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Nawal Khalil had been volunteering as a medical volunteer for three years at El Fasher South hospital as the city became taken over on Sunday by RSF paramilitaries. She was occupied with patient care, among them an older female patient requiring a blood transfusion, when the offensive started.

“Six injured soldiers were killed and civilians in their beds – some of them women,” she says. “The outcome remains unknown to my other patients. I was forced to flee after they raided the medical facility.”

The 27-year-old Khalil, received a gunshot wound to her right foot and thigh while RSF combatants gained control of the nearby military headquarters. She ran from the urban area and journeyed by foot for 24 hours, injured and without food, to get to the settlement of Garney. “On the way, they confiscated 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 get to the settlement of Tawila located in northern Darfur after fleeing El Fasher, which fell under control after a year-and-a-half-long siege.

This settlement, around 55 kilometers to the west away from El Fasher, remains under the authority of the SLA-AW group commanded by Abdul Wahid Mohamed al-Nur.

This past Tuesday, the Joint Forces – which partner with Sudan's military – charged the RSF with murdering over 2,000 civilians after the city's capture. The UN said that footage existed showing “dozens of unarmed men either being shot or deceased, encircled by RSF combatants.”

Contextual Information

Conflict erupted in Khartoum on 15 April 2023 as an escalating power struggle between the two main factions of the armed forces leadership eventually resulted in fatalities.

On one side stand the Sudanese military forces, who remain broadly loyal towards General al-Burhan, the nation's actual leader. Opposing him are the paramilitaries belonging to the RSF, a collection of militias that obey the former warlord General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, referred to as Hemedti.

The RSF was initially founded by the former dictatorial ruler Omar al-Bashir himself as a pro-Arab counterinsurgency force known as the Janjaweed, which quickly became synonymous with massive human rights violations. In 2013, Bashir transformed the group into the Rapid Support Forces, sending them to suppress a fresh rebellion in southern Darfur.

The conflict has plunged Sudan into among the most severe humanitarian crises in modern times, based on UN statements. It has generated the globe's most severe displacement emergency, dispersing over 10 million individuals within the country plus 4 million who escaped to bordering states, generating growing stress on Chad and South Sudan.

Ongoing Developments

Per observer reports, thousands more civilians remain trapped by the RSF and allied militias in Garney, southwest from El Fasher. Numerous are ex-military personnel from Sudan's armed forces, the Joint Forces plus additional armed factions that were previously aligned with the military. They are apparently detained because they cannot afford extortion payments ranging from 5 to 10 million Sudanese pounds (£6,000 to £12,000), according to survivors who arrived in Tawila. People who cannot afford payment remain imprisoned for several days, and sometimes released only after falling seriously ill.

The SLA-AW has reportedly allowed army soldiers running from El Fasher to access Tawila if they relinquish their arms.

The individual Adam Yagoub, 28, a chauffeur from Sennar in central Sudan, narrowly escaped being killed after being captured by three armed men mounted on camels in the Garney vicinity.

“They wanted to cut my head off with a knife,” he tells, displaying his arm, which one militant assaulted with the butt of an AK-47 rifle. “Then one of them recognised me – his brother was my colleague – and urged them not to execute me. We were 18 people who left El Fasher together, however just eight arrived in Tawila. I assume the others died.”

Yagoub says he observed 22 corpses near what he called a fraudulent water source used by the RSF and allied militias in the area connecting Garney and Tawila. “It represents a trap,” he says. “Persons journey daily without hydration, and when they get to it, the militias are waiting. They slaughtered 22 men on that spot and removed the corpses to hide them.”

Another nurse who escaped El Fasher South hospital following Sunday's assault reported RSF militiamen penetrated using one doorway and opened fire on patients within the emergency department, murdering no less than eight. “We ran out via another entrance, but they hit me on the head with a firearm,” he recounts.

Through a video declaration on Wednesday, the leader of the RSF, Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, called Hemedti, declared that any fighter or commander who infringed upon the rights 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. Previously displaced households originating from the urban Abu Shouk settlement were compelled to relocate again, finding shelter in Daraja Oula area prior to ultimately traveling to Tawila.

People apprehended by RSF forces in Garney were apparently provided {water mixed with flour|flour