‘Civilians were slain in their beds’: mayhem and cruelty dominate after capture of El Fasher
A nurse named Nawal Khalil had been serving as a medical volunteer for the past three years within the South El Fasher hospital after the city fell seized last Sunday by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). She was occupied with patient care, among them an older female patient who needed a blood transfusion, when the offensive started.
“They killed six wounded soldiers and civilians in their beds – including some women,” she states. “I don’t know what happened regarding my other patients. I needed to escape when they stormed the hospital.”
Khalil, 27, received a gunshot wound to her right foot and upper leg as RSF fighters took control of the nearby military headquarters. She ran from the urban area and walked for a day, hurt and lacking sustenance, to reach the town of Garney. “During the journey, they confiscated my phone and money,” she says. “I ended up with nothing.”
Over a thousand individuals – featuring females and minors – walked for two days to get to the settlement of Tawila in North Darfur after fleeing El Fasher, which was captured following an 18-month blockade.
This settlement, approximately 34 miles westward from El Fasher, is under the control of the Sudan Liberation Army faction commanded by Abdul Wahid Mohamed al-Nur.
Last Tuesday, the Joint Forces – who are allied with Sudan’s army – accused the RSF with murdering over 2,000 civilians since the fall of the city. The UN reported that visual evidence showed featuring numerous unarmed males being shot or lying dead, with RSF militiamen around them.”
Background Context
Hostilities commenced within Khartoum on 15 April 2023 as an escalating power struggle involving the two key groups of the military regime finally turned deadly.
On one side stand the Sudanese military forces, which maintain general loyalty to General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the de facto head of state. Opposing him are the paramilitaries belonging to the RSF, an assembly of militia groups that obey the former warlord Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, called Hemedti.
The Rapid Support Forces were first created by the ex-dictator Omar al-Bashir himself as a pro-Arab counterinsurgency force named the Janjaweed, which quickly became synonymous with massive human rights violations. Back in 2013, Bashir reformed the faction into the RSF, sending them to suppress a new uprising within South Darfur.
The war has pushed Sudan into “one of the worst humanitarian nightmares in contemporary history, as per UN representatives. It has generated the globe's most severe displacement emergency, forcing more than 10 million persons within the country along with 4 million refugees into neighbouring countries, generating growing stress on Chad and South Sudan.
Present Circumstances
According to witnesses, many additional civilians continue to be held by the RSF and associated armed groups in Garney, south-west of El Fasher. Numerous are ex-military personnel from the Sudanese army, the collaborative forces plus additional armed factions that had been fighting alongside the army. Reports indicate they're imprisoned as they lack funds for extortion payments ranging from 5 to 10 million Sudanese pounds (around six to twelve thousand pounds), according to survivors who arrived in Tawila. Those unable to pay have been detained for days, and occasionally let go solely after falling seriously ill.
The SLA-AW has reportedly allowed army soldiers running from El Fasher to enter Tawila provided they give up their weapons.
A man named Adam Yagoub, aged 28, a motorist originating from Sennar within central Sudan, closely avoided death subsequent to his seizure by three armed men mounted on camels close to Garney.
“They planned to decapitate me with a knife,” he informs, exhibiting his limb, which one of the fighters hit using an AK-47 rifle butt. “Subsequently one identified me – his brother was my colleague – and pleaded with them to spare me. There were 18 of us who exited El Fasher as a group, but only eight made it to Tawila. I assume the others died.”
Yagoub states he saw 22 bodies close to what he described as a “fake well” used by the RSF and partner armed groups along the Garney-Tawila route. “It’s a trap,” he comments. “Individuals travel all day lacking water, and when they reach it, the militiamen await. They murdered 22 males at that location and took the bodies away to obscure them.”
An additional nurse who escaped El Fasher South hospital following Sunday's assault said RSF fighters entered via one entrance and commenced firing upon patients in the ER section, murdering no less than eight. “We escaped through a different gate, but they hit me on the head using a rifle,” he recounts.
In a video statement last Wednesday, the leader of the RSF, General Dagalo, called Hemedti, said that any soldier or officer who had “violated the right of any person” would be held accountable.
Many of those who escaped El Fasher spent hours concealing themselves near military artillery before fleeing west under cover of darkness. Already displaced families from Abu Shouk camp in the city were forced to move again, taking asylum in the Daraja Oula district prior to ultimately traveling to Tawila.
Individuals seized by the RSF in Garney were apparently provided {water mixed with flour|flour
