Attacks by Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) on camps for displaced people in the Darfur region have killed scores of civilians, according to the UN and NGOs.
Starting late last week, the RSF and allied militias launched multiple assaults over several days on the Zamzam and Abu Shouk camps and the nearby city of el-Fasher — the capital of North Darfur province. The violence destroyed shelters, markets, and healthcare facilities in famine-hit camps hosting more than 700,000 people, NGOs said.
El-Fasher is the last major city in the region still under the control of the Sudanese army, which has been fighting the RSF since Sudan descended into civil war two years ago.
On Sunday, the RSF said in a statement that it had deployed units to “secure civilians and humanitarian medical workers” after it had “fully liberated the Zamzam camp”.
UN Humanitarian Coordinator Clementine Nkweta-Salami said in a statement on Saturday that at least 100 civilians were killed in Abu Shouk and Zamzam camps, including more than 20 children and nine aid workers.
An army-aligned faction led by Darfur Governor Minni Minnawi on Sunday put the death toll at more than 400, although that number has not been independently verified.
“This represents yet another deadly and unacceptable escalation in a series of brutal attacks on displaced people and aid workers in Sudan,” Nkweta-Salami said.
Aid agency Relief International said on Sunday that nine of its staff “were mercilessly killed including doctors, referral drivers and a team leader” in the assault on Zamzam.
The RSF denied targeting civilians and accused the military of using Zamzam as “a military barracks, and innocent civilians as human shields”. The army has not commented.
Earlier last week, NGOs reported that the RSF had also killed 56 civilians over two days of attacks in Um Kadadah, a town seized by the paramilitary group en route to el-Fasher.
Sudan was plunged into chaos in April 2023 when simmering tensions between the army and the RSF exploded into open warfare across the nation.
Tens of thousands of people have been killed and at least 12 million displaced, and a humanitarian crisis is worsening.
Late last month, the Sudanese military regained control over Khartoum, a major symbolic victory in the war. But the RSF still controls most of Darfur and parts of southern Sudan.
The conflict has been marked by atrocities committed by both the army and the RSF, including mass rape and ethnically motivated killings, that may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, according to the UN and international rights groups.
The respective leaders of the army and the RSF — General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, who is better known as Hemedti — have been sanctioned by the US over the abuses. Washington has also accused the RSF of committing genocide.
Both the military and the RSF have strongly denied the accusations.
On Tuesday, the second anniversary of the civil war, foreign ministers from nearly 20 countries will meet in London for a conference that aims to bring an end to the conflict.
