‘Civilians were slain in their beds’: chaos and brutality reign after capture of El Fasher
A nurse named Nawal Khalil had been serving as a healthcare worker for the past three years at El Fasher South hospital after the city fell taken over on Sunday by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). She was busy treating patients, featuring one senior woman in need of a transfusion, when the offensive started.
“They murdered six wounded military personnel plus civilian patients in their beds – some of them women,” she recounts. “I don’t know what happened for my remaining patients. I was forced to flee when they stormed the hospital.”
Khalil, 27, received a gunshot wound to her right foot and her thigh as RSF fighters took control of the nearby military headquarters. She fled the city and journeyed by foot for 24 hours, wounded and without nourishment, to reach the town of Garney. “During the journey, they confiscated my phone and money,” she explains. “I possessed nothing remaining.”
More than 1,000 people – featuring females and minors – journeyed by walking for 48 hours to get to the settlement of Tawila located in northern Darfur after fleeing El Fasher, which fell under control after a year-and-a-half-long siege.
The town of Tawila, around 55 kilometers to the west away from El Fasher, is governed by of the SLA-AW group commanded by Abdul Wahid Mohamed al-Nur.
On Tuesday, the allied Joint Forces – who are allied with Sudan’s army – accused the RSF with murdering over 2,000 civilians following the urban center's takeover. United Nations officials stated that footage existed depicting dozens of weaponless men being shot or lying dead, surrounded by RSF fighters.”
Historical Background
Fighting broke out within Khartoum on 15 April 2023 when an intensifying power struggle between the two main factions within the military government finally turned deadly.
On one side stand the Sudanese military forces, who remain broadly loyal to Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the de facto head of state. Challenging him exist the irregular troops of the RSF paramilitary group, a gathering of armed factions who follow the former warlord General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti.
The RSF was originally established by the ex-dictator Omar al-Bashir as a pro-Arab counterinsurgency force called the Janjaweed, which soon became linked with massive human rights violations. In 2013, Bashir reformed the faction into the RSF, sending them to suppress a fresh rebellion in South Darfur.
The war has pushed Sudan into “one of the worst humanitarian nightmares in contemporary history, as per UN representatives. It has generated the globe's most severe displacement emergency, dispersing over 10 million individuals within the country and 4 million who have fled to adjacent nations, putting mounting pressure on both Chad and South Sudan.
Ongoing Developments
Per observer reports, thousands more civilians continue to be held by the RSF and allied militias in the Garney area, southwest from El Fasher. Several are previous army members from the Sudanese army, the allied Joint Forces and other armed groups that were previously aligned with the military. They are reportedly being held because they cannot afford ransom demands ranging from 5 to 10 million Sudanese pounds (around six to twelve thousand pounds), based on survivor accounts who made it to Tawila. Those unable to pay have been detained for days, and in some cases released only after falling seriously ill.
The SLA-AW has apparently permitted army soldiers running from El Fasher to enter Tawila on condition they surrender their weapons.
Adam Yagoub, twenty-eight years old, a chauffeur from Sennar from central Sudanese regions, narrowly escaped being killed following his capture by three militiamen on camels close to Garney.
“They planned to decapitate me with a blade,” he recounts, showing his arm, that one combatant struck with the butt of an AK-47 rifle. “Subsequently one identified me – his brother was my colleague – and urged them not to execute me. There were 18 of us who exited El Fasher as a group, yet merely eight reached Tawila. I think the others are dead.”
Yagoub reports he saw 22 bodies in proximity to what he termed a deceptive well employed by the RSF and allied militias along the Garney-Tawila route. “This is an ambush,” he says. “Persons journey daily without hydration, and upon arriving there, the armed groups lie in wait. They murdered 22 males at that location and removed the corpses to conceal them.”
Another nurse who escaped El Fasher South hospital after the attack on Sunday said RSF fighters entered through one gate and opened fire on patients within the emergency department, killing at least eight. “We escaped through a different gate, however they struck my head with a rifle,” he states.
In a video statement this past Wednesday, the head of the RSF, Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, called Hemedti, said that any soldier or official who breached the rights of any individual would face consequences.
Numerous individuals who fled from El Fasher passed hours hiding near the army’s artillery unit before fleeing west under cover of darkness. Families already uprooted from the city’s Abu Shouk camp were compelled to relocate again, finding shelter in Daraja Oula area before finally moving toward Tawila.
People apprehended by RSF forces in Garney were reportedly given {water mixed with flour|flour