For months before entering the city, RSF fighters built a 30-kilometer earthen wall around the city limits to try to seal it off and trap people inside. Yale researchers I found evidence of mass murders along the wall over the past week.
The fall of El Fasher, located deep in a semi-desert region about 800 kilometers southwest of the capital, Khartoum, heralds a new phase in the brutal two-year war between the RSF and the army in Africa’s third-largest country.
The war has killed more than 40,000 people, according to United Nations figures, but aid groups say that is an undercount and the true toll could be many times higher. The war has also displaced more than 14 million people and caused disease outbreaks that are believed to have killed thousands of people. Famine has been declared in parts of Darfur, a region the size of Spain, and in other parts of the country.
Fatima Abdulrahim, 70, fled with her grandchildren a few days before the city was captured to escape the siege. He described to The Associated Press a harrowing five-day journey to reach Tawila, hiding in trenches and dodging bullets and gunmen.
“We ran through the streets, hid for 10 minutes behind the berm, then ran, running until we managed to get out,” he said, adding that he kept falling and getting up amid gunfire and shelling. Her classmates sometimes carried her, she said.
“The thirst almost killed us,” he said, describing how they gathered grass to eat on the side of the road.
Three-year-old Nabaa Ahmed, who fled El Fasher, receives medical attention in Tawila on Thursday.Credit: AP
Along the way he witnessed militants shooting and killing young men who were trying to bring food to the city, he said.
“The people killed in the streets were countless,” he said. “I kept covering the little ones’ eyes so they couldn’t see. Some were hurt and beaten and couldn’t move. We took some of them to the paved road, hoping a car would come and take them away.”
Some fighters detained her and the group she was traveling with, took all their belongings and beat the children, she said.
Charging
At least 450 people have been admitted to Tawila hospital, some of whom are suffering from severe malnutrition and sexual violence, said Adam Rojal, spokesman for a local group that works with displaced people in Darfur.
The Norwegian Refugee Council said people were arriving at the camp with broken limbs and other injuries, and some with wounds suffered months ago. Many children had come to the camp after losing their parents in the fighting.
hospital attack
WHO spokesman Christian Lindmeier provided new details about the killings at the Saudi El Fasher Hospital, which had been the only hospital in the city still providing limited services during the siege.
Armed men returned to the facility at least three times, Lindmeier said at a U.N. news conference in Geneva. Initially, the fighters arrived and kidnapped several doctors and nurses, and at least six were still detained, he said. They later returned and “started killing,” he said.
A satellite image of El Fasher Saudi Hospital taken on October 28, 2025 shows objects and discoloration on the ground.Credit: Yale/Airbus DS
They came a third time and “finished off what was still standing, including other people sheltering in the hospital,” Lindmeier said, without specifying who the attackers were.
Several gruesome videos from the hospital have circulated online showing dead bodies and at least one fighter shooting a man. The Associated Press has not been able to independently verify details of the assault.
RSF denied committing murders at the hospital. On Thursday, he posted on social media a video filmed at the hospital, showing what he said were some patients in the facility. A person speaking in the video said RSF fighters were treating patients and offering them food. At least one injured person spoke with the journalist.
RSF fighters celebrate in the streets of El-Fasher on Sunday, in an image taken from RSF’s Telegram account.Credit: AFP
It was not immediately clear when the video was filmed, although a timestamp indicated it was Thursday.
WHO’s head of humanitarian operations, Dr. Teresa Zakaria, said at the briefing that the hospital was offering a “limited service” now. But he said that since the taking of El Fasher on Sunday, “there is no longer a humanitarian health presence in the city and access remains blocked.”
Militia accused of repeated mass murders
El-Fasher was the last stronghold of the Sudanese army in Darfur, and its fall ensures RSF control over most of the greater western region. This raises fears of a new division in Sudan, with the military controlling Khartoum and the north and east of the country.
The RSF and its allied militias have been accused of repeated mass killings and rapes while controlling the capital, Khartoum, and while taking cities across Darfur and further south in the past two years, mainly targeting ethnic Central and East African civilians.
The RSF is largely made up of fighters from the Arab Janjaweed militia, accused of carrying out a government-backed genocidal campaign in Darfur in the 2000s in which some 300,000 people were killed.
The Janjaweed were initially recruited by the army to fight Darfur insurgents, who were rebelling against concentrated power in the north. The militia was later reorganized into the RSF as an official force.
Charging
The army and RSF briefly allied to govern Sudan following popular protests that toppled longtime leader Omar al-Bashir. They fell out in 2023 in a power struggle.
AP
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