The attack comes just days ahead of the two-year anniversary of the start of the civil war in Sudan, one of the world’s deadliest conflicts.
A Sudanese paramilitary force has killed around 100 civilians, including nine aid workers, in an attack on a famine-struck camp for displaced families, a regional health official said on Saturday.
The attack comes just days ahead of the two-year anniversary of the start of the civil war in Sudan, which has become one of the world’s deadliest conflicts.
Ibrahim Abdullah, director general of the ministry of health in the North Darfur area, posted on Facebook that nine medical staff working for Relief International, including a doctor, had been killed in Zamzam camp since intense fighting flared up again on Friday. The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have been battling to take control of Zamzam camp and the city of El Fashir in Sudan’s western region of Darfur for nearly a year. Fighting has ebbed and flowed, but the city’s inhabitants had been expecting a major attack after the military pushed the RSF out of the Sudanese capital Khartoum last month.
Zamzam camp hosts at least half a million people who have fled the previous and current wars in Darfur.
Relief International was the last aid organization left in the camp; medical staff had been struggling to help sick, starving and injured children and mothers giving birth despite frequent attacks and severe shortages of basic items like food, local anesthetic and stitches.
“This was a targeted attack on all health infrastructure in the region to prevent access to healthcare for internally displaced people. We are horrified that one of our clinics was also part of this attack — along with other health facilities in El Fasher. We have learned the unthinkable, that nine of our colleagues were mercilessly killed including doctors, referral drivers and a team leader,” Relief International said in a statement.
Abdullah said that the aid workers had been “executed” and that 16 children at an Islamic school had also been killed.
“We are surprised by the international community’s silence regarding the crimes committed by the Rapid Support Forces in North Darfur,” he wrote. “North Darfur is in urgent need of humanitarian aid and civilian protection.”
The RSF did not respond to requests for comment.
A member of the civilian-run Emergency Response Room for North Darfur wrote on Facebook that the camp was being mortared and “shells are falling like rain on the camps for the displaced, on land now covered in blood and tears, without any oversight or accountability. Oh God, protect Zamzam and its people and keep them safe.”
An official with the health ministry in El Fasher city, who asked not to be identified to avoid retaliation, said on Saturday afternoon that he was sheltering in a hole and that there was heavy shelling and intense gunfire all around him.
“A large number of the wounded will die because the roads have been cut off, and the medical personnel have been killed,” he said in a voice note. “Children were killed inside a Quranic school in Zamzam camp, including the teachers.”
Hala Al-Karib, the regional director of the women’s rights coalition SIHA, said their community kitchen to feed starving families had been attacked and burned. Three female volunteers were killed, one of whom was pregnant.
It was not possible to get through to people in the camp or town on the phone because communications were down.
Human Rights Watch said in a statement that the RSF attacked Zamzam camp in February 2025, destroying civilian infrastructure, and driving out aid agencies including Doctors Without Borders and the United Nations’ World Food Program.
“There have been worrying signs of a large-scale imminent attack for days,” Human Rights Watch’s Horn of Africa director Laetitia Bader said. “Abdel Raheem Dagalo, the deputy RSF leader, was recently filmed mobilizing forces engaged in El Fasher. On April 10, RSF shelling hit El Fasher’s Abu Shouk camp. Local responders reported more than a dozen people, including children, had died.”
“There were similar warning signs ahead of the RSF’s attacks on the suburb of Ardamata in El Geneina, the capital of West Darfur and the last safe haven for ethnic Massalit, in late 2023,” the international rights group added. “A massacre of civilians ensued.”
The United Nations panel of experts on Sudan estimated between 10,000 and 15,000 people were killed in El Geneina in 2023.
Sudan’s civil war erupted in April 2023 after two generals who had cooperated to overthrow a fledgling civilian-military government then turned on one another. It has created the world’s largest humanitarian crisis: More than half of the country’s 50 million citizens need food aid, and more than a tenth have had to flee their homes. Pockets of famine are spreading in Darfur and the Kordofan mountains.
RSF attacks have been characterized by extreme sexual violence, looting, ethnic cleansing and mass killings of civilians. The military and its allied militias have repeatedly bombed civilian neighborhoods. Both sides have interfered with the delivery of lifesaving aid and detained, tortured and killed large numbers of civilians. No one has accurate casualty figures, but a year ago, the United States said around 150,000 people had been killed.
Source: Washingtonpost
