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The volunteer nurse Nawal Khalil had been working as a medical volunteer for three years in the El Fasher South medical facility after the city fell captured on Sunday by the RSF fighters. She was actively caring for the sick, including an elderly woman requiring a blood transfusion, as the assault commenced.

“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 needed to escape as they invaded the hospital.”

Khalil, 27, was shot in the right foot and thigh during the RSF's seizure of the adjacent military command center. She fled the city and journeyed by foot for 24 hours, hurt and lacking sustenance, to get to the settlement of Garney. “Along the route, they seized my mobile and money,” she describes. “I ended up with nothing.”

In excess of 1,000 persons – including 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, about 34 miles (55km) west of El Fasher, remains under the authority by the SLA faction commanded by Abdul Wahid Mohamed al-Nur.

On Tuesday, the allied Joint Forces – which partner with Sudan's military – accused the RSF for slaughtering in excess of 2,000 non-combatants after the city's capture. The UN said there were videos depicting dozens of weaponless men who were shot or found dead, with RSF militiamen around them.”

Historical Background

Fighting broke out in Khartoum on 15 April 2023 as an escalating power struggle among the two primary factions within the military government finally turned deadly.

From one perspective are the Sudanese armed forces, that stay mostly faithful to Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the de facto head of state. Against him stand the paramilitary forces of the RSF paramilitary group, a collection of militias who follow the former warlord General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti.

The RSF was initially founded by the ex-dictator Bashir's regime as an Arab anti-rebellion militia known as the Janjaweed, that rapidly became associated with widespread atrocities. In 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, dispersing over 10 million individuals within the country along with 4 million refugees to adjacent nations, putting mounting pressure upon Chad and South Sudan.

Current Situation Updates

Based on eyewitness accounts, numerous more non-combatants continue to be held by the RSF and allied militias within 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 because they cannot afford ransom requests ranging from 5 to 10 million Sudanese pounds (£6,000 to £12,000), according to survivors who made it to Tawila. People who cannot afford payment have been detained for days, and in some cases let go solely after falling seriously ill.

Reports suggest the SLA-AW has authorized army soldiers running from El Fasher to enter 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 after being captured by three armed men mounted on camels close to Garney.

“They wanted to cut my head off with a blade,” he recounts, displaying his arm, that one combatant struck with the butt of an AK-47 rifle. “Subsequently one identified me – his brother was my colleague – and pleaded with them to spare me. There were 18 of us who left El Fasher together, yet merely eight reached Tawila. I think the others are dead.”

Yagoub says he saw 22 bodies near what he called a deceptive well employed by the RSF and partner armed groups along the Garney-Tawila route. “This is an ambush,” he explains. “People walk all day without water, and when they reach it, the militias are waiting. They slaughtered 22 men on that spot and carried the bodies off to obscure them.”

Another nurse who ran from South El Fasher hospital after the attack on Sunday said RSF fighters entered using one doorway and commenced firing upon patients in the ER section, killing at least eight. “We ran out via another entrance, but they hit me on the head with a firearm,” he states.

In a video statement this past Wednesday, the head of the RSF, General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, called Hemedti, declared that any fighter or official who breached the rights of any civilian would be punished.

Several people who got away El Fasher utilized hours taking cover close to army artillery positions before fleeing west under darkness's protection. Previously displaced households from the city’s Abu Shouk camp were forced to move again, taking asylum in the Daraja Oula district before finally moving toward Tawila.

People apprehended by RSF forces in Garney were reportedly given {water mixed with flour|flour