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The volunteer nurse Nawal Khalil had been volunteering 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, among them an older female patient requiring a blood transfusion, as the assault commenced.

“Six injured soldiers were killed plus civilian patients in their beds – including some women,” she states. “The outcome remains unknown for my remaining patients. I was forced to flee after they raided the medical facility.”

The 27-year-old Khalil, received a gunshot wound to her right foot and upper leg as RSF fighters took control of the nearby military headquarters. She ran from the urban area and traveled on foot for one day, injured and without food, to arrive at Garney town. “Along the route, they seized my mobile and currency,” she explains. “I ended up with nothing.”

More than 1,000 people – including women and children – walked for two days to reach the town of Tawila within North Darfur following their escape from El Fasher, which fell under control after an 18-month siege.

The town of Tawila, approximately 34 miles westward away from El Fasher, remains under the authority of the SLA-AW group under Abdul Wahid Mohamed al-Nur's leadership.

Last Tuesday, the allied Joint Forces – who are allied with Sudan’s army – charged the RSF for slaughtering in excess of 2,000 non-combatants following the urban center's takeover. The UN reported that footage existed featuring numerous unarmed males who were shot or found dead, with RSF militiamen around them.”

Background Context

Hostilities commenced in Khartoum on 15 April 2023 when an intensifying power struggle involving the two key groups of the military regime eventually resulted in fatalities.

On one side are the Sudanese armed forces, which maintain general loyalty to General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the nation's actual leader. Challenging him stand the paramilitary forces of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), an assembly of militia groups which support the ex-warlord General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti.

The Rapid Support Forces were first created by the previous authoritarian leader Omar al-Bashir himself as an Arab anti-rebellion militia called the Janjaweed, which quickly became synonymous with massive human rights violations. During 2013, Bashir transformed the group into the RSF, deploying them to crush a new uprising within South Darfur.

The war has pushed Sudan into among the most severe humanitarian crises in recent history”, as per UN representatives. It has created the globe's most severe displacement emergency, scattering more than 10 million people internally plus 4 million who escaped to adjacent nations, creating increasing strain upon Chad and South Sudan.

Current Situation Updates

Per observer reports, thousands more civilians remain trapped by the RSF and allied militias in Garney, southwest from El Fasher. Many are former soldiers from Sudan's armed forces, the Joint Forces and other armed groups that were previously aligned with the military. They are reportedly being held as they lack funds for ransom demands of between 5m and 10m Sudanese pounds (£6,000 to £12,000), according to survivors who reached Tawila. People who cannot afford payment have been held for multiple days, and occasionally let go solely after falling seriously ill.

The SLA-AW has reportedly allowed army soldiers running from El Fasher to come into Tawila on condition they surrender their weapons.

A man named Adam Yagoub, aged 28, a chauffeur from Sennar from central Sudanese regions, narrowly escaped being killed subsequent to his seizure by three militiamen on camels near Garney.

“They planned to decapitate me with a blade,” he informs, showing his arm, which one militant assaulted with the stock of a Kalashnikov. “Subsequently one identified me – his sibling had collaborated with me – and begged them not to kill me. There were 18 of us who departed El Fasher collectively, but only eight made it to Tawila. I think the others are dead.”

Yagoub says he witnessed 22 deceased individuals close to what he described as a fraudulent water source used by the RSF and partner armed groups in the area connecting Garney and Tawila. “This is an ambush,” he comments. “Individuals travel all day lacking water, and when they reach it, the militiamen await. They killed 22 men there and removed the corpses to obscure them.”

An additional nurse who ran from South El Fasher hospital after the attack on Sunday stated RSF combatants came in using one doorway and commenced firing upon patients in the ER section, murdering no less than eight. “We fled through another gate, but they hit me on the head using a rifle,” he recounts.

Through a video declaration last Wednesday, the RSF commander, General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, declared that any fighter or officer who had “violated the right of any civilian would be punished.

Numerous individuals who fled El Fasher spent hours taking cover close to army artillery positions before running west under cover of darkness. Already displaced families originating from the urban Abu Shouk settlement were forced to move again, seeking refuge in the Daraja Oula neighbourhood prior to ultimately traveling to Tawila.

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