‘They killed civilians in their beds’: disorder and violence reign after taking of El Fasher
The volunteer nurse Nawal Khalil had been serving as a nurse for three years at El Fasher South hospital when the city was taken over on Sunday by RSF paramilitaries. She was busy treating patients, including an elderly woman requiring a blood transfusion, when the attack began.
“They killed six wounded soldiers plus civilian patients in their beds – some of them women,” she says. “I don’t know what happened to my other patients. I needed to escape after they raided the medical facility.”
The 27-year-old Khalil, was hit by a bullet in her right foot and upper leg while RSF combatants gained control of the closeby army headquarters. She fled the city and walked for a day, injured and without food, to arrive at Garney town. “Along the route, they took my phone and cash,” she explains. “I ended up with nothing.”
More than 1,000 people – comprising women and children – traveled on foot for two days to reach the town of Tawila in North Darfur following their escape from El Fasher, which was captured after a year-and-a-half-long siege.
Tawila, about 34 miles (55km) west from El Fasher, remains under the authority of the Sudan Liberation Army faction led by Abdul Wahid Mohamed al-Nur (SLA-AW).
On Tuesday, the allied Joint Forces – that cooperate with the Sudanese army – charged the RSF for slaughtering in excess of 2,000 non-combatants since the fall of the city. The UN said that footage existed showing “dozens of unarmed men who were shot or found dead, surrounded by RSF fighters.”
Contextual Information
Hostilities commenced in Khartoum during April of 2023 when an intensifying power struggle involving the two key groups of the military regime finally turned deadly.
Among the combatants exist the official Sudanese army, which maintain general loyalty to General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the country’s de facto ruler. Challenging him are the paramilitaries of the RSF paramilitary group, a gathering of armed factions that obey the former warlord Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, called Hemedti.
The RSF was initially founded by the ex-dictator Bashir's regime as an Arab counterinsurgency militia named the Janjaweed, which quickly became synonymous with massive human rights violations. Back in 2013, Bashir converted the organization into the RSF, deploying them to crush a recent insurrection in southern Darfur.
The fighting has thrown Sudan into “one of the worst humanitarian nightmares in recent history”, based on UN statements. It has generated the globe's most severe displacement emergency, forcing more than 10 million persons internally and 4 million who have fled to bordering states, creating increasing strain on Chad and South Sudan.
Ongoing Developments
According to witnesses, thousands more civilians remain trapped by the RSF and partner militias in Garney, south-west of El Fasher. Numerous are ex-military personnel from Sudan's armed forces, the allied Joint Forces and other armed groups that were previously aligned with the military. They are reportedly being held as they lack funds for extortion payments ranging from 5 to 10 million Sudanese pounds (approximately £6,000-£12,000), based on survivor accounts who arrived in Tawila. Those unable to pay remain imprisoned for several days, and occasionally freed only when developing critical health conditions.
Reports suggest the SLA-AW has authorized government troops fleeing El Fasher to access Tawila provided they give up their weapons.
A man named Adam Yagoub, 28, a driver from Sennar in central Sudan, narrowly escaped being killed after being captured by three camel-riding militiamen close to Garney.
“They intended to behead me with a blade,” he recounts, exhibiting his limb, which one militant assaulted with the butt of an AK-47 rifle. “Afterward one remembered me – his sibling had collaborated with me – and urged them not to execute me. We were 18 people who departed El Fasher collectively, but only eight made it to Tawila. I assume the others died.”
Yagoub reports he saw 22 bodies close to what he described as a deceptive well utilized by RSF forces and associated militias along the Garney-Tawila route. “This is an ambush,” he comments. “Individuals travel all day lacking water, and when they get to it, the armed groups lie in wait. They murdered 22 males at that location and removed the corpses to obscure them.”
Another nurse who ran from South El Fasher hospital after the attack on Sunday stated RSF combatants came in using one doorway and commenced firing upon patients in the emergency ward, killing at least eight. “We escaped through a different gate, but they hit me on the head using a rifle,” he states.
Via a recorded message this past Wednesday, the leader of the RSF, Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, called Hemedti, stated that any military personnel or official who breached the rights of any civilian would be punished.
Many of those who escaped El Fasher spent hours concealing themselves near military artillery before running west under cover of darkness. Already displaced families from the city’s Abu Shouk camp had to displace once more, finding shelter in Daraja Oula area prior to ultimately traveling to Tawila.
People apprehended by RSF forces in Garney were reportedly given {water mixed with flour|flour