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The volunteer nurse Nawal Khalil had been volunteering as a nurse for the past three years in the El Fasher South medical facility when the city was taken over on Sunday by RSF paramilitaries. She was actively caring for the sick, including an elderly woman who needed a blood transfusion, when the offensive started.

“They killed six wounded soldiers plus civilian patients in their beds – some of them women,” she says. “I don’t know what happened to my other patients. I needed to escape as they invaded the hospital.”

Khalil, 27, was hit by a bullet in her right foot and her thigh while RSF combatants gained control of the adjacent military command center. She ran from the urban area and traveled on foot for one day, injured and without food, to reach the town of Garney. “Along the route, they confiscated my phone and cash,” she says. “I possessed nothing remaining.”

In excess of 1,000 persons – featuring females and minors – traveled on foot for two days to arrive at Tawila town within North Darfur after running from El Fasher, which fell under control after a year-and-a-half-long siege.

Tawila, around 55 kilometers to the west of El Fasher, remains under the authority by the SLA faction commanded by Abdul Wahid Mohamed al-Nur.

On Tuesday, the collaborative Joint Forces – which partner with Sudan's military – blamed the RSF for slaughtering in excess of 2,000 non-combatants after the city's capture. The UN said that footage existed featuring numerous unarmed males being shot or lying dead, encircled by RSF combatants.”

Historical Background

Hostilities commenced within Khartoum on 15 April 2023 as a growing contest for power between the two main factions of the military regime finally turned deadly.

From one perspective exist the official Sudanese army, who remain broadly loyal to Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the nation's actual leader. Challenging him are the paramilitaries of the RSF paramilitary group, a gathering of armed factions that obey the former warlord Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, referred to as Hemedti.

The Rapid Support Forces were first created by the former dictatorial ruler Omar al-Bashir as a pro-Arab counterinsurgency force known as the Janjaweed, which soon became linked with massive human rights violations. During 2013, Bashir converted the organization into the RSF, using them to quell a recent insurrection within South Darfur.

The fighting has thrown Sudan into a terrible humanitarian disaster in recent history”, based on UN statements. It has produced the world’s worst displacement crisis, forcing more than 10 million persons internally along with 4 million refugees to adjacent nations, putting mounting pressure upon Chad and South Sudan.

Present Circumstances

Per observer reports, many additional civilians continue to be held by the RSF and partner militias in Garney, south-west of El Fasher. Numerous are ex-military personnel belonging to the Sudanese military, the collaborative forces and other militant organizations that had been fighting alongside the army. They are reportedly being held since they cannot pay ransom requests of between 5m and 10m Sudanese pounds (around six to twelve thousand pounds), according to survivors who made it to Tawila. People who cannot afford payment have been held for multiple days, and in some cases let go solely after developing critical health conditions.

The SLA-AW has apparently permitted army soldiers running from El Fasher to enter Tawila provided they give up their weapons.

The individual Adam Yagoub, aged 28, a motorist originating from Sennar from central Sudanese regions, narrowly escaped being killed subsequent to his seizure by three militiamen on camels close to Garney.

“They planned to decapitate me with a knife,” he informs, displaying his arm, which one of the fighters hit with the stock of a Kalashnikov. “Then one of them recognised me – his brother was my colleague – and begged them not to kill me. There were 18 of us who exited El Fasher as a group, but only eight made it to Tawila. I believe the remainder perished.”

Yagoub states he saw 22 bodies in proximity to what he termed a “fake well” utilized by RSF forces and partner armed groups along the Garney-Tawila route. “It represents a trap,” he says. “People walk all day without water, and when they get to it, the militiamen await. They murdered 22 males at that location and took the bodies away to hide them.”

Another nurse who ran from South El Fasher hospital subsequent to Sunday's offensive reported RSF militiamen penetrated using one doorway and began shooting at patients within the emergency department, causing at least eight fatalities. “We fled through another gate, but they hit me on the head with a firearm,” he states.

Through a video declaration last Wednesday, the RSF commander, Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, declared that any fighter or officer who had “violated the right of any individual would face consequences.

Many of those who escaped El Fasher utilized hours concealing themselves near military artillery before fleeing west under cover of darkness. Previously displaced households from the city’s Abu Shouk camp had to displace once more, finding shelter in Daraja Oula area before finally moving toward Tawila.

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