Attack on famine-hit Sudan camp kills 25 as rivals battle for key city

Sudan's paramilitaries killed 25 civilians in a famine-hit camp in North Darfur state Friday, activists said, as the battle for the last army-held city in the western Darfur region intensifies.

Shelling and intense gunfire by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) "targeted Zamzam displacement camp from both the southern and eastern directions", said the local resistance committee, a volunteer aid group in North Darfur's besieged capital of El-Fasher.

Zamzam and other densely populated camps for the displaced around El-Fasher have suffered heavily during nearly two years of fighting between the regular Sudanese army and the RSF.

El-Fasher is the only state capital still controlled by the army in Sudan's vast Darfur region.

Eyewitnesses on Friday described seeing RSF combat vehicles infiltrating the Zamzam camp under cover of heavy gunfire.

The local resistance committee said the attack, which also left a number of civilians wounded, was met with counter-fire but that the full extent of damage was unclear because of disrupted communications and internet shutdowns.

The attack on Zamzam comes a day after another deadly assault targeted the nearby Abu Shouk camp where RSF shelling killed at least 15 people and wounded 25, rescuers said.

The paramilitaries have stepped up efforts to complete their conquest of Darfur since losing control of the capital Khartoum last month.

Zamzam was the first part of Sudan where a UN-backed assessment declared famine last year.

In December, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification said famine had since spread to two more camps -- Abu Shouk and Al Salam -- around El-Fasher as well as to parts of the country's south.

The conflict in Sudan has killed tens of thousands of people, uprooted more than 12 million and created what the International Rescue Committee describes as "the biggest humanitarian crisis ever recorded".

The war between Sudan's army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his former deputy, RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, erupted in April 2023.

While the military has reclaimed the capital Khartoum late last month, Africa's third-largest country remains divided.

The army holds sway in the east and north, while the RSF controls most of Darfur and parts of the south.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk warned on Friday of deeply catastrophic consequences for civilians as the conflict approaches its third year.

"Two years of this brutal and senseless conflict must be a wake-up call to the parties to lay down their weapons and for the international community to act," he said.

"Sudan must not remain on this destructive path."

(AFP)