The attackers came from all sides, with machine guns mounted on the beds of their pickup trucks. Their target: the Samsam refugee camp in Sudan’s North Darfur state.
Panic broke out in the camp, which was home to between 500,000 and 1 million internally displaced people, according to different estimates. The attackers were fighters from the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia, the very group the refugees had fled from.
Refugees like Mohamed, who does not wish to disclose his full name, experienced horrific events.
“Older people who couldn’t flee quickly enough were burned alive in their huts. Children were dragged out of hiding and killed,” Mohamed reported by phone from Al-Fashir, the capital of North Darfur.
He said the RSF abused and racially insulted their victims. Aid workers were executed on the spot.
Mohamed’s statements cannot be independently verified, but observers and aid organizations on the ground confirm the violent deaths of staff from the humanitarian organization Relief International.
According to UNICEF, at least 23 children were killed. Reports indicate those killed numbered at least 129, possibly several hundred.
Violence in Darfur has deep roots
Sudan has been embroiled in a civil war for more than two years between the RSF militia, led by Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, and the government forces of Sudan’s de facto leader Abdel-Fattah al-Burhan.
The two generals originally seized power together in 2021 and are now fighting each other. Multiple diplomatic efforts to broker a ceasefire and launch peace negotiations have failed.
However, the roots of the violence in Darfur go back further, to conflicts between Arab nomads and African farmers over resources such as water and land.
Twenty years ago, Arab militias on horseback, some of whom later became part of the RSF, attacked villages belonging to African ethnic groups such as the Massalit, Zaghawa, and Fur.
Thousands of villages were destroyed, and there were widespread reports of sexual violence and massacres.
In 2004, then-US secretary of state Colin Powell described the events in Darfur as genocide. In 2010, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an international arrest warrant for Sudan’s then-president Omar al-Bashir for crimes against humanity in Darfur.
Unlike today, Darfur received international attention at the time, with Hollywood stars such as George Clooney, Angelina Jolie and Mia Farrow making public appeals to “Save Darfur.”
History repeating itself?
Now, history seems to be repeating itself. As early as summer 2023, there were reports of massacres targeting the Massalit ethnic group in West Darfur.
Human rights groups have since repeatedly accused the RSF of torture, mass rapes and other crimes.
Since the attack on Samsam in mid-April, there have been daily reports of dozens of deaths from shelling in Al-Fashir and surrounding villages.
Al-Fashir, the last major city under government control and besieged by the RSF for a year, is of strategic importance.
If the RSF captures Al-Fashir, they would control all of Darfur and could implement their plans to establish a parallel government there.
Amnesty International demands action
While many flee, those still in Sudan face “killings, summary executions, injury, rape, gang-rape, sexual slavery and other forms of sexual violence, torture and enforced disappearances and widespread looting – all amounting to war crimes and some of which may also amount to crimes against humanity,” Amnesty International wrote in an appeal to the European Union to act.
“Children have been caught in the crossfire of aerial bombardments and shelling, resulting in numerous casualties and impacting severely on their safety, education and well-being.”
Since the start of the war, access to independent and reliable information has been under pressure as journalists are targeted by both parties with (death) threats, violence and attacks, Amnesty noted in its open letter.
Media infrastructure, including offices and equipment, has been looted, burned and deliberately destroyed.
“Ethnically motivated killing, forced displacement and sexual violence by both parties have re-emerged, raising alarming parallels to the Darfur crisis of 2003-2005, when mass atrocities were committed against ethnic communities.”
The resurgence of these tactics heightens the risk of a return to the darkest days of Sudan’s wars, when systematic ethnic cleansing and war crimes devastated entire communities.
“Diplomatic efforts have failed to bring a change in the behaviour of the warring parties or end the violations,” the NGO noted, adding Washington’s suspension of foreign aid only amplified the “urgency for robust and timely diplomatic action.”
Meanwhile, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) reports that sexual violence has become so widespread in the Darfur region that many people chillingly speak about it as unavoidable.
“Women and girls do not feel safe anywhere. They are attacked in their own homes, when fleeing violence, getting food, collecting firewood, working in the fields. They tell us they feel trapped,” MSF emergency coordinator Claire San Filippo says.
“These attacks are heinous and cruel, often involving multiple perpetrators. This must stop.”
