‘Civilians were slain in their beds’: chaos and brutality dominate after capture of El Fasher
The volunteer nurse Nawal Khalil had been working as a nurse for the past three years in the El Fasher South medical facility as the city became taken over on Sunday by RSF paramilitaries. She was actively caring for the sick, among them an older female patient requiring a blood transfusion, when the attack began.
“They murdered six wounded military personnel and civilians in their beds – including some women,” she states. “I am unaware of the fate to my other patients. I had to run after they raided the medical facility.”
Khalil, aged 27, was hit by a bullet in her right foot and upper leg while RSF combatants gained control of the nearby military headquarters. She fled the city and walked for a day, injured and without food, to get to the settlement of Garney. “On the way, they confiscated my phone and cash,” she says. “I was left with nothing.”
More than 1,000 people – comprising women and children – walked for two days to get to the settlement of Tawila in North Darfur following their escape from El Fasher, which was seized following an 18-month blockade.
This settlement, around 55 kilometers to the west away from El Fasher, remains under the authority of the SLA-AW group under Abdul Wahid Mohamed al-Nur's leadership.
On Tuesday, the allied Joint Forces – who are allied with Sudan’s army – blamed the RSF of killing more than 2,000 civilians following the urban center's takeover. The UN reported that visual evidence showed depicting dozens of weaponless men either being shot or deceased, surrounded by RSF fighters.”
Historical Background
Fighting broke out in Khartoum during April of 2023 when an intensifying power struggle among the two primary factions within the military government finally turned deadly.
On one side stand the Sudanese military forces, who remain broadly loyal towards General al-Burhan, the nation's actual leader. Against him are the paramilitaries of the RSF paramilitary group, a collection of militias that obey the former warlord General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, referred to as Hemedti.
The Rapid Support Forces were first created by the former dictatorial ruler Bashir's regime as an Arab anti-rebellion militia called the Janjaweed, which quickly became synonymous with extensive brutalities. In 2013, Bashir transformed the group into the RSF, deploying them to crush a recent insurrection within South Darfur.
The war has pushed Sudan into a terrible humanitarian disaster in contemporary history, based on UN statements. It has produced the globe's most severe displacement emergency, scattering more than 10 million people within the country plus 4 million who escaped to adjacent nations, generating growing stress upon Chad and South Sudan.
Current Situation Updates
Based on eyewitness accounts, thousands more civilians remain trapped by the RSF and partner militias within Garney, in the southwestern direction from 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. They are apparently detained since they cannot pay 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 detained for days, and sometimes released only after becoming gravely ill.
The SLA-AW has reportedly allowed government troops fleeing El Fasher to come into Tawila on condition they surrender their weapons.
A man named Adam Yagoub, 28, a motorist originating from Sennar in central Sudan, closely avoided death after being captured by three militiamen on camels close to Garney.
“They planned to decapitate me using a knife,” he informs, showing his arm, 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 left El Fasher together, however just eight arrived in Tawila. I believe the remainder perished.”
Yagoub states he observed 22 corpses in proximity to what he termed a fraudulent water source used by the RSF and associated militias in the area connecting Garney and Tawila. “This is an ambush,” he explains. “People walk all day without water, and upon arriving there, the militias are waiting. They killed 22 men there and took the bodies away to hide them.”
An additional nurse who fled the El Fasher South medical facility after the attack on Sunday said RSF fighters entered using one doorway and began shooting at patients within the emergency department, killing at least eight. “We fled through another gate, but they hit me on the head with a firearm,” he recounts.
In a video statement on Wednesday, the leader of the RSF, General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, referred to as Hemedti, said that any soldier or official who breached the rights 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 during nighttime. Already displaced families from Abu Shouk camp in the city had to displace once more, finding shelter in Daraja Oula area before eventually heading for Tawila.
Those captured by the RSF in Garney were reportedly given {water mixed with flour|flour
