‘Civilians were slain in their beds’: chaos and brutality prevail following fall of El Fasher
The volunteer nurse Nawal Khalil had been serving as a nurse for the past three years within the South El Fasher hospital when the city was seized last Sunday by RSF paramilitaries. She was occupied with patient care, including an elderly woman in need of a transfusion, as the assault commenced.
“They killed six wounded soldiers along with civilians in their beds – some of them women,” she states. “The outcome remains unknown to my other patients. I needed to escape after they raided the medical facility.”
Khalil, aged 27, was shot in the right foot and thigh while RSF combatants gained control of the adjacent military command center. She ran from the urban area and walked for a day, injured and without food, to reach the town of Garney. “Along the route, they confiscated my phone and money,” she explains. “I ended up with nothing.”
Over a thousand individuals – comprising women and children – walked for two days to get to the settlement of Tawila located in northern Darfur after fleeing El Fasher, which was captured after an 18-month siege.
This settlement, about 34 miles (55km) west from El Fasher, is governed by by the SLA faction commanded by Abdul Wahid Mohamed al-Nur.
On Tuesday, the allied Joint Forces – that cooperate with the Sudanese army – charged the RSF for slaughtering in excess of 2,000 non-combatants since the fall of the city. United Nations officials stated there were videos showing “dozens of unarmed men who were shot or found dead, with RSF militiamen around them.”
Contextual Information
Hostilities commenced within Khartoum during April of 2023 when an intensifying power struggle involving the two key groups of the armed forces leadership ultimately became violent.
Among the combatants are the Sudanese armed forces, who remain broadly loyal to Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the de facto head of state. Against him stand the paramilitary forces of the RSF paramilitary group, a gathering of armed factions who follow the former warlord General Dagalo, referred to as Hemedti.
The RSF was originally established by the former dictatorial ruler Omar al-Bashir himself as an Arab anti-rebellion militia known as the Janjaweed, which quickly became synonymous with massive human rights violations. In 2013, Bashir converted the organization to become the RSF, sending them to suppress a fresh rebellion in southern Darfur.
The conflict has plunged Sudan into a terrible humanitarian disaster in recent history”, based on UN statements. It has generated the globe's most severe displacement emergency, forcing more than 10 million persons internally and 4 million who have fled to adjacent nations, putting mounting pressure on Chad and South Sudan.
Present Circumstances
According to witnesses, many additional civilians continue to be held by the RSF and associated armed groups in Garney, south-west of El Fasher. Several are previous army members belonging to the Sudanese military, the collaborative forces and other armed groups which had been combatting together with the army. Reports indicate they're imprisoned since they cannot pay ransom demands 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 detained for days, and sometimes let go solely after falling seriously ill.
The SLA-AW has apparently permitted military personnel escaping El Fasher to access Tawila on condition they surrender their weapons.
Adam Yagoub, aged 28, a chauffeur from Sennar in central Sudan, barely avoided execution following his capture by three camel-riding militiamen near Garney.
“They intended to behead me with a blade,” he tells, displaying his arm, that one combatant struck using an AK-47 rifle butt. “Then one of them recognised me – his brother had worked with me – and begged them not to kill me. Our group contained 18 individuals who left El Fasher together, however just eight arrived in Tawila. I believe the remainder perished.”
Yagoub states he saw 22 bodies close to what he described as 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 upon arriving there, the militias are waiting. They murdered 22 males at that location and took the bodies away to obscure them.”
A different medical worker who fled the El Fasher South medical facility after the attack on Sunday stated RSF combatants came in using one doorway and opened fire on patients within the emergency department, murdering no less than eight. “We escaped through a different gate, but they hit me on the head with a firearm,” he says.
In a video statement on Wednesday, the head of the RSF, General Dagalo, known as Hemedti, said that any soldier or officer who had “violated the right of any civilian would be punished.
Several people who got away El Fasher utilized hours hiding near the army’s artillery unit prior to escaping westward under darkness's protection. Previously displaced households from the city’s Abu Shouk camp were compelled to relocate again, taking asylum in the Daraja Oula district before eventually heading for Tawila.
Individuals seized by the RSF in Garney were reportedly given {water mixed with flour|flour
