CAIRO: Sudan’s notorious paramilitary group launched a two-day attack on famine-hit camps for displaced people that left more than 100 dead, including 20 children and nine aid workers, in the Darfur region, a UN official said Saturday.
The Rapid Support Forces and allied militias launched an offensive on the Zamzam and Abu Shorouk camps and the nearby city of el-Fasher, the provincial capital of North Darfur province, on Friday, said UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Sudan Clementine Nkweta-Salami.
El-Fasher is under the control of the military, which has fought the RSF since Sudan descended into civil war two years ago, killing more than than 24,000 people, according to the United Nations, though activists say the number is likely far higher.
The camps were attacked again on Saturday, Nkweta-Salami said in a statement. She said that nine aid workers were killed “while operating one of the very few remaining health posts still operational” in Zamzam camp.
“This represents yet another deadly and unacceptable escalation in a series of brutal attacks on displaced people and aid workers in Sudan since the onset of this conflict nearly two years ago,” she said.
Nkweta-Salami didn’t identify the aid workers but Sudan’s Doctors’ Union said in a statement that six medical workers with the Relief International were killed when their hospital in Zamzam came under attack on Friday. They include Dr. Mahmoud Babaker Idris, a physician at the hospital, and Adam Babaker Abdallah, head of the group in the region, the union said. It blamed the RSF for “this criminal and barbaric act.”
In a statement Saturday evening, Relief International mourned the death of its nine workers, saying they were killed the previous day in a “targeted attack on all health infrastructure in the region,” including the group’s clinic.
The group said the central market in Zamzam along with hundreds of makeshift homes in the camp were destroyed in the attack.
The offensive forced about 2,400 people to flee the camps and el-Fasher, according to the General Coordination for Displaced Persons and Refugees, a local group in Darfur.
Zamzam and Abu Shouk shelter more than 700,000 people who have been forced to flee their homes across Darfur during past bouts of fighting in the region, Nkweta-Salami said.
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 some other areas.
The two camps are among five areas in Sudan where famine was detected by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, IPC, a global hunger monitoring group. The war has created the world’s largest humanitarian crisis, with about 25 million people — half of Sudan’s population — facing extreme hunger.
Attacks on famine-hit camps in Sudan’s Darfur leave at least 100 people dead, UN official says
https://arab.news/ncafk
Attacks on famine-hit camps in Sudan’s Darfur leave at least 100 people dead, UN official says
- RSF fighters attacked Zamzam displacement camp around El-Fasher, killing civilians, including women, children and elderly residents
- UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk warned on Friday of deeply catastrophic consequences for civilians as the conflict approaches its third year
UN rights chief Shocked by ‘unbearable’ Darfur atrocities
- Mediation efforts have failed to produce a ceasefire, even after international outrage intensified last year with reports of mass killings, rape, and abductions during the RSF’s takeover of El-Fasher in Darfur
PORT SUDAN: Nearly three years of war have put the Sudanese people through “hell,” the UN’s rights chief said on Sunday, blasting the vast sums spent on advanced weaponry at the expense of humanitarian aid and the recruitment of child soldiers.
Since April 2023, Sudan has been gripped by a conflict between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces that has left tens of thousands of people dead and around 11 million displaced.
Speaking in Port Sudan during his first wartime visit, UN Human Rights commissioner Volker Turk said the population had endured “horror and hell,” calling it “despicable” that funds that “should be used to alleviate the suffering of the population” are instead spent on advanced weapons, particularly drones.
More than 21 million people are facing acute food insecurity, and two-thirds of Sudan’s population is in urgent need of humanitarian aid, according to the UN.
In addition to the world’s largest hunger and displacement crisis, Sudan is also facing “the increasing militarization of society by all parties to the conflict, including through the arming of civilians and recruitment and use of children,” Turk added.
He said he had heard testimony of “unbearable” atrocities from survivors of attacks in Darfur, and warned of similar crimes unfolding in the Kordofan region — the current epicenter of the fighting.
Testimony of these atrocities must be heard by “the commanders of this conflict and those who are arming, funding and profiting from this war,” he said.
Mediation efforts have failed to produce a ceasefire, even after international outrage intensified last year with reports of mass killings, rape, and abductions during the RSF’s takeover of El-Fasher in Darfur.
“We must ensure that the perpetrators of these horrific violations face justice regardless of the affiliation,” Turk said on Sunday, adding that repeated attacks on civilian infrastructure could constitute “war crimes.”
He called on both sides to “cease intolerable attacks against civilian objects that are indispensable to the civilian population, including markets, health facilities, schools and shelters.”
Turk again warned on Sunday that crimes similar to those seen in El-Fasher could recur in volatile Kordofan, where the RSF has advanced, besieging and attacking several key cities.
Hundreds of thousands face starvation across the region, where more than 65,000 people have been displaced since October, according to the latest UN figures.
