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The volunteer nurse Nawal Khalil had been serving as a healthcare worker over a three-year period within the South El Fasher hospital when the city was captured on Sunday by RSF paramilitaries. She was busy treating patients, including an elderly woman who needed a blood transfusion, as the assault commenced.

“Six injured soldiers were killed along with civilians in their beds – among them female victims,” she says. “I am unaware of the fate regarding my other patients. I was forced to flee as they invaded the hospital.”

Khalil, aged 27, was shot in the right foot and upper leg during the RSF's seizure of the nearby military headquarters. She escaped from the city and traveled on foot for one day, injured and without food, to get to the settlement of Garney. “On the way, they confiscated my phone and money,” she explains. “I possessed nothing remaining.”

Over a thousand individuals – comprising women and children – walked for two days to get to the settlement of Tawila within North Darfur after fleeing El Fasher, which was captured following an 18-month blockade.

Tawila, about 34 miles (55km) west of El Fasher, is governed by of the Sudan Liberation Army faction under Abdul Wahid Mohamed al-Nur's leadership.

On Tuesday, the collaborative Joint Forces – that cooperate with the Sudanese army – blamed the RSF with murdering over 2,000 civilians since the fall of the city. The UN reported there were videos depicting dozens of weaponless men being shot or lying dead, encircled by RSF combatants.”

Contextual Information

Fighting broke out in Khartoum on 15 April 2023 as an escalating power struggle between the two main factions of the military regime finally turned deadly.

On one side exist the official Sudanese army, which maintain general loyalty towards General al-Burhan, the de facto head of state. Against 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 Bashir's regime as a pro-Arab counterinsurgency force named the Janjaweed, that rapidly became associated with widespread atrocities. Back in 2013, Bashir transformed the group into the Rapid Support Forces, using them to quell a recent insurrection in South Darfur.

The conflict has plunged Sudan into a terrible humanitarian disaster in modern times, based on UN statements. It has created the globe's most severe displacement emergency, scattering more than 10 million people inside the nation along with 4 million refugees into neighbouring countries, generating growing stress on Chad and South Sudan.

Present Circumstances

Based on eyewitness accounts, thousands more civilians stay confined by RSF forces and partner militias in Garney, in the southwestern direction from El Fasher. Numerous are ex-military personnel belonging to the Sudanese military, the Joint Forces plus additional armed factions that were previously aligned with the military. They are reportedly being held since they cannot pay ransom demands of between 5m and 10m Sudanese pounds (around six to twelve thousand pounds), according to survivors who arrived in Tawila. People who cannot afford payment remain imprisoned for several days, and occasionally let go solely after developing critical health conditions.

The SLA-AW has reportedly allowed military personnel escaping El Fasher to enter Tawila on condition they surrender their weapons.

Adam Yagoub, twenty-eight years old, a motorist originating from Sennar within central Sudan, narrowly escaped being killed subsequent to his seizure by three camel-riding militiamen near Garney.

“They wanted to cut my head off with a blade,” he informs, exhibiting his limb, that one combatant struck with the stock of a Kalashnikov. “Subsequently one identified me – his sibling had collaborated with me – and urged them not to execute me. There were 18 of us who departed El Fasher collectively, but only eight made it to Tawila. I think the others are dead.”

Yagoub reports he saw 22 bodies in proximity to what he termed a fraudulent water source utilized by RSF forces and allied militias in the area connecting Garney and Tawila. “This is an ambush,” he explains. “People walk all day without water, and when they reach it, the militiamen await. They murdered 22 males at that location and removed the corpses to conceal them.”

Another nurse who ran from South El Fasher hospital subsequent to Sunday's offensive reported RSF militiamen penetrated via one entrance and began shooting at patients in the emergency ward, murdering no less than eight. “We fled through another gate, yet they assaulted my head with a firearm,” he states.

In a video statement this past Wednesday, the leader of the RSF, General Dagalo, referred to as Hemedti, stated that any military personnel or officer who had “violated the right of any individual would face consequences.

Numerous individuals who fled El Fasher spent hours taking cover close to army artillery positions before fleeing west during nighttime. Previously displaced households originating from the urban Abu Shouk settlement were forced to move again, seeking refuge in the Daraja Oula neighbourhood before finally moving toward Tawila.

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