Sudan’s RSF claims control of famine-hit Zamzam camp in Darfur

Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has announced that it took control of famine-hit Zamzam camp in the western Darfur region, after two days of heavy shelling and gunfire there and in nearby areas that killed at least 100 people, including children and aid workers.

The RSF said in a statement on Sunday that it deployed “military units to secure civilians and humanitarian medical workers in Zamzam … after successfully liberating the camp entirely from the grip of” the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF).

The paramilitary group on Friday launched ground and aerial assaults on North Darfur’s besieged capital of el-Fasher and the nearby Zamzam and Abu Shouk displacement camps.

The United Nations said on 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 RSF denied targeting civilians inside Zamzam, saying that the SAF was using the camp as a “military base” and using civilians as “human shields”.

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.

About 180km (112 miles) east of el-Fasher, in Um Kadadah, activists also reported that the paramilitary killed 56 civilians over two days of attacks on a town they seized on the road to el-Fasher.

The RSF has also been accused by rights groups of using brutal sexual violence as a weapon against civilians.

The fighting intensified after the army last month recaptured the capital Khartoum, around 1,000km (620 miles) to the east.