‘They killed civilians in their beds’: disorder and violence dominate after fall of El Fasher

The volunteer nurse Nawal Khalil had been working as a healthcare worker over a three-year period at El Fasher South hospital when the city was captured on Sunday by the RSF fighters. She was actively caring for the sick, among them an older female patient who needed a blood transfusion, when the attack began.

“Six injured soldiers were killed and civilians in their beds – among them female victims,” she states. “I am unaware of the fate to my other patients. I was forced to flee when they stormed the hospital.”

The 27-year-old Khalil, received a gunshot wound to her right foot and her thigh during the RSF's seizure of the nearby military headquarters. She escaped from the city and journeyed by foot for 24 hours, injured and without food, to reach the town of Garney. “Along the route, they seized my mobile and cash,” she describes. “I was left with nothing.”

More than 1,000 people – comprising women and children – traveled on foot for two days to get to the settlement of Tawila in North Darfur following their escape from El Fasher, which was captured after a year-and-a-half-long siege.

This settlement, about 34 miles (55km) west away from El Fasher, is under the control of the Sudan Liberation Army faction under Abdul Wahid Mohamed al-Nur's leadership.

On Tuesday, the Joint Forces – that cooperate with the Sudanese army – charged the RSF of killing more than 2,000 civilians following the urban center's takeover. The UN reported that visual evidence showed depicting dozens of weaponless men being shot or lying dead, with RSF militiamen around them.”

Background Context

Conflict erupted within Khartoum on 15 April 2023 when an intensifying power struggle involving the two key groups 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 nation's actual leader. Against him are the paramilitaries belonging to the RSF, an assembly of militia groups who follow the former warlord Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, called Hemedti.

The RSF was initially founded by the former dictatorial ruler Bashir's regime as an Arab anti-rebellion militia known as the Janjaweed, which quickly became synonymous with massive human rights violations. In 2013, Bashir transformed the group to become the RSF, deploying them to crush a new uprising in southern Darfur.

The fighting has thrown Sudan into a terrible humanitarian disaster in modern times, based on UN statements. It has generated the world’s worst displacement crisis, dispersing over 10 million individuals inside the nation plus 4 million who escaped to bordering states, creating increasing strain on both Chad and South Sudan.

Present Circumstances

Based on eyewitness accounts, many additional civilians remain trapped by the RSF and partner militias in the Garney area, in the southwestern direction from El Fasher. Numerous are ex-military personnel from the Sudanese army, the collaborative forces and other armed groups that were previously aligned with the military. They are reportedly being held because they cannot afford ransom demands of between 5m and 10m Sudanese pounds (around six to twelve thousand pounds), according to survivors who made it to Tawila. Those unable to pay remain imprisoned for several days, and sometimes released only after developing critical health conditions.

Reports suggest the SLA-AW has authorized army soldiers running from El Fasher to access Tawila on condition they surrender their weapons.

The individual Adam Yagoub, twenty-eight years old, a motorist originating from Sennar in central Sudan, barely avoided execution after being captured by three camel-riding militiamen in the Garney vicinity.

“They wanted to cut my head off with a blade,” he informs, exhibiting his limb, which one militant assaulted with the stock of a Kalashnikov. “Then one of them recognised me – his sibling had collaborated with me – and pleaded with them to spare me. There were 18 of us who exited El Fasher as a group, however just eight arrived in Tawila. I assume the others died.”

Yagoub reports he saw 22 bodies in proximity to what he termed a fraudulent water source utilized by RSF forces and allied militias in the area connecting Garney and Tawila. “This is an ambush,” he says. “People walk all day without water, and upon arriving there, the militias are waiting. They slaughtered 22 men on that spot and carried the bodies off to conceal them.”

A different medical worker who escaped El Fasher South hospital after the attack on Sunday said RSF fighters entered using one doorway and began shooting at 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 recounts.

In a video statement this past Wednesday, the leader of the RSF, General Dagalo, referred to as Hemedti, declared that any fighter or official who breached the rights of any individual would face consequences.

Numerous individuals who fled El Fasher utilized hours concealing themselves near military artillery prior to escaping westward under darkness's protection. Previously displaced households from the city’s Abu Shouk camp were compelled to relocate again, taking asylum in the Daraja Oula district prior to ultimately traveling to Tawila.

People apprehended by RSF forces in Garney were apparently provided {water mixed with flour|flour