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A nurse named Nawal Khalil had been serving as a nurse over a three-year period at El Fasher South hospital after the city fell taken over on Sunday by the RSF fighters. She was busy treating patients, including an elderly woman requiring a blood transfusion, as the assault commenced.

“They murdered six wounded military personnel along with civilians in their beds – among them female victims,” she says. “The outcome remains unknown to my other patients. I was forced to flee as they invaded the hospital.”

The 27-year-old Khalil, received a gunshot wound to her right foot and thigh as RSF fighters took control of the nearby military headquarters. She fled the city and walked for a day, hurt and lacking sustenance, to arrive at Garney town. “During the journey, they seized my mobile and money,” she says. “I possessed nothing remaining.”

More than 1,000 people – comprising women and children – journeyed by walking for 48 hours to arrive at Tawila town located in northern Darfur after running from El Fasher, which was seized following an 18-month blockade.

The town of Tawila, around 55 kilometers to the west away from El Fasher, is governed by of the SLA-AW group commanded by Abdul Wahid Mohamed al-Nur.

On Tuesday, the allied Joint Forces – which partner with Sudan's military – accused the RSF of killing more than 2,000 civilians following the urban center's takeover. The UN reported there were videos depicting dozens of weaponless men being shot or lying dead, encircled by RSF combatants.”

Historical Background

Conflict erupted in Khartoum on 15 April 2023 when an intensifying power struggle among the two primary factions of the armed forces leadership ultimately became violent.

From one perspective stand the Sudanese military forces, that stay mostly faithful towards General al-Burhan, the country’s de facto ruler. Opposing him are the paramilitaries belonging to the RSF, a collection of militias that obey the former warlord General Dagalo, known as Hemedti.

The Rapid Support Forces were first created by the previous authoritarian leader Bashir's regime as an Arab counterinsurgency militia known as the Janjaweed, that rapidly became associated with massive human rights violations. During 2013, Bashir reformed the faction into the Rapid Support Forces, using them to quell a new uprising in southern Darfur.

The conflict has plunged Sudan into among the most severe humanitarian crises in recent history”, based on UN statements. It has produced the planet's biggest displacement catastrophe, scattering more than 10 million people internally and 4 million who have fled to adjacent nations, generating growing stress on both Chad and South Sudan.

Current Situation Updates

Per observer reports, thousands more civilians stay confined by RSF forces and associated armed groups in the Garney area, south-west of El Fasher. Numerous are ex-military personnel belonging to the Sudanese military, the allied Joint Forces and other armed groups that had been fighting alongside the army. They are apparently detained as they lack funds for ransom requests between five and ten million Sudanese pounds (around six to twelve thousand pounds), according to survivors who reached Tawila. Individuals incapable of paying have been detained for days, and in some cases released only after becoming gravely ill.

The SLA-AW has reportedly allowed military personnel escaping El Fasher to come into Tawila if they relinquish their arms.

A man named Adam Yagoub, aged 28, a driver from Sennar in central Sudan, barely avoided execution following his capture by three armed men mounted on camels near Garney.

“They intended to behead me using a knife,” he recounts, showing his arm, which one militant assaulted with the butt of an AK-47 rifle. “Subsequently one identified me – his brother had worked with me – and begged them not to kill me. We were 18 people who departed El Fasher collectively, yet merely eight reached Tawila. I think the others are dead.”

Yagoub says he saw 22 bodies in proximity to what he termed a “fake well” utilized by RSF forces and associated militias along the Garney-Tawila route. “This is an ambush,” he says. “Individuals travel all day lacking water, and when they get to it, the armed groups lie in wait. They killed 22 men there and carried the bodies off to conceal them.”

Another nurse who ran from South El Fasher hospital following Sunday's assault reported RSF militiamen penetrated via one entrance and opened fire on patients in the emergency ward, murdering no less than eight. “We ran out via another entrance, but they hit me on the head with a rifle,” he recounts.

In a video statement on Wednesday, the RSF commander, General Dagalo, called Hemedti, said that any soldier or official who breached the rights of any civilian would be punished.

Many of those who escaped from El Fasher passed hours taking cover close to army artillery positions before fleeing west under cover of darkness. Families already uprooted originating from the urban Abu Shouk settlement were compelled to relocate again, taking asylum in the Daraja Oula district before eventually heading for Tawila.

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