‘They killed civilians in their beds’: mayhem and cruelty reign after taking of El Fasher
The volunteer nurse Nawal Khalil had been volunteering as a nurse for the past three years at El Fasher South hospital after the city fell taken over on Sunday by the RSF fighters. She was actively caring for the sick, including an elderly woman who needed a blood transfusion, when the offensive started.
“They murdered six wounded military personnel and civilians in their beds – among them female victims,” she recounts. “The outcome remains unknown to my other patients. I was forced to flee after they raided the medical facility.”
Khalil, aged 27, was shot in the right foot and thigh during the RSF's seizure of the nearby military headquarters. She escaped from the city and traveled on foot for one day, hurt and lacking sustenance, to reach the town of Garney. “On the way, they took my phone and cash,” she explains. “I was left with nothing.”
More than 1,000 people – featuring females and minors – walked for two days to arrive at Tawila town within North Darfur after fleeing El Fasher, which fell under control after an 18-month siege.
The town of Tawila, around 55 kilometers to the west from El Fasher, is governed by of the SLA-AW group under Abdul Wahid Mohamed al-Nur's leadership.
On Tuesday, the 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 said that visual evidence showed showing “dozens of unarmed men either being shot or deceased, with RSF militiamen around them.”
Historical Background
Conflict erupted within Khartoum back on April 15, 2023 as a growing contest for power between the two main factions within the military government eventually resulted in fatalities.
From one perspective are the Sudanese armed forces, which maintain general loyalty to Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the nation's actual leader. Challenging him exist the irregular troops of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a gathering of armed factions which support the ex-warlord Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti.
The RSF was originally established by the previous authoritarian leader Omar al-Bashir as an Arab counterinsurgency militia called the Janjaweed, that rapidly became associated with extensive brutalities. In 2013, Bashir reformed the faction into the RSF, deploying them to crush a fresh rebellion within South Darfur.
The war has pushed Sudan into a terrible humanitarian disaster in contemporary history, as per UN representatives. It has generated the planet's biggest displacement catastrophe, dispersing over 10 million individuals inside the nation and 4 million who have fled to adjacent nations, generating growing stress upon Chad and South Sudan.
Ongoing Developments
According to witnesses, many additional civilians stay confined by RSF forces and allied militias within Garney, southwest from El Fasher. Many are former soldiers from Sudan's armed forces, the Joint Forces plus additional armed factions which had been combatting together with the army. They are apparently detained since they cannot pay ransom requests of between 5m and 10m Sudanese pounds (around six to twelve thousand pounds), per those who escaped who reached Tawila. Individuals incapable of paying have been held for multiple days, and occasionally let go solely after falling seriously ill.
The SLA-AW has apparently permitted government troops fleeing El Fasher to access Tawila if they relinquish their arms.
A man named Adam Yagoub, twenty-eight years old, a driver from Sennar from central Sudanese regions, narrowly escaped being killed following his capture by three camel-riding militiamen close to Garney.
“They planned to decapitate me with a knife,” he tells, displaying his arm, which one of the fighters hit with the stock of a Kalashnikov. “Then one of them recognised me – his brother had worked with me – and pleaded with them to spare me. There were 18 of us who left El Fasher together, however just eight arrived in Tawila. I think the others are dead.”
Yagoub reports he witnessed 22 deceased individuals in proximity to what he termed a fraudulent water source employed by the RSF and partner armed groups along the Garney-Tawila route. “This is an ambush,” he says. “People walk all day without water, and when they get to it, the militias are waiting. They slaughtered 22 men on that spot and carried the bodies off to obscure them.”
An additional nurse who escaped El Fasher South hospital subsequent to Sunday's offensive said RSF fighters entered using one doorway and began shooting at patients in the emergency ward, causing at least eight fatalities. “We fled through another gate, however they struck my head using a rifle,” he says.
In a video statement this past Wednesday, the leader of the RSF, Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, called Hemedti, declared that any fighter or official who breached the rights of any civilian would be punished.
Several people who got away from El Fasher passed hours concealing themselves near military artillery prior to escaping westward under darkness's protection. Previously displaced households originating from the urban Abu Shouk settlement were compelled to relocate again, seeking refuge in the Daraja Oula neighbourhood before eventually heading for Tawila.
Individuals seized by the RSF in Garney were apparently provided {water mixed with flour|flour
