‘Civilians were slain in their beds’: chaos and brutality reign after taking of El Fasher
A nurse named Nawal Khalil had been serving as a medical volunteer over a three-year period in the El Fasher South medical facility after the city fell taken over on Sunday by the RSF fighters. She was busy treating patients, featuring one senior woman in need of a transfusion, when the attack began.
“They murdered six wounded military personnel plus civilian patients in their beds – some of them women,” she says. “I am unaware of the fate regarding my other patients. I had to run when they stormed the hospital.”
Khalil, 27, was hit by a bullet in her right foot and her thigh during the RSF's seizure of the adjacent military command center. She ran from the urban area and traveled on foot for one day, injured and without food, to get to the settlement of Garney. “On the way, they seized my mobile and currency,” she explains. “I ended up with nothing.”
In excess of 1,000 persons – featuring females and minors – traveled on foot for two days to arrive at Tawila town in North Darfur after running from El Fasher, which was captured after an 18-month siege.
This settlement, about 34 miles (55km) west of El Fasher, remains under the authority by the SLA faction under Abdul Wahid Mohamed al-Nur's leadership.
Last Tuesday, the allied Joint Forces – that cooperate with the Sudanese army – accused the RSF with murdering over 2,000 civilians since the fall of the city. The UN said that footage existed featuring numerous unarmed males being shot or lying dead, surrounded by RSF fighters.”
Background Context
Hostilities commenced in Sudan's capital back on April 15, 2023 when an intensifying power struggle involving the two key groups within the military government ultimately became violent.
From one perspective are the Sudanese armed forces, that stay mostly faithful to Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the nation's actual leader. Opposing him stand the paramilitary forces of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a collection of militias that obey the former warlord Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti.
The RSF was originally established by the previous authoritarian leader Omar al-Bashir himself as a pro-Arab counterinsurgency force called the Janjaweed, that rapidly became associated with extensive brutalities. Back in 2013, Bashir reformed the faction into the Rapid Support Forces, using them to quell a fresh rebellion in southern Darfur.
The conflict has plunged Sudan into “one of the worst humanitarian nightmares in modern times, based on UN statements. It has created the globe's most severe displacement emergency, dispersing over 10 million individuals within the country and 4 million who have fled to bordering states, putting mounting pressure upon Chad and South Sudan.
Ongoing Developments
Based on eyewitness accounts, thousands more civilians remain trapped by the RSF and associated armed groups in Garney, south-west of El Fasher. Several are previous army members from the Sudanese army, the Joint Forces and other militant organizations which had been combatting together with the army. They are apparently detained as they lack funds for extortion payments of between 5m and 10m Sudanese pounds (approximately £6,000-£12,000), based on survivor accounts who made it to Tawila. Individuals incapable of paying remain imprisoned for several days, and occasionally released only after falling seriously ill.
The SLA-AW has apparently permitted military personnel escaping El Fasher to come into Tawila provided they give up their weapons.
Adam Yagoub, twenty-eight years old, a driver from Sennar in central Sudan, closely avoided death following his capture by three militiamen on camels in the Garney vicinity.
“They planned to decapitate me with a blade,” he recounts, exhibiting his limb, which one of the fighters hit with the stock of a Kalashnikov. “Subsequently one identified me – his sibling had collaborated with me – and urged them not to execute me. We were 18 people who left El Fasher together, yet merely eight reached Tawila. I believe the remainder perished.”
Yagoub reports he witnessed 22 deceased individuals in proximity to what he termed a deceptive well utilized by RSF forces and partner armed groups in the area connecting Garney and Tawila. “It represents a trap,” he comments. “Individuals travel all day lacking water, and when they reach it, the armed groups lie in wait. They slaughtered 22 men on that spot and carried the bodies off to conceal them.”
A different medical worker who ran from South El Fasher hospital subsequent to Sunday's offensive stated RSF combatants came in via one entrance and commenced firing upon patients within the emergency department, killing at least eight. “We fled through another gate, but they hit me on the head with a rifle,” he says.
Through a video declaration on Wednesday, the leader of the RSF, Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, said that any soldier or commander who infringed upon the rights of any person” would be held accountable.
Many of those who escaped from El Fasher passed hours taking cover close to army artillery positions before fleeing west under darkness's protection. Previously displaced households from Abu Shouk camp in the city had to displace once more, taking asylum in the Daraja Oula district before finally moving toward Tawila.
Individuals seized by the RSF in Garney were reportedly given {water mixed with flour|flour