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The volunteer nurse Nawal Khalil had been volunteering as a nurse for three years within the South El Fasher hospital as the city became seized last Sunday by RSF paramilitaries. She was busy treating patients, featuring one senior woman requiring a blood transfusion, when the offensive started.

“They killed six wounded soldiers and civilians in their beds – some of them women,” she recounts. “I don’t know what happened regarding my other patients. I was forced to flee as they invaded the hospital.”

Khalil, 27, was shot in the right foot and upper leg during the RSF's seizure of the nearby military headquarters. She ran from the urban area and traveled on foot for one day, injured and without food, to reach the town of Garney. “On the way, they seized my mobile and cash,” she says. “I ended up with nothing.”

More than 1,000 people – including women and children – walked for two days to get to the settlement of Tawila within North Darfur after fleeing El Fasher, which was captured following an 18-month blockade.

This settlement, approximately 34 miles westward of El Fasher, is under the control by the SLA faction commanded by Abdul Wahid Mohamed al-Nur.

This past Tuesday, the allied Joint Forces – that cooperate with the Sudanese army – blamed the RSF with murdering over 2,000 civilians after the city's capture. The UN reported there were videos featuring numerous unarmed males who were shot or found dead, encircled by RSF combatants.”

Background Context

Conflict erupted in Khartoum back on April 15, 2023 as a growing contest for power among the two primary factions within the military government finally turned deadly.

Among the combatants exist the official Sudanese army, that stay mostly faithful to Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the nation's actual leader. Against him are the paramilitaries of the RSF paramilitary group, a collection of militias that obey the former warlord General Dagalo, known as Hemedti.

The RSF was originally established by the former dictatorial ruler Omar al-Bashir as an Arab counterinsurgency militia known as the Janjaweed, which soon became linked with massive human rights violations. In 2013, Bashir transformed the group to become the RSF, sending them to suppress a new uprising in South Darfur.

The war has pushed Sudan into a terrible humanitarian disaster in recent history”, according to UN officials. It has produced the globe's most severe displacement emergency, forcing more than 10 million persons within the country plus 4 million who escaped to adjacent nations, creating increasing strain on Chad and South Sudan.

Present Circumstances

Per observer reports, numerous more non-combatants remain trapped by the RSF and allied militias in the Garney area, southwest from El Fasher. Many are former soldiers belonging to the Sudanese military, the Joint Forces and other armed groups that had been fighting alongside the army. Reports indicate they're imprisoned since they cannot pay extortion payments ranging from 5 to 10 million Sudanese pounds (around six to twelve thousand pounds), based on survivor accounts who arrived in Tawila. Individuals incapable of paying have been held for multiple days, and sometimes released only after becoming gravely ill.

The SLA-AW has reportedly allowed military personnel escaping El Fasher to enter Tawila provided they give up their weapons.

The individual Adam Yagoub, aged 28, a motorist originating from Sennar from central Sudanese regions, narrowly escaped being killed after being captured by three camel-riding militiamen close to Garney.

“They planned to decapitate me using a knife,” he informs, displaying his arm, which one militant assaulted using an AK-47 rifle butt. “Then one of them recognised me – his sibling had collaborated with me – and pleaded with them to spare me. We were 18 people who departed El Fasher collectively, yet merely eight reached Tawila. I think the others are dead.”

Yagoub says he saw 22 bodies close to what he described as a fraudulent water source used by the RSF 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 removed the corpses to conceal them.”

A different medical worker who fled the El Fasher South medical facility after the attack on Sunday said RSF fighters entered using one doorway and began shooting at patients in the emergency ward, murdering no less than eight. “We fled through another gate, however they struck my head with a rifle,” he states.

Via a recorded message on Wednesday, the RSF commander, Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, referred to as Hemedti, declared that any fighter or commander who infringed upon the rights of any person” would be held accountable.

Numerous individuals who fled El Fasher utilized hours taking cover close to army artillery positions before fleeing west during nighttime. Families already uprooted 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 within Garney reportedly received {water mixed with flour|flour