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Nawal Khalil had been working as a medical volunteer for three years in the El Fasher South medical facility after the city fell seized last Sunday by RSF paramilitaries. She was actively caring for the sick, among them an older female patient requiring a blood transfusion, when the offensive started.

“They murdered six wounded military personnel along with civilians in their beds – some of them women,” she says. “The outcome remains unknown regarding my other patients. I had to run as they invaded the hospital.”

The 27-year-old Khalil, was shot in the right foot and upper leg during the RSF's seizure of the adjacent military command center. She ran from the urban area and traveled on foot for one day, hurt and lacking sustenance, to reach the town of Garney. “During the journey, they seized my mobile and currency,” she says. “I possessed nothing remaining.”

In excess of 1,000 persons – comprising women and children – walked for two days to arrive at Tawila town within North Darfur after fleeing El Fasher, which fell under control after a year-and-a-half-long siege.

The town of Tawila, about 34 miles (55km) west of El Fasher, is under the control of the Sudan Liberation Army faction led by Abdul Wahid Mohamed al-Nur (SLA-AW).

This past Tuesday, the Joint Forces – which partner with Sudan's military – blamed the RSF for slaughtering in excess of 2,000 non-combatants following the urban center's takeover. The UN said that visual evidence showed featuring numerous unarmed males being shot or lying dead, encircled by RSF combatants.”

Background Context

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

On one side stand the Sudanese military forces, who remain broadly loyal to General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the country’s de facto ruler. Challenging him stand the paramilitary forces of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a collection of militias that obey the former warlord Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti.

The RSF was initially founded by the former dictatorial ruler Omar al-Bashir himself as a pro-Arab counterinsurgency force called the Janjaweed, which soon became linked with widespread atrocities. In 2013, Bashir reformed the faction to become the RSF, using them to quell a recent insurrection in South Darfur.

The conflict has plunged Sudan into a terrible humanitarian disaster in contemporary history, as per UN representatives. It has generated the globe's most severe displacement emergency, dispersing over 10 million individuals inside the nation plus 4 million who escaped to bordering states, generating growing stress on Chad and South Sudan.

Current Situation Updates

Per observer reports, many additional civilians continue to be held by the RSF and associated armed groups within Garney, southwest from El Fasher. Numerous are ex-military personnel belonging to the Sudanese military, the Joint Forces plus additional armed factions that had been fighting alongside the army. They are reportedly being held since they cannot pay extortion payments between five and ten million Sudanese pounds (around six to twelve thousand pounds), according to survivors who made it to Tawila. Those unable to pay have been held for multiple days, and occasionally let go solely after falling seriously ill.

The SLA-AW has apparently permitted army soldiers running from El Fasher to enter Tawila if they relinquish their arms.

Adam Yagoub, twenty-eight years old, a chauffeur from Sennar in central Sudan, barely avoided execution subsequent to his seizure by three armed men mounted on camels close to Garney.

“They intended to behead me using a knife,” he informs, displaying his arm, which one of the fighters hit with the butt of an AK-47 rifle. “Subsequently one identified me – his brother was my colleague – and urged them not to execute me. We were 18 people who exited El Fasher as a group, yet merely eight reached Tawila. I believe the remainder perished.”

Yagoub states he saw 22 bodies near what he called a fraudulent water source used by the RSF and associated militias between Garney and Tawila. “It represents a trap,” 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 removed the corpses to obscure them.”

An additional nurse who escaped El Fasher South hospital after the attack on Sunday stated RSF combatants came in through one gate and began shooting at patients within the emergency department, killing at least eight. “We escaped through a different gate, but they hit me on the head with a rifle,” he states.

Via a recorded message on Wednesday, the head of the RSF, General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, called Hemedti, declared that any fighter or commander who infringed upon the rights of any person” would be held accountable.

Numerous individuals who fled El Fasher utilized hours concealing themselves near military artillery before running west under darkness's protection. Families already uprooted from Abu Shouk camp in the city were forced to move again, seeking refuge in the Daraja Oula neighbourhood prior to ultimately traveling to Tawila.

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