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A nurse named Nawal Khalil had been volunteering as a nurse over a three-year period within the South El Fasher hospital as the city became captured on Sunday by RSF paramilitaries. She was occupied with patient care, including an elderly woman who needed a blood transfusion, as the assault commenced.

“Six injured soldiers were killed plus civilian patients in their beds – some of them women,” she recounts. “I am unaware of the fate regarding my other patients. I needed to escape as they invaded the hospital.”

The 27-year-old Khalil, was shot in the right foot and her thigh during the RSF's seizure of the nearby military headquarters. She escaped from the city and walked for a day, wounded and without nourishment, to get to the settlement of Garney. “Along the route, they seized my mobile and cash,” she says. “I ended up with nothing.”

More than 1,000 people – featuring females and minors – walked for two days to reach the town of Tawila located in northern Darfur after running from El Fasher, which was seized following an 18-month blockade.

This settlement, about 34 miles (55km) west from El Fasher, remains under the authority of the Sudan Liberation Army faction commanded by Abdul Wahid Mohamed al-Nur.

Last Tuesday, the Joint Forces – which partner with Sudan's military – charged the RSF for slaughtering in excess of 2,000 non-combatants following the urban center's takeover. The UN reported there were videos featuring numerous unarmed males who were shot or found dead, with RSF militiamen around them.”

Contextual Information

Hostilities commenced in Sudan's capital back on April 15, 2023 as a growing contest for power between the two main factions within the military government eventually resulted in fatalities.

On one side exist the official Sudanese army, who remain broadly loyal towards General al-Burhan, the nation's actual leader. Opposing him are the paramilitaries of the RSF paramilitary group, a gathering of armed factions who follow the former warlord Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, referred to as Hemedti.

The RSF was originally established by the previous authoritarian leader Bashir's regime as a pro-Arab counterinsurgency force known as the Janjaweed, which soon became linked with massive human rights violations. During 2013, Bashir transformed the group into the RSF, sending them to suppress a fresh rebellion within South Darfur.

The war has pushed Sudan into a terrible humanitarian disaster in contemporary history, according to UN officials. It has created 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 upon Chad and South Sudan.

Present Circumstances

Per observer reports, many additional civilians stay confined by RSF forces and partner militias in the Garney area, in the southwestern direction from El Fasher. Many are former soldiers from Sudan's armed forces, the collaborative forces plus additional armed factions that were previously aligned with the military. They are apparently detained because they cannot afford ransom requests of between 5m and 10m Sudanese pounds (approximately £6,000-£12,000), according to survivors who reached Tawila. People who cannot afford payment have been held for multiple days, and sometimes released only after becoming gravely ill.

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

Adam Yagoub, aged 28, a chauffeur from Sennar from central Sudanese regions, closely avoided death following his capture by three militiamen on camels near Garney.

“They wanted to cut my head off using a knife,” he informs, exhibiting his limb, which one militant assaulted with the butt of an AK-47 rifle. “Afterward one remembered me – his brother was my colleague – and pleaded with them to spare me. There were 18 of us who exited El Fasher as a group, but only eight made it to Tawila. I believe the remainder perished.”

Yagoub says he witnessed 22 deceased individuals in proximity to what he termed a fraudulent water source used by the RSF and associated militias along the Garney-Tawila route. “It’s a trap,” he comments. “Persons journey daily without hydration, and when they reach it, the militiamen await. They slaughtered 22 men on that spot and removed the corpses to conceal them.”

A different medical worker who ran from South El Fasher hospital after the attack on Sunday reported RSF militiamen penetrated through one gate and commenced firing upon patients in the ER section, killing at least eight. “We fled through another gate, however they struck my head with a rifle,” he states.

Through a video declaration last Wednesday, the RSF commander, General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, referred to as Hemedti, said that any soldier or officer who had “violated the right of any individual would face consequences.

Numerous individuals who fled El Fasher spent hours hiding near the army’s artillery unit before running west under darkness's protection. Families already uprooted from the city’s Abu Shouk camp were compelled to relocate again, finding shelter in Daraja Oula area prior to ultimately traveling to Tawila.

Individuals seized by the RSF within Garney reportedly received {water mixed with flour|flour