through one gate and commenced firing upon patients within the emergency department, murdering no less than eight. “We fled through another gate, however they struck my head with a firearm,” he says.

In a video statement this past Wednesday, the RSF commander, General Dagalo, referred to as Hemedti, said that any soldier or official who breached the rights of any person” would be held accountable.

Many of those who escaped from El Fasher passed hours taking cover close to army artillery positions before fleeing west under cover of darkness. Families already uprooted originating from the urban Abu Shouk settlement had to displace once more, seeking refuge in the Daraja Oula neighbourhood before finally moving toward Tawila.

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