‘Civilians were slain in their beds’: disorder and violence dominate after capture of El Fasher
A nurse named Nawal Khalil had been serving as a healthcare worker for the past three years within the South El Fasher hospital when the city was captured on Sunday by RSF paramilitaries. She was actively caring for the sick, including an elderly woman who needed a blood transfusion, when the attack began.
“They murdered six wounded military personnel and civilians in their beds – including some women,” she recounts. “I am unaware of the fate to my other patients. I had to run as they invaded the hospital.”
Khalil, aged 27, was shot in the right foot and thigh as RSF fighters took control of the nearby military headquarters. She fled the city and walked for a day, injured and without food, to reach the town of Garney. “During the journey, they confiscated my phone and money,” she describes. “I ended up with nothing.”
More than 1,000 people – comprising women and children – journeyed by walking for 48 hours to reach the town of Tawila in North Darfur after fleeing El Fasher, which fell under control after an 18-month siege.
Tawila, about 34 miles (55km) west from El Fasher, remains under the authority of the SLA-AW group led by Abdul Wahid Mohamed al-Nur (SLA-AW).
This past Tuesday, the allied Joint Forces – that cooperate with the Sudanese army – blamed the RSF of killing more than 2,000 civilians after the city's capture. United Nations officials stated that footage existed showing “dozens of unarmed men being shot or lying dead, with RSF militiamen around them.”
Contextual Information
Hostilities commenced within Khartoum during April of 2023 as a growing contest for power among the two primary factions of the military regime ultimately became violent.
From one perspective exist the official Sudanese army, which maintain general loyalty towards General al-Burhan, the country’s de facto ruler. Against him exist the irregular troops belonging to the RSF, an assembly of militia groups who follow the former warlord General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti.
The Rapid Support Forces were first created by the previous authoritarian leader Bashir's regime as an Arab counterinsurgency militia known as the Janjaweed, which quickly became synonymous with widespread atrocities. Back in 2013, Bashir transformed the group into the Rapid Support Forces, sending them to suppress a new uprising in South Darfur.
The war has pushed Sudan into “one of the worst humanitarian nightmares in contemporary history, according to UN officials. It has created the planet's biggest displacement catastrophe, dispersing over 10 million individuals inside the nation plus 4 million who escaped to adjacent nations, generating growing stress upon Chad and South Sudan.
Current Situation Updates
Per observer reports, thousands more civilians stay confined by RSF forces and associated armed groups in the Garney area, southwest from El Fasher. Many are former soldiers belonging to the Sudanese military, the allied Joint Forces and other armed groups which had been combatting together with the army. They are apparently detained since they cannot pay ransom demands of between 5m and 10m Sudanese pounds (approximately £6,000-£12,000), according to survivors who made it to Tawila. Individuals incapable of paying have been detained for days, and in some cases let go solely after developing critical health conditions.
The SLA-AW has reportedly allowed military personnel escaping El Fasher to access Tawila provided they give up their weapons.
Adam Yagoub, aged 28, a chauffeur from Sennar from central Sudanese regions, closely avoided death after being captured by three militiamen on camels in the Garney vicinity.
“They planned to decapitate me using a knife,” he informs, displaying his arm, which one militant assaulted using an AK-47 rifle butt. “Then one of them recognised me – his sibling had collaborated with me – and urged them not to execute me. We were 18 people who departed El Fasher collectively, however just eight arrived in Tawila. I believe the remainder perished.”
Yagoub reports he witnessed 22 deceased individuals in proximity to what he termed a deceptive well employed by the RSF and partner armed groups in the area connecting Garney and Tawila. “It represents a trap,” he says. “Persons journey daily without hydration, and upon arriving there, the militiamen await. They slaughtered 22 men on that spot and removed the corpses to hide them.”
A different medical worker who fled the El Fasher South medical facility after the attack on Sunday reported RSF militiamen penetrated via one entrance and opened fire on patients in the emergency ward, murdering no less than eight. “We escaped through a different gate, but they hit me on the head using a rifle,” he says.
Through a video declaration last 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 person” would be held accountable.
Several people who got away El Fasher spent hours taking cover close to army artillery positions before running west during nighttime. Already displaced families from the city’s Abu Shouk camp were forced to move again, taking asylum in the Daraja Oula district before eventually heading for Tawila.
Those captured by the RSF in Garney were apparently provided {water mixed with flour|flour
