‘Civilians were slain in their beds’: disorder and violence prevail following taking of El Fasher
Nawal Khalil had been working as a medical volunteer for three years in the El Fasher South medical facility when the city was taken over on Sunday by RSF paramilitaries. She was occupied with patient care, among them an older female patient in need of a transfusion, as the assault commenced.
“Six injured soldiers were killed plus civilian patients in their beds – among them female victims,” she states. “I don’t know what happened to my other patients. I was forced to flee after they raided the medical facility.”
Khalil, aged 27, received a gunshot wound to her right foot and her thigh as RSF fighters took control of the closeby army headquarters. She fled the city and walked for a day, wounded and without nourishment, to arrive at Garney town. “During the journey, they confiscated my phone and cash,” she describes. “I was left with nothing.”
More than 1,000 people – 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 seized following an 18-month blockade.
This settlement, about 34 miles (55km) west away from El Fasher, is governed by by the SLA faction under Abdul Wahid Mohamed al-Nur's leadership.
This past Tuesday, the Joint Forces – that cooperate with the Sudanese army – blamed the RSF of killing more than 2,000 civilians following the urban center's takeover. United Nations officials stated there were videos showing “dozens of unarmed men being shot or lying dead, surrounded by RSF fighters.”
Background Context
Fighting broke out in Khartoum on 15 April 2023 as a growing contest for power involving the two key groups of the armed forces leadership ultimately became violent.
On one side are the Sudanese armed forces, which maintain general loyalty to General 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, known as Hemedti.
The RSF was originally established by the previous authoritarian leader Bashir's regime as an Arab counterinsurgency militia called the Janjaweed, that rapidly became associated with widespread atrocities. During 2013, Bashir transformed the group into the RSF, using them to quell a new uprising within South Darfur.
The fighting has thrown Sudan into a terrible humanitarian disaster in recent history”, as per UN representatives. It has generated the globe's most severe displacement emergency, dispersing over 10 million individuals internally plus 4 million who escaped into neighbouring countries, putting mounting pressure on both Chad and South Sudan.
Current Situation Updates
According to witnesses, thousands more civilians stay confined by RSF forces and allied militias within Garney, south-west of El Fasher. Numerous are ex-military personnel from Sudan's armed forces, the Joint Forces plus additional armed factions which had been combatting together with the army. Reports indicate they're imprisoned since they cannot pay ransom demands of between 5m and 10m Sudanese pounds (around six to twelve thousand pounds), based on survivor accounts who reached Tawila. People who cannot afford payment remain imprisoned for several days, and sometimes freed only when developing critical health conditions.
The SLA-AW has apparently permitted army soldiers running from El Fasher to come into Tawila if they relinquish their arms.
The individual Adam Yagoub, twenty-eight years old, a chauffeur from Sennar in central Sudan, barely avoided execution subsequent to his seizure by three camel-riding militiamen in the Garney vicinity.
“They intended to behead me using a knife,” he tells, displaying his arm, that one combatant struck using an AK-47 rifle butt. “Subsequently one identified me – his brother had worked with me – and urged them not to execute me. Our group contained 18 individuals who exited El Fasher as a group, however just eight arrived in Tawila. I assume the others died.”
Yagoub states he observed 22 corpses near what he called a deceptive well employed by the RSF and allied militias in the area connecting Garney and Tawila. “This is an ambush,” he explains. “People walk all day without water, and when they reach it, the armed groups lie in wait. They murdered 22 males at that location and took the bodies away to obscure them.”
Another nurse who fled the El Fasher South medical facility after the attack on Sunday reported RSF militiamen penetrated using one doorway and commenced firing upon patients in the ER section, causing at least eight fatalities. “We escaped through a different gate, yet they assaulted my head with a rifle,” he recounts.
Via a recorded message on Wednesday, the leader of the RSF, General Dagalo, known as Hemedti, said that any soldier or official who breached the rights of any person” would be held accountable.
Many of those who escaped El Fasher spent hours concealing themselves near military artillery before running west during nighttime. Previously displaced households from the city’s Abu Shouk camp had to displace once more, taking asylum in the Daraja Oula district before eventually heading for Tawila.
Those captured by the RSF in Garney were reportedly given {water mixed with flour|flour
