The Sudanese paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has carried out a two-day attack on famine-hit camps for displaced people in the Darfur region that killed more than 100 people, including 20 children and nine aid workers, according to the United Nations.
Clementine Nkweta-Salami, the UN resident and humanitarian coordinator in Sudan, on Saturday said the RSF and allied militias launched an offensive on the Zamzam and Abu Shorouk camps and the nearby city of el-Fasher, the provincial capital of North Darfur province.
The camps were attacked on Friday and again on Saturday, Nkweta-Salami said in a statement, and nine aid workers were killed “while operating one of the very few remaining health posts” in Zamzam camp.
Zamzam and Abu Shouk shelter more than 700,000 people who have been forced to flee their homes across Darfur during past bouts of fighting in the region, according to UN figures.
“This represents yet another deadly and unacceptable escalation in a series of brutal attacks on displaced people and aid workers in Sudan since the onset of this conflict nearly two years ago,” she said.
“I strongly urge those committing such acts to immediately desist.”
The UN official didn’t identify the aid workers, but Sudan’s Doctors’ Union said in a statement that six medical workers with the Relief International group were killed when their hospital in Zamzam came under attack on Friday.
They include Mahmoud Babaker Idris, a physician at the hospital, and Adam Babaker Abdallah, head of the group in the region, the union said. It blamed the RSF for “this criminal and barbaric act”.
Relief International confirmed the death of its nine workers, saying they were killed in a “targeted attack on all health infrastructure in the region”, including the group’s clinic. The group said the central market in Zamzam and hundreds of makeshift homes in the camp were destroyed in the attack.
Zamzam and Abu Shouk are among five areas in Sudan where famine was detected by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, IPC, a global hunger monitoring group. The war has created the world’s largest humanitarian crisis, with about 25 million people – half of Sudan’s population – facing extreme hunger.
In recent weeks, the paramilitaries have stepped up their attacks on el-Fasher – the only state capital in Darfur still outside their control – after the army recaptured the national capital Khartoum last month.
Amnesty International published a report earlier this month accusing the RSF of subjecting women and girls to “horrific” sexual violence and gang rape, as part of their strategy in the country’s civil war.
