PORT SUDAN: Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) announced on Sunday that it had taken control of a famine-hit camp in the western Darfur region, after two days of heavy shelling and gunfire. In a statement, the RSF said that it had deployed “military units to secure civilians and humanitarian medical workers in Zamzam ... after successfully liberating the camp entirely from the grip of” the army. Zamzam — home to over 500,000 refugees according to the United Nations — and nearby refugee camps have suffered heavily throughout two years of war between the army and the RSF.

Since Friday, the RSF has launched ground and aerial assaults on North Darfur’s besieged capital of El-Fasher and the nearby Zamzam and Abu Shouk displacement camps. The UN said Saturday that more than 100 people were feared dead in the RSF attacks, while an army-aligned faction led by Darfur Governor Minni Minnawi on Sunday put the toll at more than four times that. The faction’s figures could not be independently verified.

As of Saturday evening, activists in El-Fasher said the attacks on Zamzam camp since Friday had killed at least 46 civilians, including women and children, with many other victims yet to be identified. They added that the full extent of the damage in Zamzam remained unclear because of internet shutdowns and communications disruptions. The RSF denied targeting civilians inside Zamzam, saying that the army was using the camp as a “military base” and using civilians as “human shields”.

‘Living under a tree’

In recent weeks, the RSF has stepped up its attacks on refugee camps around El-Fasher in its effort to seize the last state capital in Darfur not under its control. The fighting intensified after the army last month recaptured the capital Khartoum, around 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) to the east. Eyewitnesses said that thousands of residents in Zamzam were seen fleeing the camp after the RSF attacks. Abdallah Adam, who fled Zamzam, described a grueling three-day journey on foot to reach safety in the town of Tawila, some 80 kilometers to the west. “We fled the bombing and hunger after we ran out of food. Now, we are living under a tree,” he told AFP.

Amany al-Tayeb Dawood, who fled with her husband and five children, said she had already been displaced once before. “Last month, we left El-Fasher for Zamzam, fearing the fighting there,” she said. “But then, the shelling and attacks reached Zamzam, too,” she told AFP. She walked for three days, sleeping out in the open. “We arrived in Tawila yesterday, but we are still hungry. Our children need food,” she added.

Ethnic violence

About 180 kilometers east of El-Fasher, activists also reported that the paramilitaries killed 56 civilians over two days of attacks on a town they seized on the road to El-Fasher. The killings on Friday and Saturday targeted residents in Um Kadadah “on an ethnic basis”, according to the local resistance committee, part of a network of volunteers coordinating aid across Sudan since the war began. The attacks on Um Kadadah, about 180 kilometers east of El-Fasher, came one day after RSF fighters said they took the town from army forces.

The local committee shared a list of those killed in Um Kadadah and said that the RSF committed “widespread violations”, “forcibly displaced” citizens from the town and shut down all telecommunications. Victims included the town’s hospital director, the committee said, adding that at least 14 people remained missing. The United States has sanctioned both sides in the war, saying the RSF has “committed genocide” in Darfur and the army has attacked civilians. — AFP

The conflict has essentially divided Sudan in two, with the army holding sway in the north and east, while the RSF controls most of Darfur and parts of the south. The war has killed tens of thousands, uprooted more than 12 million and created what the United Nations has described as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. — AFP