‘Civilians were slain in their beds’: chaos and brutality dominate after fall of El Fasher
The volunteer nurse Nawal Khalil had been volunteering as a nurse over a three-year period at El Fasher South hospital after the city fell taken over on Sunday by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). She was actively caring for the sick, including an elderly woman requiring a blood transfusion, when the offensive started.
“Six injured soldiers were killed plus civilian patients in their beds – some of them women,” she recounts. “The outcome remains unknown regarding my other patients. I had to run as they invaded the hospital.”
The 27-year-old Khalil, received a gunshot wound to her right foot and upper leg as RSF fighters took control of the closeby army headquarters. She escaped from the city and traveled on foot for one day, hurt and lacking sustenance, to reach the town of Garney. “During the journey, they took my phone and cash,” she describes. “I was left with nothing.”
In excess of 1,000 persons – featuring females and minors – journeyed by walking for 48 hours to reach the town of Tawila in North Darfur after fleeing El Fasher, which was captured following an 18-month blockade.
The town of Tawila, about 34 miles (55km) west of El Fasher, is under the control of the Sudan Liberation Army faction led by Abdul Wahid Mohamed al-Nur (SLA-AW).
This past Tuesday, the allied Joint Forces – that cooperate with the Sudanese army – charged the RSF with murdering over 2,000 civilians after the city's capture. The UN said that visual evidence showed depicting dozens of weaponless men being shot or lying dead, surrounded by RSF fighters.”
Contextual Information
Fighting broke out in Khartoum back on April 15, 2023 as an escalating power struggle among the two primary factions of the military regime ultimately became violent.
From one perspective are the Sudanese armed forces, that stay mostly faithful to Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the country’s de facto ruler. Challenging him are the paramilitaries belonging to the RSF, a gathering of armed factions who follow the former warlord General Dagalo, called Hemedti.
The RSF was initially founded by the ex-dictator Omar al-Bashir himself as an Arab counterinsurgency militia named the Janjaweed, that rapidly became associated with extensive brutalities. During 2013, Bashir transformed the group into the RSF, deploying them to crush a new uprising in southern Darfur.
The fighting has thrown Sudan into among the most severe humanitarian crises in modern times, according to UN officials. It has generated the globe's most severe displacement emergency, forcing more than 10 million persons inside the nation and 4 million who have fled into neighbouring countries, putting mounting pressure on Chad and South Sudan.
Present Circumstances
According to witnesses, many additional civilians stay confined by RSF forces and associated armed groups in the Garney area, south-west of El Fasher. Numerous are ex-military personnel belonging to the Sudanese military, the collaborative forces and other militant organizations that were previously aligned with the military. They are apparently detained as they lack funds for extortion payments of between 5m and 10m Sudanese pounds (around six to twelve thousand pounds), based on survivor accounts who made it to Tawila. People who cannot afford payment remain imprisoned for several days, and occasionally freed only when developing critical health conditions.
The SLA-AW has reportedly allowed government troops fleeing El Fasher to access Tawila if they relinquish their arms.
The individual Adam Yagoub, 28, a driver from Sennar in central Sudan, closely avoided death after being captured by three armed men mounted on camels near Garney.
“They intended to behead me using a knife,” he tells, exhibiting his limb, that one combatant struck with the stock of a Kalashnikov. “Then one of them recognised me – his brother had worked with me – and urged them not to execute me. We were 18 people who left El Fasher together, yet merely eight reached Tawila. I think the others are dead.”
Yagoub states he saw 22 bodies near what he called a fraudulent water source used by the RSF and partner armed groups between Garney and Tawila. “It’s a trap,” he explains. “People walk all day without water, and when they get to it, the armed groups lie in wait. They murdered 22 males at that location and removed the corpses to hide them.”
A different medical worker who escaped El Fasher South hospital after the attack on Sunday said RSF fighters entered using one doorway and commenced firing upon patients in the emergency ward, killing at least eight. “We fled through another gate, yet they assaulted my head with a firearm,” he states.
In a video statement this past Wednesday, the head of the RSF, General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, called Hemedti, declared that any fighter or official who breached the rights of any individual would face consequences.
Many of those who escaped El Fasher utilized hours hiding near the army’s artillery unit before fleeing west during nighttime. Already displaced families originating from the urban Abu Shouk settlement 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 apparently provided {water mixed with flour|flour