‘Civilians were slain in their beds’: chaos and brutality reign after taking of El Fasher
The volunteer nurse Nawal Khalil had been working as a medical volunteer for the past three years at El Fasher South hospital after the city fell seized last Sunday by RSF paramilitaries. She was busy treating patients, featuring one senior woman requiring a blood transfusion, when the offensive started.
“They killed six wounded soldiers and civilians in their beds – among them female victims,” she recounts. “The outcome remains unknown to my other patients. I had to run when they stormed the hospital.”
Khalil, 27, was hit by a bullet in her right foot and upper leg as RSF fighters took control of the adjacent military command center. She escaped from the city and walked for a day, wounded and without nourishment, to arrive at Garney town. “During the journey, they took my phone and money,” she explains. “I possessed nothing remaining.”
In excess of 1,000 persons – including women and children – walked for two days to reach the town of Tawila within North Darfur following their escape from El Fasher, which was captured after a year-and-a-half-long siege.
Tawila, about 34 miles (55km) west away from El Fasher, remains under the authority of the Sudan Liberation Army faction led by Abdul Wahid Mohamed al-Nur (SLA-AW).
Last Tuesday, the allied Joint Forces – which partner with Sudan's military – blamed the RSF with murdering over 2,000 civilians following the urban center's takeover. The UN said that visual evidence showed depicting dozens of weaponless men either being shot or deceased, with RSF militiamen around them.”
Background Context
Conflict erupted within Khartoum during April of 2023 when an intensifying power struggle involving the two key groups of the military regime ultimately became violent.
On one side are the Sudanese armed forces, that stay mostly faithful to Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the nation's actual leader. Against him are the paramilitaries belonging to the RSF, a collection of militias that obey the former warlord Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti.
The RSF was initially founded by the previous authoritarian leader Bashir's regime as an Arab anti-rebellion militia known as the Janjaweed, that rapidly became associated with widespread atrocities. During 2013, Bashir converted the organization to become the RSF, deploying them to crush a new uprising in southern Darfur.
The war has pushed Sudan into among the most severe humanitarian crises in recent history”, as per UN representatives. It has created the world’s worst displacement crisis, scattering more than 10 million people within the country and 4 million who have fled to bordering states, creating increasing strain on Chad and South Sudan.
Current Situation Updates
Based on eyewitness accounts, many additional civilians remain trapped by the RSF and partner militias in Garney, in the southwestern direction from El Fasher. Numerous are ex-military personnel belonging to the Sudanese military, the collaborative forces and other armed groups that had been fighting alongside the army. Reports indicate they're imprisoned because they cannot afford extortion payments between five and ten million Sudanese pounds (approximately £6,000-£12,000), per those who escaped who arrived in Tawila. People who cannot afford payment have been detained for days, and sometimes let go solely after becoming gravely ill.
The SLA-AW has apparently permitted army soldiers running from El Fasher to enter Tawila on condition they surrender their weapons.
A man named Adam Yagoub, 28, a chauffeur from Sennar from central Sudanese regions, barely avoided execution following his capture by three militiamen on camels in the Garney vicinity.
“They planned to decapitate me with a knife,” he tells, exhibiting his limb, which one militant assaulted using an AK-47 rifle butt. “Afterward one remembered me – his sibling had collaborated with me – and urged them not to execute me. We were 18 people who exited El Fasher as a group, yet merely eight reached Tawila. I assume the others died.”
Yagoub states he witnessed 22 deceased individuals close to what he described as a “fake well” utilized by RSF forces and associated militias along the Garney-Tawila route. “It’s a trap,” he comments. “Individuals travel all day lacking water, and upon arriving there, the militias are waiting. They murdered 22 males at that location and carried the bodies off to conceal them.”
A different medical worker who ran from South El Fasher hospital subsequent to Sunday's offensive stated RSF combatants came in through one gate and began shooting at patients in the emergency ward, causing at least eight fatalities. “We escaped through a different gate, however they struck my head with a rifle,” he states.
Via a recorded message this past Wednesday, the head of the RSF, General Dagalo, called Hemedti, stated that any military personnel or official who breached the rights of any individual would face consequences.
Many of those who escaped El Fasher spent hours taking cover close to army artillery positions before fleeing west during nighttime. Previously displaced households from Abu Shouk camp in the city were compelled to relocate again, finding shelter in Daraja Oula area prior to ultimately traveling to Tawila.
Those captured by the RSF within Garney reportedly received {water mixed with flour|flour
