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The volunteer nurse Nawal Khalil had been volunteering as a medical volunteer for the past three years in the El Fasher South medical facility as the city became taken over on Sunday by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). She was occupied with patient care, among them an older female patient in need of a transfusion, when the offensive started.

“They murdered six wounded military personnel plus civilian patients in their beds – some of them women,” she recounts. “I am unaware of the fate to my other patients. I had to run as they invaded the hospital.”

The 27-year-old Khalil, was shot in the right foot and thigh while RSF combatants gained control of the closeby army headquarters. She ran from the urban area and walked for a day, wounded and without nourishment, to get to the settlement of Garney. “On the way, they confiscated my phone and money,” she describes. “I possessed nothing remaining.”

More than 1,000 people – comprising women and children – walked for two days to get to the settlement of Tawila located in northern Darfur after running from El Fasher, which was seized following an 18-month blockade.

The town of Tawila, about 34 miles (55km) west of El Fasher, remains under the authority of the SLA-AW group 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 reported that visual evidence showed showing “dozens of unarmed men either being shot or deceased, with RSF militiamen around them.”

Background Context

Hostilities commenced in Khartoum back on April 15, 2023 when an intensifying power struggle involving the two key groups of the military regime eventually resulted in fatalities.

Among the combatants stand the Sudanese military forces, that stay mostly faithful to Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the nation's actual leader. Opposing him are the paramilitaries of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a collection of militias that obey the former warlord General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti.

The RSF was originally established by the ex-dictator Omar al-Bashir himself as an Arab counterinsurgency militia known as the Janjaweed, which quickly became synonymous with extensive brutalities. In 2013, Bashir transformed the group into the Rapid Support Forces, deploying them to crush a recent insurrection in southern Darfur.

The fighting has thrown Sudan into among the most severe humanitarian crises in modern times, based on UN statements. It has produced the globe's most severe displacement emergency, scattering more than 10 million people inside the nation along with 4 million refugees to bordering states, putting mounting pressure upon Chad and South Sudan.

Present Circumstances

According to witnesses, thousands more civilians remain trapped by the RSF and associated armed groups in Garney, southwest from El Fasher. Numerous are ex-military personnel from the Sudanese army, the Joint Forces and other armed groups which had been combatting together with the army. Reports indicate they're imprisoned since they cannot pay ransom demands of between 5m and 10m Sudanese pounds (£6,000 to £12,000), based on survivor accounts who made it to Tawila. People who cannot afford payment remain imprisoned for several days, and occasionally freed only when falling seriously ill.

Reports suggest the SLA-AW has authorized government troops fleeing El Fasher to access Tawila if they relinquish their arms.

The individual Adam Yagoub, twenty-eight years old, a motorist originating from Sennar within central Sudan, closely avoided death subsequent to his seizure by three camel-riding militiamen near Garney.

“They intended to behead me with a knife,” he recounts, exhibiting his limb, which one militant assaulted with the stock of a Kalashnikov. “Afterward one remembered me – his sibling had collaborated with me – and urged them not to execute me. Our group contained 18 individuals 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 “fake well” utilized by RSF forces and partner armed groups between Garney and Tawila. “This is an ambush,” he comments. “Persons journey daily without hydration, and when they get to it, the militiamen await. They murdered 22 males at that location and carried the bodies off to hide them.”

An additional nurse who ran from South El Fasher hospital following Sunday's assault stated RSF combatants came in via one entrance and began shooting at patients in the emergency ward, killing at least eight. “We escaped through a different gate, however they struck my head using a rifle,” he states.

Via a recorded message this past Wednesday, the head of the RSF, General Dagalo, referred to as Hemedti, said that any soldier or commander who infringed upon the rights of any person” would be held accountable.

Many of those who escaped El Fasher spent hours hiding near the army’s artillery unit before fleeing west under darkness's protection. Already displaced families from the city’s Abu Shouk camp were forced to move again, seeking refuge in the Daraja Oula neighbourhood before eventually heading for Tawila.

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