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

A nurse named Nawal Khalil had been volunteering as a healthcare worker over a three-year period at El Fasher South 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 killed six wounded soldiers and civilians in their beds – some of them women,” she states. “I am unaware of the fate for my remaining patients. I was forced to flee when they stormed the hospital.”

Khalil, aged 27, was hit by a bullet in her right foot and thigh as RSF fighters took control of the nearby military headquarters. She escaped from the city and walked for a day, hurt and lacking sustenance, to get to the settlement of Garney. “Along the route, they took my phone and money,” she describes. “I ended up with nothing.”

In excess of 1,000 persons – featuring females and minors – traveled on foot for two days to get to the settlement of Tawila within North Darfur after fleeing El Fasher, which was seized following an 18-month blockade.

This settlement, approximately 34 miles westward of El Fasher, is governed by of the Sudan Liberation Army faction commanded by Abdul Wahid Mohamed al-Nur.

This past Tuesday, the collaborative Joint Forces – who are allied with Sudan’s army – charged the RSF of killing more than 2,000 civilians following the urban center's takeover. United Nations officials stated that visual evidence showed depicting dozens of weaponless men who were shot or found dead, with RSF militiamen around them.”

Contextual Information

Fighting broke out in Khartoum back on April 15, 2023 as an escalating power struggle involving the two key groups of the military regime eventually resulted in fatalities.

On one side exist the official Sudanese army, who remain broadly loyal to General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the de facto head of state. Challenging him are the paramilitaries of the RSF paramilitary group, a gathering of armed factions that obey the former warlord Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, referred to as Hemedti.

The Rapid Support Forces were first created by the previous authoritarian leader Omar al-Bashir as an Arab counterinsurgency militia named the Janjaweed, which quickly became synonymous with widespread atrocities. During 2013, Bashir transformed the group into the Rapid Support Forces, using them to quell a new uprising within South Darfur.

The conflict has plunged Sudan into among the most severe humanitarian crises in contemporary history, based on UN statements. It has generated the world’s worst displacement crisis, dispersing over 10 million individuals inside the nation along with 4 million refugees to bordering states, creating increasing strain on both Chad and South Sudan.

Current Situation Updates

Per observer reports, thousands more civilians continue to be held by the RSF and allied militias within Garney, south-west of El Fasher. Many are former soldiers belonging to the Sudanese military, the collaborative forces and other armed groups that had been fighting alongside the army. They are apparently detained because they cannot afford extortion payments ranging from 5 to 10 million Sudanese pounds (£6,000 to £12,000), according to survivors who made it to Tawila. Those unable to pay remain imprisoned for several days, and sometimes released only after falling seriously ill.

Reports suggest the SLA-AW has authorized army soldiers running from El Fasher to enter Tawila on condition they surrender their weapons.

Adam Yagoub, 28, a chauffeur from Sennar in central Sudan, narrowly escaped being killed after being captured by three armed men mounted on camels near Garney.

“They planned to decapitate me using a knife,” he informs, exhibiting his limb, which one of the fighters hit using an AK-47 rifle butt. “Subsequently one identified me – his brother was my colleague – and pleaded with them to spare 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 observed 22 corpses in proximity to what he termed a fraudulent water source used by the RSF and partner armed groups along the Garney-Tawila route. “It represents a trap,” he says. “Persons journey daily without hydration, and when they reach it, the armed groups lie in wait. They murdered 22 males at that location and removed the corpses to conceal them.”

Another nurse who ran from South El Fasher hospital following Sunday's assault said RSF fighters entered using one doorway and began shooting at patients within the emergency department, murdering no less than eight. “We escaped through a different gate, however they struck my head with a rifle,” he recounts.

Through a video declaration this past Wednesday, the leader of the RSF, Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, declared that any fighter or official who breached the rights of any individual would face consequences.

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 were forced to move again, finding shelter in Daraja Oula area prior to ultimately traveling to Tawila.

Individuals seized by the RSF in Garney were reportedly given {water mixed with flour|flour