‘Civilians were slain in their beds’: chaos and brutality reign after taking of El Fasher

Nawal Khalil had been working as a healthcare worker for the past three years within the South El Fasher hospital when the city was seized last Sunday by RSF paramilitaries. She was actively caring for the sick, including an elderly woman requiring a blood transfusion, when the offensive started.

“They murdered six wounded military personnel plus civilian patients in their beds – including some women,” she recounts. “The outcome remains unknown for my remaining patients. I was forced to flee after they raided the medical facility.”

Khalil, 27, received a gunshot wound to her right foot and her thigh during the RSF's seizure of the closeby army headquarters. She ran from the urban area and walked for a day, hurt and lacking sustenance, to arrive at Garney town. “Along the route, they confiscated my phone and cash,” she describes. “I ended up with nothing.”

Over a thousand individuals – including women and children – journeyed by walking for 48 hours to arrive at Tawila town within North Darfur after running from El Fasher, which was captured following an 18-month blockade.

This settlement, around 55 kilometers to the west from El Fasher, remains under the authority of the Sudan Liberation Army faction commanded by Abdul Wahid Mohamed al-Nur.

This past Tuesday, the Joint Forces – which partner with Sudan's military – accused the RSF of killing more than 2,000 civilians following the urban center's takeover. United Nations officials stated that footage existed depicting dozens of weaponless men who were shot or found dead, with RSF militiamen around them.”

Contextual Information

Hostilities commenced within Khartoum back on April 15, 2023 when an intensifying power struggle involving the two key groups of the armed forces leadership eventually resulted in fatalities.

From one perspective exist the official Sudanese army, which maintain general loyalty to Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the nation's actual leader. Against him exist the irregular troops belonging to the RSF, an assembly of militia groups which support the ex-warlord Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti.

The Rapid Support Forces were first created by the former dictatorial ruler Bashir's regime as an Arab counterinsurgency militia known as the Janjaweed, which quickly became synonymous with massive human rights violations. In 2013, Bashir converted the organization to become the RSF, deploying them to crush a new uprising within South Darfur.

The conflict has plunged Sudan into “one of the worst humanitarian nightmares in recent history”, based on UN statements. It has produced the world’s worst displacement crisis, dispersing over 10 million individuals inside the nation along with 4 million refugees to adjacent nations, creating increasing strain on both Chad and South Sudan.

Current Situation Updates

According to witnesses, thousands more civilians stay confined by RSF forces and partner militias in the Garney area, in the southwestern direction from El Fasher. Numerous are ex-military personnel from Sudan's armed forces, the allied Joint Forces plus additional armed factions that were previously aligned with the military. They are reportedly being held because they cannot afford ransom requests of between 5m and 10m Sudanese pounds (approximately £6,000-£12,000), according to survivors who made it to Tawila. Individuals incapable of paying remain imprisoned for several days, and occasionally released only after falling seriously ill.

The SLA-AW has reportedly allowed government troops fleeing El Fasher to come into Tawila on condition they surrender their weapons.

Adam Yagoub, twenty-eight years old, a chauffeur from Sennar from central Sudanese regions, closely avoided death after being captured by three camel-riding militiamen close to Garney.

“They planned to decapitate me with a knife,” he tells, exhibiting his limb, which one militant assaulted using an AK-47 rifle butt. “Then one of them recognised me – his brother was my colleague – and urged them not to execute me. Our group contained 18 individuals who departed El Fasher collectively, 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 in the area connecting Garney and Tawila. “It represents a trap,” he comments. “Individuals travel all day lacking water, and upon arriving there, the militiamen await. They slaughtered 22 men on that spot and took the bodies away to conceal them.”

A different medical worker who escaped El Fasher South hospital after the attack on Sunday reported RSF militiamen penetrated using one doorway and opened fire on patients within the emergency department, murdering no less than eight. “We fled through another gate, yet they assaulted my head with a firearm,” he states.

Through a video declaration last Wednesday, the RSF commander, General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, stated that any military personnel or official who breached the rights of any individual would face consequences.

Numerous individuals who fled from El Fasher passed hours concealing themselves near military artillery before running west under darkness's protection. Families already uprooted from Abu Shouk camp in the city were compelled to relocate again, taking asylum in the Daraja Oula district before finally moving toward Tawila.

Those captured by the RSF within Garney reportedly received {water mixed with flour|flour