RSF launches second attack on North Darfur Zamzam camp this week

The Rapid Support Forces (RSF) yesterday continued its attacks on the Zamzam camp for displaced people, near El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur.

Speaking to Radio Dabanga from the camp, 15 kilometres south of El Fasher, a medic reported that eight camp residents were killed, and 31 others injured. Several shops and homes in the camp, one of the largest in Darfur, were torched.

It was the second attack in two days’ time. Sources in El Fasher told Radio Dabanga about sounds of heavy weapons, artillery shelling and the exchange of gunfire.

“The RSF began shelling and shooting at 6:00 and stopped at around 11:00,” one of them said. He noted heavy columns of smoke rising from the camp, while internet networks continued to be cut off.

Minni Minawi on Tuesday said that the RSF attack on Zamzam camp was the 10th of its kind, referring to the heavy attacks on El Fasher and the camp in the end of last year.

On December 13, the Yale School of Public Health’s Humanitarian Research Lab (HRL), confirmed “large-scale displacement of an unknown number of civilians from Zamzam IDP camp following repeated heavy artillery bombardment over 12 days by Rapid Support Forces (RSF)”.

The humanitarian situation in Zamzam was already ‘beyond comprehension’ in December. In August last year, famine was reported in the camp, home to half a million people.

Repulsed

On Tuesday, the command of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) Sixth Division in El Fasher said on its Facebook page that warplanes and artillery were able to repel the RSF attack. Local sources said that battles between the RSF and the Darfur Joint Force, supported by members of the Popular Resistance lasted six hours. Eyewitnesses reported that the RSF attacked the camp from the southeastern and northern axis.

Minni Minawi, leader of a Sudan Liberation Movement breakaway faction and governor of the Darfur region, on Tuesday strongly condemned the RSF attack on Zamzam camp. On his Facebook page, he urged “everyone who can bear arms to move to save the displaced from the RSF terrorist attacks”.

He called on the international and regional community, “and even the national media”, to shed light on what he described as a genocide.

‘Militarised’

RSF soldiers yesterday morning posted a video clip on their social media accounts in which they claimed being still inside Zamzam camp. In other clips, they showed a flag they seized “from one of the Darfur rebel movements”, and indicated that they found ammunition in the camp.

In December last year, local sources at the time accused the RSF of targeting civilians in Zamzam, but the RSF claimed they were targeting the bases of the Darfur Joint Force in the camp, and accused their opponents of using displaced civilians as human shields.

Tom Perriello, still US Special Envoy for Sudan at the time, stated in mid-December that the Sudanese Joint Forces/Darfur Joint Force, made up of rebel combatants, and the Sudanese army had militarised Zamzam camp.