Nawal Khalil had been volunteering as a nurse for three years at El Fasher South hospital when the Sudanese city was captured on Sunday by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). She was busy treating patients, including an elderly woman who needed a blood transfusion, when the attack began.
“They killed six wounded soldiers and civilians in their beds – some of them women,” she says. “I don’t know what happened to my other patients. I had to run when they stormed the hospital.”
Khalil, 27, was shot in the right foot and thigh as RSF fighters took control of the nearby military headquarters. She fled the city and walked for a day, injured and without food, to reach the town of Garney. “On the way, they took my phone and money. I was left with nothing,” she says.
More than 1,000 people – including women and children – walked for two days to reach the town of Tawila in North Darfur after fleeing El Fasher, which was captured after an 18-month siege.
Tawila, about 34 miles (55km) west of El Fasher, is under the control of the Sudan Liberation Army faction led by Abdul Wahid Mohamed al-Nur (SLA-AW).
On Tuesday, the Joint Forces – who are allied with Sudan’s army – accused the RSF of killing more than 2,000 civilians since the fall of the city. The UN said there were videos showing “dozens of unarmed men being shot or lying dead, surrounded by RSF fighters”.
According to witnesses, thousands more civilians remain trapped by the RSF and allied militias in Garney, south-west of El Fasher. Many are former soldiers from the Sudanese army, the Joint Forces and other armed groups that had been fighting alongside the army. They are reportedly being held because they cannot afford ransom demands of between 5m and 10m Sudanese pounds (£6,000 to £12,000), according to survivors who made it to Tawila. Those unable to pay have been detained for days, and in some cases released only after becoming gravely ill.
The SLA-AW has reportedly allowed government troops fleeing El Fasher to enter Tawila on condition they surrender their weapons.