RSF attack on Darfur's Zamzam camp leaves all supplies on verge of running out
Two days after a brutal ground attack by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), Sudan’s largest displacement camp has been left in complete ruins.
Zamzam camp in North Darfur is home to nearly half a million people, most of whom are from the Zaghawa community and were displaced during the Darfur genocide two decades ago.
On 11 February, RSF fighters reportedly entered the camp, armed with heavy weapons, artillery and firearms.
The fighters opened fire on people in the camp, raided homes, looted shops and shelled the main market area, according to multiple media reports.
The perpetrators eventually left the camp following fierce clashes with the Joint Forces, a coalition loyal to Sudan’s army.
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Another attack took place the following day, which was also later repelled by the Joint Forces.
Mini Minawi, commander of his own army-aligned forces and governor of the Darfur region, wrote on X that the camp was being subjected to the “most heinous attack” by the RSF.
He added that belongings were burned, pastures destroyed and livestock “unable to walk after gasoline was poured on them”.
The RSF and Sudan’s army have been at war since April 2023. The conflict has displaced more than 10 million people, and left over 12 million facing high levels of acute food insecurity.
'We haven’t been able to treat all of the injured as we don’t have surgical capacities'
- Michel-Olivier Lacharite, Doctors Without Borders
At least 31 people were killed and 81 wounded at Zamzam camp over the two days, a health ministry official said.
Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said it received seven people at its field hospital in Zamzam on Tuesday who were dead on arrival.
“The situation is now quiet inside Zamzam but the population is afraid of what will happen next,” MSF's Michel-Olivier Lacharite, who is currently in the nearby town of Tawila in north Darfur, told Middle East Eye.
“After the attacks of 11 and 12 February, we have received over 50 injured at our hospital in the camp, mostly with gunshots and shrapnel injuries. But we haven’t been able to treat all of them as we don’t have surgical capacities.”
Kashif Shafique of Relief International said that if the situation in Zamzam camp did not change in the next two to three weeks, “all food will run out”.
He added that his organisation would also run out of medical supplies at its field hospital in the camp if routes were not opened.
'Ethnically motivated killings'
Zamzam camp is located near al-Fasher, the only city in the Darfur region under the control of Sudan’s army.
The RSF has laid siege to the city since April, cutting off supply routes and attacking surrounding areas.
“People who were already very vulnerable have now no access to food or water. Some of them have no shelter, as some neighbourhoods have been burned down, and it’s very cold at night,” Lacharite told MEE.
He added that due to the siege, it was not possible for the population to escape or for MSF workers to send critical patients to the nearest hospital in al-Fasher.
“MSF is calling for the population to be allowed to safely leave the camp to the location of their choice,” he said.
Shayna Lewis, Sudan specialist at Avaaz, a US-based NGO, said the RSF likely violated international humanitarian law in its attack on Zamzam.
“The deliberate targeting of civilians and civilian objects is banned under IHL, and all belligerents must distinguish between combatants and non-combatants at all times,” Lewis said.
“Even if the RSF were pursuing military targets in the camp, the proportionality of such an attack is highly dubious. These attacks must be independently investigated and may constitute war crimes.”
The damage to the camp was documented by the Humanitarian Research Lab at Yale’s School of Public Health, using satellite imagery.
It identified that the RSF had committed arson attacks and a ground incursion that razed “nearly half of the main market in Zamzam”.
Sources told Avaaz that civilians were struggling to flee Zamzam camp to find safety from the RSF’s attack.
“Families in Zamzam are trying to hide themselves and trying to get out, but the RSF is going from door to door to find people, loot their belongings, and kill the men. We don't have news from Zamzam today,” said one source in Tawila.
A spokesperson for Islamic Relief, which has aid programmes in central Darfur, told MEE: “The humanitarian situation in Zamzam camp and elsewhere in Darfur is appalling, with people who are suffering famine and starvation now coming under deadly violent attack.
“We've heard reports of civilians having to hide in makeshift and dangerous tunnels to avoid the bombardments.”
A report released last year by the Raoul Wallenberg Centre concluded that a genocide was taking place against non-Arab groups in Darfur, at the hands of the RSF and allied militias.
It stated that there was “clear and convincing evidence” that Sudan, the United Arab Emirates, Libya, Chad, the CAR and Russia, via the actions of the Wagner Group, were “complicit in the genocide”.
The Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, an advocacy group, said this week's attack was part of a pattern of ethnically motivated killings.
“The attack on Zamzam is not an isolated incident, but rather directly linked to the ongoing siege of el-Fasher and a wider pattern of the RSF systematically targeting non-Arab communities,” it wrote in a statement.
“Those with leverage over the RSF, including the United Arab Emirates, must urgently use their influence to pressure the group to halt its campaign of ethnically motivated killings, allow humanitarian access and commit to a ceasefire to prevent further atrocities.”
MEE has reported on the network of supply lines that exist to funnel arms and other goods from the UAE to the RSF, via allied groups and governments in Libya, Chad, Uganda and the Central African Republic (CAR).
The UAE has repeatedly denied providing military support to the RSF, but at the end of last year, outgoing Biden administration official Brett McGurk said that Emirati officials had promised to cease supplying the paramilitary group - a promise US officials do not believe the UAE has kept.
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