‘They killed civilians in their beds’: disorder and violence dominate after taking of El Fasher
The volunteer nurse Nawal Khalil had been volunteering as a healthcare worker over a three-year period within the South El Fasher hospital as the city became taken over on Sunday by RSF paramilitaries. She was busy treating patients, including an elderly woman requiring a blood transfusion, when the offensive started.
“They murdered six wounded military personnel and civilians in their beds – some of them women,” she states. “I don’t know what happened to my other patients. I was forced to flee when they stormed the hospital.”
Khalil, 27, received a gunshot wound to her right foot and thigh as RSF fighters took control of the adjacent military command center. She escaped from the city and journeyed by foot for 24 hours, injured and without food, to reach the town of Garney. “On the way, they confiscated my phone and cash,” she says. “I ended up with nothing.”
More than 1,000 people – featuring females and minors – walked for two days to reach the town of Tawila in North Darfur following their escape from El Fasher, which was seized after an 18-month siege.
This settlement, approximately 34 miles westward from El Fasher, is governed by of the SLA-AW group commanded by Abdul Wahid Mohamed al-Nur.
This past Tuesday, the Joint Forces – who are allied with Sudan’s army – charged the RSF of killing more than 2,000 civilians after the city's capture. United Nations officials stated that visual evidence showed showing “dozens of unarmed men who were shot or found dead, with RSF militiamen around them.”
Background Context
Fighting broke out in Khartoum on 15 April 2023 when an intensifying power struggle between the two main factions of the armed forces leadership ultimately became violent.
On one side stand the Sudanese military forces, which maintain general loyalty to General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the de facto head of state. Challenging him exist the irregular troops of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), an assembly of militia groups that obey the former warlord General Dagalo, referred to as Hemedti.
The RSF was originally established by the ex-dictator Omar al-Bashir himself as a pro-Arab counterinsurgency force called the Janjaweed, which quickly became synonymous with widespread atrocities. Back in 2013, Bashir transformed the group into the RSF, sending them to suppress a recent insurrection within South Darfur.
The war has pushed Sudan into “one of the worst humanitarian nightmares in recent history”, according to UN officials. It has generated the planet's biggest displacement catastrophe, forcing more than 10 million persons inside the nation along with 4 million refugees into neighbouring countries, creating increasing strain on Chad and South Sudan.
Current Situation Updates
Based on eyewitness accounts, numerous more non-combatants stay confined by RSF forces and associated armed groups in the Garney area, in the southwestern direction from El Fasher. Several are previous army members belonging to the Sudanese military, the allied Joint Forces and other militant organizations which had been combatting together with the army. They are reportedly being held since they cannot pay extortion payments between five and ten million Sudanese pounds (approximately £6,000-£12,000), per those who escaped who made it to Tawila. People who cannot afford payment have been held for multiple days, and in some cases released only after becoming gravely ill.
The SLA-AW has apparently permitted military personnel escaping El Fasher to come into Tawila on condition they surrender their weapons.
Adam Yagoub, aged 28, a driver from Sennar in central Sudan, 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, showing his arm, which one militant assaulted with the stock of a Kalashnikov. “Then one of them recognised me – his sibling had collaborated with me – and pleaded with them to spare me. Our group contained 18 individuals who exited El Fasher as a group, however just eight arrived in Tawila. I think the others are dead.”
Yagoub states he witnessed 22 deceased individuals close to what he described as a deceptive well utilized by RSF forces and partner armed groups between Garney and Tawila. “It’s a trap,” he comments. “People walk all day without water, and upon arriving there, the militiamen await. They slaughtered 22 men on that spot and carried the bodies off to conceal them.”
Another nurse who escaped El Fasher South hospital subsequent to Sunday's offensive said RSF fighters entered using one doorway and opened fire on patients within the emergency department, murdering no less than eight. “We ran out via another entrance, but they hit me on the head with a rifle,” he states.
Through a video declaration this past Wednesday, the head of the RSF, General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, stated that any military personnel or official who breached the rights of any person” would be held accountable.
Several people who got away El Fasher utilized hours concealing themselves near military artillery before running west during nighttime. Families already uprooted from the city’s Abu Shouk camp were compelled to relocate again, seeking refuge in the Daraja Oula neighbourhood before eventually heading for Tawila.
People apprehended by RSF forces within Garney reportedly received {water mixed with flour|flour
