‘Civilians were slain in their beds’: mayhem and cruelty dominate after taking of El Fasher

The volunteer nurse Nawal Khalil had been working as a medical volunteer 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, among them an older female patient who needed a blood transfusion, when the offensive started.

“They killed six wounded soldiers plus civilian patients in their beds – some of them women,” she states. “I am unaware of the fate for my remaining patients. I had to run as they invaded the hospital.”

The 27-year-old Khalil, was hit by a bullet in her right foot and upper leg as RSF fighters took control of the nearby military headquarters. She escaped from the city and traveled on foot for one day, hurt and lacking sustenance, to reach the town of Garney. “Along the route, they confiscated my phone and cash,” she says. “I was left with nothing.”

Over a thousand individuals – including women and children – traveled on foot for two days to get to the settlement of Tawila in North Darfur after running from El Fasher, which was captured following an 18-month blockade.

The town of Tawila, about 34 miles (55km) west away from El Fasher, remains under the authority by the SLA faction commanded by Abdul Wahid Mohamed al-Nur.

This past Tuesday, the collaborative Joint Forces – which partner with Sudan's military – blamed the RSF for slaughtering in excess of 2,000 non-combatants after the city's capture. The UN reported that visual evidence showed showing “dozens of unarmed men who were shot or found dead, surrounded by RSF fighters.”

Background Context

Conflict erupted in Khartoum back on April 15, 2023 when an intensifying power struggle among the two primary factions of the armed forces leadership 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 stand the paramilitary forces belonging to the RSF, a collection of militias who follow the former warlord General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti.

The RSF was initially founded by the previous authoritarian leader Bashir's regime as an Arab counterinsurgency militia known as the Janjaweed, which soon became linked with massive human rights violations. Back in 2013, Bashir converted the organization to become the RSF, using them to quell a fresh rebellion in southern Darfur.

The fighting has thrown Sudan into a terrible humanitarian disaster in contemporary history, according to UN officials. It has created the planet's biggest displacement catastrophe, scattering more than 10 million people internally plus 4 million who escaped to bordering states, generating growing stress on both Chad and South Sudan.

Present Circumstances

Based on eyewitness accounts, numerous more non-combatants remain trapped by the RSF and associated armed groups in Garney, in the southwestern direction from El Fasher. Many are former soldiers from Sudan's armed forces, the collaborative forces plus additional armed factions that had been fighting alongside the army. Reports indicate they're imprisoned as they lack funds for extortion payments of between 5m and 10m Sudanese pounds (around six to twelve thousand pounds), according to survivors who reached Tawila. Individuals incapable of paying have been held for multiple days, and sometimes let go solely after becoming gravely ill.

The SLA-AW has reportedly allowed army soldiers running from El Fasher to come into Tawila if they relinquish their arms.

Adam Yagoub, 28, a chauffeur from Sennar within central Sudan, barely avoided execution subsequent to his seizure by three camel-riding militiamen close to Garney.

“They planned to decapitate me using a knife,” he informs, exhibiting his limb, that one combatant struck with the stock of a Kalashnikov. “Subsequently one identified me – his brother had worked with me – and urged them not to execute me. There were 18 of us who exited El Fasher as a group, however just eight arrived in Tawila. I believe the remainder perished.”

Yagoub reports he saw 22 bodies in proximity to what he termed a deceptive well used by the RSF and allied militias along the Garney-Tawila route. “This is an ambush,” he explains. “Individuals travel all day lacking water, and when they get to it, the militiamen await. They killed 22 men there and carried the bodies off to hide them.”

A different medical worker who fled the El Fasher South medical facility following Sunday's assault reported RSF militiamen penetrated via one entrance and commenced firing upon patients within the emergency department, murdering no less than eight. “We fled through another gate, however they struck my head with a rifle,” he says.

Via a recorded message on Wednesday, the RSF commander, Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, called Hemedti, declared that any fighter or official who breached the rights of any civilian would be punished.

Several people who got away El Fasher utilized hours concealing themselves near military artillery before running west 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.

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