PORT SUDAN: Two days of fighting between Sudanese rivals have forced an estimated 10,000 families to flee a famine-hit displacement camp in the Darfur region, the UN migration agency said Wednesday.
The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) last week stormed Zamzam camp, home to at least half a million people, triggering clashes with the Sudanese army and allied militias, witnesses told AFP.
The International Organization for Migration said the violence since February 11 had displaced 10,000 families from Zamzam, just south of North Darfur state capital El-Fasher.
The agency cautioned that its data covers only the first two days of the reported attack as its collection capacity had been reduced due to funding constraints.
Beyond the camp, a further “1,544 households were displaced from various villages” near El-Fasher, the IOM said.
El-Fasher is the only state capital in the vast western region of Darfur that the RSF has not captured in its nearly two-year war with the Sudanese army.
With the military on the verge of retaking the capital Khartoum following a multi-front offensive on central Sudan, the paramilitaries have intensified attacks on El-Fasher in a bid to consolidate their hold on Darfur.
But the RSF has not managed to take the city, its attacks successively repelled by the army-aligned Joint Forces but sending tens of thousands of people fleeing.
Before the most recent attacks, there were already 1.7 million people displaced in North Darfur alone, with two million facing extreme food insecurity, according to the UN.
Established in 2004, Zamzam has received waves of displaced Sudanese during the current war, which began in April 2023.
Some aid officials told AFP the camp’s population has swelled to around one million during the war.
Famine was first declared in Zamzam in August, and has since taken hold of two other displacement camps around El-Fasher.
According to a UN-backed assessment, famine is projected to spread to five more areas of the state including the capital El-Fasher by May.
Across Sudan, the war has killed tens of thousands of people, uprooted over 12 million and created the world’s largest hunger and displacement crises.
Sudan battle forces 10,000 families out of famine-hit camp: UN
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Sudan battle forces 10,000 families out of famine-hit camp: UN
- The International Organization for Migration said the violence since February 11 had displaced 10,000 families from Zamzam
- Beyond the camp, a further “1,544 households were displaced from various villages” near El-Fasher, the IOM said
Israeli military says its forces shot dead Palestinian rock-thrower in West Bank
- Palestinian Red Crescent said one person had been killed and one wounded in the incident
- Israeli settler attacks on Palestinians have risen sharply, while military has tightened movement restrictions and carried out sweeping raids in several citie
RAMALLAH: Israeli soldiers shot at three Palestinians who were throwing rocks at cars in the occupied West Bank on Sunday and killed one of them, the Israeli military said.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said one person had been killed and one wounded in the incident. There was no immediate comment from Palestinian officials. The Israeli military said that apart from the fatality, one other person was “neutralized” and one arrested.
A day earlier, Israeli soldiers killed a Palestinian teenager who was driving a car toward them as well as a bystander at a checkpoint in the West Bank city of Hebron.
The military initially said two “terrorists” were killed after soldiers opened fire at a car accelerating toward them, before later clarifying that only one was involved.
An Israeli security official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a 17-year-old was driving the car and that a 55-year-old bystander was the second person killed.
Palestinian state news agency WAFA reported that 55-year-old Ziad Naim Abu Dawood, a municipal street cleaner, was killed while working. It said another Palestinian was killed but did not report the circumstances that led the soldiers to open fire.
The Palestinian health ministry identified the teen as 17-year-old Ahmed Khalil Al-Rajabi.
The military did not report any injuries to the soldiers.
Violence has surged this year in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Israeli settler attacks on Palestinians have risen sharply, while the military has tightened movement restrictions and carried out sweeping raids in several cities.
Since January, 51 Palestinian minors, aged under 18, have been killed in the West Bank by Israeli forces, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
Palestinians have also carried out attacks on Israeli soldiers and civilians, some of them deadly.
