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The volunteer nurse Nawal Khalil had been volunteering as a healthcare worker for three years in the El Fasher South medical facility when the city was seized last Sunday by the RSF fighters. She was occupied with patient care, including an elderly woman requiring a blood transfusion, when the attack began.

“Six injured soldiers were killed plus civilian patients in their beds – among them female victims,” she recounts. “The outcome remains unknown to my other patients. I needed to escape when they stormed the hospital.”

Khalil, 27, was hit by a bullet in her right foot and upper leg as RSF fighters took control of the nearby military headquarters. She escaped from the city and walked for a day, hurt and lacking sustenance, to reach the town of Garney. “During the journey, they confiscated my phone and currency,” she explains. “I was left with nothing.”

Over a thousand individuals – featuring females and minors – traveled on foot for two days to get to the settlement of Tawila in North Darfur following their escape from El Fasher, which was seized after an 18-month siege.

The town of Tawila, around 55 kilometers to the west from El Fasher, remains under the authority by the SLA faction led by Abdul Wahid Mohamed al-Nur (SLA-AW).

Last Tuesday, the allied Joint Forces – who are allied with Sudan’s army – blamed the RSF for slaughtering in excess of 2,000 non-combatants after the city's capture. The UN reported there were videos showing “dozens of unarmed men who were shot or found dead, surrounded by RSF fighters.”

Contextual Information

Hostilities commenced in Sudan's capital during April of 2023 when an intensifying power struggle involving the two key groups within the military government eventually resulted in fatalities.

Among the combatants exist the official Sudanese army, which maintain general loyalty to General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the country’s de facto ruler. Against him stand the paramilitary forces of the RSF paramilitary group, a gathering of armed factions that obey the former warlord General Dagalo, known as Hemedti.

The Rapid Support Forces were first created by the previous authoritarian leader Omar al-Bashir himself as an Arab anti-rebellion militia called the Janjaweed, which quickly became synonymous with massive human rights violations. During 2013, Bashir reformed the faction to become the RSF, sending them to suppress a recent insurrection in southern Darfur.

The conflict has plunged Sudan into among the most severe humanitarian crises in contemporary history, based on UN statements. It has produced the globe's most severe displacement emergency, forcing more than 10 million persons inside the nation plus 4 million who escaped into neighbouring countries, putting mounting pressure on Chad and South Sudan.

Present Circumstances

Based on eyewitness accounts, numerous more non-combatants remain trapped by the RSF and associated armed groups within Garney, south-west of El Fasher. Many are former soldiers belonging to the Sudanese military, the allied Joint Forces plus additional armed factions which had been combatting together with the army. They are reportedly being held since they cannot pay ransom demands ranging from 5 to 10 million Sudanese pounds (approximately £6,000-£12,000), according to survivors who arrived in Tawila. Individuals incapable of paying remain imprisoned for several days, and sometimes released only after becoming gravely ill.

Reports suggest the SLA-AW has authorized army soldiers running from El Fasher to come into Tawila if they relinquish their arms.

The individual Adam Yagoub, aged 28, a driver from Sennar within central Sudan, narrowly escaped being killed subsequent to his seizure by three militiamen on camels near Garney.

“They intended to behead me using a knife,” he informs, showing his arm, which one of the fighters hit with the stock of a Kalashnikov. “Then one of them recognised me – his brother was my colleague – and begged them not to kill me. There were 18 of us who left El Fasher together, yet merely eight reached Tawila. I think the others are dead.”

Yagoub reports he saw 22 bodies close to what he described as a fraudulent water source utilized by RSF forces and partner armed groups in the area connecting Garney and Tawila. “This is an ambush,” he comments. “Individuals travel all day lacking water, and when they reach it, the militiamen await. They slaughtered 22 men on that spot and removed the corpses to hide them.”

A different medical worker who escaped El Fasher South hospital subsequent to Sunday's offensive reported RSF militiamen penetrated via one entrance and opened fire on patients in the ER section, causing at least eight fatalities. “We escaped through a different gate, but they hit me on the head with a firearm,” he states.

In a video statement on Wednesday, the RSF commander, General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, referred to as Hemedti, declared that any fighter or officer who had “violated the right of any civilian would be punished.

Many of those who escaped El Fasher utilized hours taking cover close to army artillery positions before running west under darkness's protection. Already displaced families originating from the urban Abu Shouk settlement were forced to move again, finding shelter in Daraja Oula area before eventually heading for Tawila.

Those captured by the RSF within Garney reportedly received {water mixed with flour|flour