‘Civilians were slain in their beds’: chaos and brutality dominate after capture of El Fasher
The volunteer nurse Nawal Khalil had been serving as a healthcare worker for the past three years in the El Fasher South medical facility after the city fell seized last Sunday by the RSF fighters. She was occupied with patient care, including an elderly woman requiring a blood transfusion, when the attack began.
“They murdered six wounded military personnel along with civilians in their beds – some of them women,” she states. “The outcome remains unknown 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 during the RSF's seizure of the adjacent military command center. She escaped from the city and walked for a day, hurt and lacking sustenance, to reach the town of Garney. “On the way, they confiscated my phone and currency,” she explains. “I possessed nothing remaining.”
Over a thousand individuals – featuring females and minors – journeyed by walking for 48 hours to reach the town of Tawila within North Darfur following their escape from El Fasher, which fell under control following an 18-month blockade.
This settlement, approximately 34 miles westward away from El Fasher, remains under the authority of the Sudan Liberation Army faction led by Abdul Wahid Mohamed al-Nur (SLA-AW).
This past Tuesday, the Joint Forces – that cooperate with the Sudanese army – blamed the RSF with murdering over 2,000 civilians following the urban center's takeover. The UN said that visual evidence showed featuring numerous unarmed males who were shot or found dead, with RSF militiamen around them.”
Historical Background
Hostilities commenced within Khartoum back on April 15, 2023 as an escalating power struggle between the two main factions of the armed forces leadership finally turned deadly.
On one side stand the Sudanese military forces, that stay mostly faithful to Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the de facto head of state. Challenging him stand the paramilitary forces of the RSF paramilitary group, a collection of militias which support the ex-warlord General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, referred to as Hemedti.
The RSF was originally established by the former dictatorial ruler Omar al-Bashir as a pro-Arab counterinsurgency force known as the Janjaweed, which quickly became synonymous with widespread atrocities. Back in 2013, Bashir reformed the faction into the Rapid Support Forces, sending them to suppress a recent insurrection in South Darfur.
The conflict has plunged Sudan into a terrible humanitarian disaster in contemporary history, based on UN statements. It has generated the globe's most severe displacement emergency, forcing more than 10 million persons 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, numerous more non-combatants stay confined by RSF forces and partner militias in Garney, in the southwestern direction from El Fasher. Numerous are ex-military personnel from Sudan's armed forces, the Joint Forces and other militant organizations that had been fighting alongside the army. They are apparently detained as they lack funds for ransom requests ranging from 5 to 10 million Sudanese pounds (around six to twelve thousand pounds), according to survivors who made it to Tawila. Those unable to pay have been held for multiple days, and occasionally freed only when developing critical health conditions.
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, aged 28, a driver from Sennar from central Sudanese regions, closely avoided death subsequent to his seizure by three armed men mounted on camels near Garney.
“They planned to decapitate me using a knife,” he recounts, displaying his arm, that one combatant struck with the stock of a Kalashnikov. “Then one of them recognised me – his brother was my colleague – and urged them not to execute me. We were 18 people who departed El Fasher collectively, but only eight made it to Tawila. I assume the others died.”
Yagoub says he witnessed 22 deceased individuals close to what he described as a deceptive well employed by the RSF and partner armed groups along the Garney-Tawila route. “It represents a trap,” he says. “People walk all day without water, and upon arriving there, the militiamen await. They killed 22 men there and took the bodies away to conceal them.”
A different medical worker who fled the El Fasher South medical facility subsequent to Sunday's offensive reported RSF militiamen penetrated via one entrance and commenced firing upon 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 firearm,” he says.
In a video statement last Wednesday, the leader of the RSF, General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, called Hemedti, said that any soldier or officer who had “violated the right of any person” would be held accountable.
Several people who got away El Fasher utilized hours concealing themselves near military artillery prior to escaping westward under cover of darkness. Families already uprooted from the city’s Abu Shouk camp had to displace once more, taking asylum in the Daraja Oula district prior to ultimately traveling to Tawila.
People apprehended by RSF forces within Garney reportedly received {water mixed with flour|flour