‘Civilians were slain in their beds’: mayhem and cruelty dominate after capture of El Fasher
The volunteer nurse Nawal Khalil had been serving as a healthcare worker for three years at El Fasher South hospital when the city was seized last Sunday by the RSF fighters. She was actively caring for the sick, including an elderly woman who needed a blood transfusion, when the attack began.
“Six injured soldiers were killed plus civilian patients in their beds – some of them women,” she recounts. “The outcome remains unknown for my remaining patients. I had to run after they raided the medical facility.”
Khalil, 27, was hit by a bullet in her right foot and her thigh as RSF fighters took control of the adjacent military command center. She ran from the urban area and walked for a day, injured and without food, to get to the settlement of Garney. “On the way, they took my phone and cash,” she describes. “I ended up with nothing.”
Over a thousand individuals – comprising women and children – traveled on foot for two days to reach the town of Tawila located in northern Darfur following their escape from El Fasher, which was seized after a year-and-a-half-long siege.
The town of Tawila, about 34 miles (55km) west from El Fasher, is governed by of the Sudan Liberation Army faction led by Abdul Wahid Mohamed al-Nur (SLA-AW).
Last Tuesday, the 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 said that footage existed depicting dozens of weaponless men being shot or lying dead, surrounded by RSF fighters.”
Background Context
Conflict erupted within Khartoum on 15 April 2023 as an escalating power struggle among the two primary factions within the military government eventually resulted in fatalities.
On one side are the Sudanese armed forces, who remain broadly loyal to Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the nation's actual leader. Opposing him are the paramilitaries of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a gathering of armed factions who follow the former warlord General Dagalo, called Hemedti.
The RSF was initially founded by the former dictatorial ruler Omar al-Bashir himself as an Arab anti-rebellion militia named the Janjaweed, which quickly became synonymous with massive human rights violations. In 2013, Bashir reformed the faction into the RSF, using them to quell a new uprising in South Darfur.
The conflict has plunged Sudan into a terrible humanitarian disaster in recent history”, based on UN statements. It has produced the planet's biggest displacement catastrophe, scattering more than 10 million people within the country along with 4 million refugees to adjacent nations, putting mounting pressure on Chad and South Sudan.
Present Circumstances
Based on eyewitness accounts, numerous more non-combatants remain trapped by the RSF and associated armed groups in Garney, south-west of El Fasher. Many are former soldiers belonging to the Sudanese military, the collaborative forces and other armed groups that had been fighting alongside the army. Reports indicate they're imprisoned because they cannot afford ransom demands between five and ten million Sudanese pounds (around six to twelve thousand pounds), per those who escaped who arrived in Tawila. Individuals incapable of paying have been held for multiple days, and in some cases released only after becoming gravely ill.
The SLA-AW has reportedly allowed army soldiers running from El Fasher to come into Tawila if they relinquish their arms.
The individual Adam Yagoub, twenty-eight years old, a chauffeur from Sennar in central Sudan, barely avoided execution following his capture by three militiamen on camels close to Garney.
“They wanted to cut my head off with a blade,” he tells, 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 pleaded with them to spare me. There were 18 of us who departed El Fasher collectively, yet merely eight reached Tawila. I believe the remainder perished.”
Yagoub says he saw 22 bodies in proximity to what he termed a deceptive well employed by the RSF and associated militias in the area connecting Garney and Tawila. “It’s a trap,” he says. “People walk all day without water, and when they get to it, the militias are waiting. They slaughtered 22 men on that spot and removed the corpses to obscure them.”
An additional nurse who fled the El Fasher South medical facility after the attack on Sunday reported RSF militiamen penetrated using one doorway and began shooting at patients within the emergency department, murdering no less than eight. “We fled through another gate, but they hit me on the head using a rifle,” he states.
In a video statement on Wednesday, the head of the RSF, General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, referred to as Hemedti, said that any soldier or official who breached the rights of any civilian would be punished.
Several people who got away from El Fasher passed hours taking cover close to army artillery positions prior to escaping westward under cover of darkness. Already displaced families from the city’s Abu Shouk camp were compelled to relocate again, seeking refuge in the Daraja Oula neighbourhood before eventually heading for Tawila.
People apprehended by RSF forces in Garney were apparently provided {water mixed with flour|flour
