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Nawal Khalil had been working as a healthcare worker over a three-year period in the El Fasher South medical facility when the city was captured on Sunday by RSF paramilitaries. She was actively caring for the sick, among them an older female patient who needed a blood transfusion, when the offensive started.

“Six injured soldiers were killed plus civilian patients in their beds – some of them women,” she says. “I don’t know what happened for my remaining patients. I had to run when they stormed the hospital.”

Khalil, 27, was shot in the right foot and thigh while RSF combatants gained control of the closeby army headquarters. She fled the city and walked for a day, hurt and lacking sustenance, to arrive at Garney town. “During the journey, they confiscated my phone and money,” she explains. “I possessed nothing remaining.”

Over a thousand individuals – featuring females and minors – journeyed by walking for 48 hours to get to the settlement of Tawila within North Darfur after fleeing El Fasher, which was seized after an 18-month siege.

The town of Tawila, approximately 34 miles westward of El Fasher, is under the control of the SLA-AW group under Abdul Wahid Mohamed al-Nur's leadership.

Last Tuesday, the Joint Forces – that cooperate with the Sudanese army – blamed the RSF for slaughtering in excess of 2,000 non-combatants since the fall of the city. United Nations officials stated there were videos showing “dozens of unarmed men being shot or lying dead, surrounded by RSF fighters.”

Contextual Information

Conflict erupted within Khartoum back on April 15, 2023 as an escalating power struggle involving the two key groups of the armed forces leadership finally turned deadly.

Among the combatants stand the Sudanese military forces, which maintain general loyalty to General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the country’s de facto ruler. Against him stand the paramilitary forces of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a gathering of armed factions which support the ex-warlord General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, called Hemedti.

The RSF was initially founded by the previous authoritarian leader Omar al-Bashir himself as an Arab counterinsurgency militia known as the Janjaweed, which quickly became synonymous with extensive brutalities. Back in 2013, Bashir reformed the faction to become the RSF, using them to quell a recent insurrection in South Darfur.

The conflict has plunged Sudan into among the most severe humanitarian crises in modern times, according to UN officials. It has generated the globe's most severe displacement emergency, scattering more than 10 million people inside the nation and 4 million who have fled to bordering states, generating growing stress upon Chad and South Sudan.

Current Situation Updates

Per observer reports, numerous more non-combatants continue to be held by the RSF and associated armed groups in the Garney area, southwest from El Fasher. Several are previous army members from Sudan's armed forces, the allied Joint Forces and other armed groups that had been fighting alongside the army. Reports indicate they're imprisoned because they cannot afford ransom demands of between 5m and 10m Sudanese pounds (£6,000 to £12,000), according to survivors who arrived in Tawila. People who cannot afford payment have been detained for days, and sometimes let go solely after developing critical health conditions.

The SLA-AW has apparently permitted government troops fleeing El Fasher to enter Tawila if they relinquish their arms.

Adam Yagoub, twenty-eight years old, a motorist originating from Sennar within central Sudan, narrowly escaped being killed after being captured by three militiamen on camels near Garney.

“They planned to decapitate me with a knife,” he informs, showing his arm, that one combatant struck with the stock of a Kalashnikov. “Subsequently one identified me – his brother had worked with me – and pleaded with them to spare me. We were 18 people who departed El Fasher collectively, however just eight arrived in Tawila. I believe the remainder perished.”

Yagoub says he witnessed 22 deceased individuals near what he called a deceptive well employed by the RSF and allied militias between Garney and Tawila. “This is an ambush,” he explains. “People walk all day without water, and when they get to it, the militias are waiting. They killed 22 men there and carried the bodies off to hide them.”

An additional nurse who escaped El Fasher South hospital following Sunday's assault stated RSF combatants came in using one doorway and commenced firing upon patients in the ER section, causing at least eight fatalities. “We fled through another gate, yet they assaulted my head using a rifle,” he recounts.

Through a video declaration on Wednesday, the RSF commander, General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, declared that any fighter or officer who had “violated the right of any person” would be held accountable.

Numerous individuals who fled El Fasher spent hours concealing themselves near military artillery before fleeing west under darkness's protection. Previously displaced households from Abu Shouk camp in the city had to displace once more, taking asylum in the Daraja Oula district before eventually heading for Tawila.

People apprehended by RSF forces within Garney reportedly received {water mixed with flour|flour