‘Civilians were slain in their beds’: mayhem and cruelty reign after capture of El Fasher
The volunteer nurse Nawal Khalil had been working as a medical volunteer for the past three years within the South El Fasher hospital after the city fell taken over on Sunday by RSF paramilitaries. She was actively caring for the sick, featuring one senior woman who needed a blood transfusion, as the assault commenced.
“They murdered six wounded military personnel and civilians in their beds – among them female victims,” she recounts. “I am unaware of the fate for my remaining patients. I was forced to flee when they stormed the hospital.”
Khalil, 27, was shot in the right foot and her thigh while RSF combatants gained control of the closeby army headquarters. She fled the city and journeyed by foot for 24 hours, hurt and lacking sustenance, to reach the town of Garney. “On the way, they confiscated my phone and currency,” she says. “I ended up with nothing.”
Over a thousand individuals – featuring females and minors – traveled on foot for two days to get to the settlement of Tawila in North Darfur after running from El Fasher, which was seized following an 18-month blockade.
The town of Tawila, approximately 34 miles westward away from El Fasher, remains under the authority of the Sudan Liberation Army faction commanded by Abdul Wahid Mohamed al-Nur.
Last Tuesday, the collaborative Joint Forces – that cooperate with the Sudanese army – charged the RSF for slaughtering in excess of 2,000 non-combatants following the urban center's takeover. The UN reported that visual evidence showed showing “dozens of unarmed men being shot or lying dead, encircled by RSF combatants.”
Contextual Information
Conflict erupted in Sudan's capital during April of 2023 as an escalating power struggle between the two main factions within the military government ultimately became violent.
On one side exist the official Sudanese army, who remain broadly loyal to Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the country’s de facto ruler. Against him are the paramilitaries of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), an assembly of militia groups that obey the former warlord General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti.
The RSF was initially founded by the previous authoritarian leader Omar al-Bashir as a pro-Arab counterinsurgency force named the Janjaweed, that rapidly became associated with extensive brutalities. In 2013, Bashir reformed the faction into the Rapid Support Forces, deploying them to crush a recent insurrection in South Darfur.
The war has pushed Sudan into a terrible humanitarian disaster in contemporary history, according to UN officials. It has created the planet's biggest displacement catastrophe, dispersing over 10 million individuals inside the nation along with 4 million refugees to adjacent nations, generating growing stress on both Chad and South Sudan.
Ongoing Developments
Per observer reports, numerous more non-combatants stay confined by RSF forces and allied militias within Garney, in the southwestern direction from El Fasher. Numerous are ex-military personnel belonging to the Sudanese military, the allied Joint Forces and other armed groups that were previously aligned with the military. They are reportedly being held since they cannot pay ransom demands between five and ten million Sudanese pounds (£6,000 to £12,000), based on survivor accounts who made it to Tawila. Individuals incapable of paying remain imprisoned for several days, and sometimes freed only when developing critical health conditions.
Reports suggest the SLA-AW has authorized army soldiers running from El Fasher to come into Tawila on condition they surrender their weapons.
Adam Yagoub, 28, a chauffeur from Sennar in central Sudan, narrowly escaped being killed following his capture by three camel-riding militiamen in the Garney vicinity.
“They planned to decapitate me with a knife,” he tells, showing his arm, which one militant assaulted with the butt of an AK-47 rifle. “Then one of them recognised me – his sibling had collaborated with me – and pleaded with them to spare me. Our group contained 18 individuals who departed El Fasher collectively, but only eight made it to Tawila. I assume the others died.”
Yagoub states he observed 22 corpses close to what he described as a “fake well” utilized by RSF forces and associated militias along the Garney-Tawila route. “This is an ambush,” he explains. “Individuals travel all day lacking water, and upon arriving there, the armed groups lie in wait. They killed 22 men there and removed the corpses to conceal them.”
Another nurse who fled the El Fasher South medical facility subsequent to Sunday's offensive stated RSF combatants came in through one gate and opened fire on patients in the emergency ward, killing at least eight. “We ran out via another entrance, but they hit me on the head with a rifle,” he recounts.
Via a recorded message this past Wednesday, the head of the RSF, General Dagalo, known as Hemedti, declared that any fighter or commander who infringed upon the rights of any civilian would be punished.
Many of those who escaped from El Fasher passed hours hiding near the army’s artillery unit before running west during nighttime. Previously displaced households from the city’s Abu Shouk camp were forced to move again, taking asylum in the Daraja Oula district prior to ultimately traveling to Tawila.
Those captured by the RSF in Garney were reportedly given {water mixed with flour|flour