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A nurse named Nawal Khalil had been volunteering as a medical volunteer over a three-year period in the El Fasher South medical facility after the city fell seized last Sunday by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). She was occupied with patient care, featuring one senior woman requiring a blood transfusion, as the assault commenced.

“Six injured soldiers were killed and civilians in their beds – among them female victims,” she says. “I am unaware of the fate regarding my other patients. I had to run when they stormed the hospital.”

Khalil, 27, was shot in the right foot and upper leg during the RSF's seizure of the closeby army headquarters. She escaped from the city and walked for a day, hurt and lacking sustenance, to arrive at Garney town. “Along the route, they took my phone and money,” she describes. “I was left with nothing.”

Over a thousand individuals – including women and children – traveled on foot for two days to arrive at Tawila town located in northern Darfur after running from El Fasher, which was captured after an 18-month siege.

The town of Tawila, around 55 kilometers to the west from El Fasher, remains under the authority of the SLA-AW group under Abdul Wahid Mohamed al-Nur's leadership.

This past Tuesday, the allied Joint Forces – that cooperate with the Sudanese army – blamed the RSF of killing more than 2,000 civilians since the fall of the city. The UN said that footage existed depicting dozens of weaponless men who were shot or found dead, surrounded by RSF fighters.”

Contextual Information

Fighting broke out within Khartoum during April of 2023 as a growing contest for power among the two primary factions of the armed forces leadership finally turned deadly.

From one perspective exist the official Sudanese army, that stay mostly faithful to General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the country’s de facto ruler. Challenging him stand the paramilitary forces of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), an assembly of militia groups who follow the former warlord General Dagalo, called Hemedti.

The Rapid Support Forces were first created by the ex-dictator Omar al-Bashir himself as an Arab counterinsurgency militia known as the Janjaweed, which quickly became synonymous with massive human rights violations. Back in 2013, Bashir reformed the faction into the RSF, deploying them to crush a recent insurrection in southern Darfur.

The conflict has plunged Sudan into “one of the worst humanitarian nightmares in recent history”, according to UN officials. It has created the world’s worst displacement crisis, scattering more than 10 million people within the country along with 4 million refugees into neighbouring countries, creating increasing strain on Chad and South Sudan.

Current Situation Updates

Per observer reports, many additional civilians 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 militant organizations which had been combatting together with the army. Reports indicate they're imprisoned since they cannot pay extortion payments of between 5m and 10m Sudanese pounds (approximately £6,000-£12,000), according to survivors who made it to Tawila. Those unable to pay remain imprisoned for several days, and occasionally let go solely after becoming gravely ill.

The SLA-AW has reportedly allowed government troops fleeing El Fasher to access Tawila if they relinquish their arms.

Adam Yagoub, 28, a chauffeur from Sennar within central Sudan, barely avoided execution following his capture by three militiamen on camels in the Garney vicinity.

“They wanted to cut my head off using a knife,” he informs, showing his arm, which one militant assaulted using an AK-47 rifle butt. “Then one of them recognised me – his sibling had collaborated with me – and begged them not to kill me. We were 18 people who exited El Fasher as a group, however just eight arrived in Tawila. I think the others are dead.”

Yagoub says he observed 22 corpses close to what he described as a fraudulent water source employed by the RSF and allied militias in the area connecting Garney and Tawila. “It represents a trap,” he says. “People walk all day without water, and when they get to it, the militiamen await. They slaughtered 22 men on that spot and carried the bodies off to hide them.”

Another nurse who ran from South El Fasher hospital subsequent to Sunday's offensive said RSF fighters entered through one gate and began shooting at patients in the ER section, murdering no less than eight. “We escaped through a different gate, however they struck my head using a rifle,” he states.

Via a recorded message this past Wednesday, the RSF commander, General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, referred to as Hemedti, stated that any military personnel or commander who infringed upon the rights 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 darkness's protection. Families already uprooted originating from the urban Abu Shouk settlement were forced to move again, taking asylum in the Daraja Oula district prior to ultimately traveling to Tawila.

Individuals seized by the RSF in Garney were apparently provided {water mixed with flour|flour