DARFUR, Sudan – An international rights group has accused Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) of committing war crimes during its assault earlier this year on the Zamzam displacement camp in Darfur.
In a report released Wednesday, Amnesty International said the RSF’s multi-day attack in April involved the killing of civilians, hostage-taking, and the deliberate destruction of mosques, schools, and health facilities.
The assault coincided with the RSF’s wider siege of el-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur province, which the paramilitary group eventually captured in October.
“The RSF’s horrific and deliberate assault on desperate, hungry civilians in Zamzam camp laid bare once again its alarming disregard for human life,” said Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s secretary-general.
The report is the latest from international rights groups documenting atrocities by the RSF in Sudan’s 30-month-long war, which erupted in April 2023 over a power struggle between the RSF and Sudan’s military.
The conflict has claimed at least 40,000 lives, displaced more than 14 million people, and triggered what the United Nations describes as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. Many areas, including Zamzam, have also faced famine.
Amnesty said the April 11 attack virtually emptied the 20-year-old camp, which once housed roughly 500,000 people.
Survivors and aid workers recounted that RSF fighters gunned down men and women, tortured others, sexually assaulted women and girls, and burned homes, markets, and other buildings.
The report documented 47 people killed while hiding in homes, seeking refuge in a mosque, or at a clinic. Many others were killed in indiscriminate shelling of densely populated areas, including a wedding ceremony at a mosque.
One survivor told Amnesty that RSF fighters stormed his compound, killing his 80-year-old brother and 30-year-old nephew.
Another woman recalled RSF fighters driving through her neighborhood and firing indiscriminately at civilians.
Amnesty also criticized the United Arab Emirates for allegedly supplying arms to the RSF, a claim the UAE has consistently denied.
The RSF has its roots in the Janjaweed militias, notorious for a brutal campaign against ethnic groups in Darfur in the early 2000s that killed an estimated 300,000 people and displaced 2.7 million.
Sudan’s former President Omar al-Bashir was indicted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes and genocide in Darfur in 2009.
The U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres called the attacks in el-Fasher “horrendous” and urged accountability.
The U.S. government has accused the RSF of genocide in Darfur, while the International Criminal Court is investigating suspected war crimes in the region.
The RSF did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the Amnesty report. Following the attack, the group claimed the camp had been used as a base by the military and allied militias and denied targeting civilians.
