Over 100 individuals, including 20 children, are now feared to have lost their lives in Sudan due to paramilitary assaults on the besieged city of El-Fasher in Darfur and two nearby camps experiencing famine, according to the United Nations.
The Rapid Support Forces (RSF), engaged in conflict with the regular army since April 2023, carried out “coordinated ground and aerial attacks” yesterday on El-Fasher, as well as the Zamzam and Abu Shouk displacement camps, as reported by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
Recently, the paramilitary group has intensified its assaults on El-Fasher—the only state capital in Darfur that remains outside their control—following the army’s recapture of the national capital, Khartoum, last month.
Initial reports from the local resistance committee, a volunteer aid organization in El-Fasher, indicate that yesterday’s death toll reached 57, with 32 civilians slain in El-Fasher and 25 in Zamzam.
Activists have noted that the full scale of the destruction in Zamzam is still unclear due to internet outages and communication disruptions.
The Sudanese Organisation for the Protection of Civilians reported that among the deceased were nine humanitarian workers associated with a hospital in Zamzam, operated by an international non-governmental organization.
Clementine Nkweta-Salami, the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Sudan, expressed her condemnation of their deaths.
“The colleagues from an international non-governmental organization lost their lives while working in one of the very few remaining health posts still operational in the camp,” she stated in a release.
“This marks yet another alarming and unacceptable escalation in a series of violent attacks against displaced individuals and aid workers in Sudan since the beginning of this conflict nearly two years ago.”
“I strongly encourage those responsible for such actions to cease immediately.”
In a statement, the RSF refuted a video allegedly circulated by activists displaying civilians killed in Zamzam.
The paramilitary organization denounced the footage as a fabricated production, calling it a “desperate attempt to criminalize” its forces.
A local advocacy group, the Darfur General Coordination of Camps for the Displaced and Refugees, reported that the assault on Zamzam resumed early this morning, marked by clashes and heavy gunfire that lasted for several hours.
This camp was the initial area in Sudan where a UN-supported assessment declared famine last year.
By December, famine had further spread to two nearby camps—Abu Shouk and Al Salam—and is anticipated to reach El-Fasher itself by May.
The ongoing war has resulted in tens of thousands of fatalities and has displaced more than 12 million individuals since its outbreak in April 2023.
Both factions involved in the conflict have been accused of committing war crimes and violating international humanitarian law.
