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The volunteer nurse Nawal Khalil had been volunteering as a medical volunteer for three years within the South El Fasher hospital when the city was captured 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.

“They murdered six wounded military personnel along with civilians in their beds – among them female victims,” she recounts. “The outcome remains unknown for my remaining patients. I had to run as they invaded the hospital.”

Khalil, 27, was hit by a bullet in her right foot and thigh as RSF fighters took control of the closeby army headquarters. She ran from the urban area and traveled on foot for one day, hurt and lacking sustenance, to get to the settlement of Garney. “On the way, they confiscated my phone and cash,” she explains. “I possessed nothing remaining.”

Over a thousand individuals – including women and children – walked for two days to arrive at Tawila town in North Darfur after fleeing El Fasher, which was captured following an 18-month blockade.

Tawila, around 55 kilometers to the west from El Fasher, is governed by by the SLA faction led by Abdul Wahid Mohamed al-Nur (SLA-AW).

This past Tuesday, the Joint Forces – who are allied with Sudan’s army – blamed the RSF of killing more than 2,000 civilians after the city's capture. The UN said that footage existed featuring numerous unarmed males either being shot or deceased, with RSF militiamen around them.”

Background Context

Fighting broke out in Sudan's capital back on April 15, 2023 as an escalating power struggle involving the two key groups of the armed forces leadership finally turned deadly.

From one perspective exist the official Sudanese army, which maintain general loyalty towards General al-Burhan, the country’s de facto ruler. Against him stand the paramilitary forces of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a gathering of armed factions which support the ex-warlord General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti.

The RSF was initially founded by the previous authoritarian leader Omar al-Bashir as an Arab counterinsurgency militia called the Janjaweed, that rapidly became associated with extensive brutalities. During 2013, Bashir converted the organization into the RSF, using them to quell a fresh rebellion within South Darfur.

The war has pushed Sudan into “one of the worst humanitarian nightmares in modern times, according to UN officials. It has generated the globe's most severe displacement emergency, dispersing over 10 million individuals within the country and 4 million who have fled into neighbouring countries, putting mounting pressure on Chad and South Sudan.

Present Circumstances

Per observer reports, thousands more civilians stay confined by RSF forces and partner militias in Garney, in the southwestern direction from El Fasher. Several are previous army members from Sudan's armed forces, the allied Joint Forces plus additional armed factions that had been fighting alongside the army. They are apparently detained since they cannot pay extortion payments of between 5m and 10m Sudanese pounds (£6,000 to £12,000), according to survivors who made it to Tawila. Those unable to pay have been detained for days, and occasionally let go solely after becoming gravely ill.

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

Adam Yagoub, aged 28, a chauffeur from Sennar in central Sudan, barely avoided execution subsequent to his seizure by three camel-riding militiamen in the Garney vicinity.

“They planned to decapitate me with a blade,” he tells, exhibiting his limb, that one combatant struck with the stock of a Kalashnikov. “Then one of them recognised 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 near what he called a deceptive well used by the RSF and associated militias in the area connecting Garney and Tawila. “It represents a trap,” he explains. “Individuals travel all day lacking 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.”

Another nurse who fled the El Fasher South medical facility subsequent to Sunday's offensive stated RSF combatants came in using one doorway and opened fire on patients within the emergency department, killing at least eight. “We fled through another gate, yet they assaulted my head with a rifle,” he says.

Through a video declaration last Wednesday, the head of the RSF, General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, declared that any fighter or officer who had “violated the right of any civilian would be punished.

Many of those who escaped from El Fasher passed hours taking cover close to army artillery positions prior to escaping westward during nighttime. Families already uprooted originating from the urban Abu Shouk settlement were forced to move again, taking asylum in the Daraja Oula district before finally moving toward Tawila.

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