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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 captured on Sunday by RSF paramilitaries. She was occupied with patient care, featuring one senior woman requiring a blood transfusion, when the attack began.

“Six injured soldiers were killed along with civilians in their beds – among them female victims,” she says. “I am unaware of the fate for my remaining patients. I needed to escape as they invaded the hospital.”

Khalil, 27, received a gunshot wound to her right foot and her thigh while RSF combatants gained control of the adjacent military command center. She escaped from the city and walked for a day, injured and without food, to arrive at Garney town. “On the way, they confiscated my phone and cash,” she describes. “I ended up with nothing.”

More than 1,000 people – comprising women and children – traveled on foot for two days to arrive at Tawila town located in northern Darfur after fleeing 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 under Abdul Wahid Mohamed al-Nur's leadership.

On Tuesday, the collaborative Joint Forces – which partner with Sudan's military – blamed the RSF with murdering over 2,000 civilians since the fall of the city. United Nations officials stated there were videos showing “dozens of unarmed men who were shot or found dead, encircled by RSF combatants.”

Historical Background

Hostilities commenced in Sudan's capital during April of 2023 as a growing contest for power among the two primary factions of the military regime ultimately became violent.

Among the combatants stand the Sudanese military forces, which maintain general loyalty to General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the country’s de facto ruler. Challenging him exist the irregular troops of the RSF paramilitary group, an assembly of militia groups that obey the former warlord General Dagalo, known as Hemedti.

The RSF was initially founded by the former dictatorial ruler Omar al-Bashir as a pro-Arab counterinsurgency force named the Janjaweed, which soon became linked with widespread atrocities. Back in 2013, Bashir transformed the group to become the RSF, deploying them to crush a new uprising in southern Darfur.

The fighting has thrown Sudan into a terrible humanitarian disaster in contemporary history, based on UN statements. It has produced the globe's most severe displacement emergency, dispersing over 10 million individuals internally and 4 million who have fled to bordering states, generating growing stress on both Chad and South Sudan.

Current Situation Updates

Per observer reports, thousands more civilians stay confined by RSF forces and allied militias in Garney, in the southwestern direction from El Fasher. Many are former soldiers from Sudan's armed forces, the Joint Forces plus additional armed factions that had been fighting alongside the army. They are apparently detained because they cannot afford ransom requests of between 5m and 10m Sudanese pounds (around six to twelve thousand pounds), per those who escaped who made it to Tawila. Those unable to pay remain imprisoned for several days, and in some cases let go solely after developing critical health conditions.

Reports suggest the SLA-AW has authorized military personnel escaping El Fasher to access Tawila if they relinquish their arms.

Adam Yagoub, 28, a motorist originating from Sennar in central Sudan, barely avoided execution following his capture by three camel-riding militiamen close to Garney.

“They planned to decapitate me using a knife,” he tells, exhibiting his limb, that one combatant struck using an AK-47 rifle butt. “Subsequently one identified me – his brother had worked with me – and urged them not to execute me. We were 18 people who left El Fasher together, yet merely eight reached Tawila. I assume the others died.”

Yagoub reports he observed 22 corpses in proximity to what he termed a fraudulent water source utilized by RSF forces and associated militias between Garney and Tawila. “It represents a trap,” he comments. “Individuals travel all day lacking water, and when they get to it, the militias are waiting. They slaughtered 22 men on that spot and removed the corpses to hide them.”

An additional nurse who fled the El Fasher South medical facility after the attack on Sunday reported RSF militiamen penetrated through one gate and began shooting at patients within the emergency department, killing at least eight. “We fled through another gate, but they hit me on the head with a firearm,” he says.

Via a recorded message this past Wednesday, the RSF commander, General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, stated that any military personnel or official who breached the rights of any civilian would be punished.

Numerous individuals who fled El Fasher utilized hours hiding near the army’s artillery unit prior to escaping westward under darkness's protection. Previously displaced households originating from the urban Abu Shouk settlement had to displace once more, seeking refuge in the Daraja Oula neighbourhood before eventually heading for Tawila.

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