The Sudanese paramilitaries killed the entire staff of the latest Medical Clinic in a hunger camp in the western area of Darfour, Sudan, as part of a wider attack that killed at least 100 people, aid groups and the United Nations, said on Saturday.
The attack on the Zamzam camp, which holds 500,000 people in the besieged city of El Fasher, was remarkable even by the standards of a civil war that has seen countless atrocities as well as genocide categories.
Paramilitors with rapid support forces or the RSF broke the perimeter of the camp on Friday night after hours of bombing. They then destroyed hundreds of houses and the main market of the camp before turning their attack on the last camp’s medical clinic, according to Relief International, the facility aid team.
Nine hospital employees were killed, including the head of a doctor, the assistance team said in a statement on Saturday. “We have learned the unthinkable,” the statement said. “This is a deep tragedy for our organization.”
Kashif Shafique, director of the group of the group, said in a telephone interview that aid workers – five doctors and four drivers, his entire staff at the clinic – were shot.
The paramilitaries had warned doctors to leave the day before the attack, Mr Shafique said. But they had to face the citizens who were injured by the bombing and, in any case, the main routes from the camp were closed.
“There was no way out,” he said.
The RSF has been fighting Sudan’s army since April 2023, in an extensive conflict that has caused the biggest humanitarian crisis in the world. Up to 150,000 Sudanese have been killed, according to US estimates, and 13 million have been forced by their homes.
The UN chief in Sudan, Clementine Nkweta-Salami, said he was “terrified and strongly worrying” by violence at El Fasher, which continued on Saturday. At least 20 children were among the 100 people killed, he said.
Satellite images published Friday by the Humanitarian Research Laboratory in the Yale School of Public Health showed military vehicles near the camp and fires burning in it. The team called it “the most important territory attack” in the Zamzam camp in one year.
The gradual violence comes a few days before an important international conference on Sudan scheduled to take place in London on Tuesday, the second anniversary of the war. The purpose of the conference is to attract Sudan’s serious humanitarian crisis. So far, the donors have committed to just 10 percent of the $ 4.2 billion appeal by the United Nations.
The conference has been criticized by some Sudanese because it will participate in representatives from the United Arab Emirates, who have been accused of providing military and financial support to RSF
Watch Human Rights urged the UN Security Council to impose sanctions on RSF commanders responsible for abuses and condemn “countries that provide support to Contracting Parties in violating the ongoing UN weapons embargo”.
“World leaders must act,” the organization said in a statement.
Both sides in the Sudan War were accused of war crimes by the right groups, the United Nations and the United States, though only the RSF was accused of genocide. Sudan’s army was regularly accused of indiscriminate bombed markets, often in the Darfur area, in multiple incidents that sometimes killed more than 100 people at a time.
Earlier this month, UN Human Rights official Volker Türk said he was “completely frightened” by reports of the extensive summary executions of the citizens in the capital of Khartoum, after the recovery of the city by the Sudanese army.
On March 24, the army killed at least 54 people in an attack on a busy market in Toura, a small town in northern Darfour.
Most of Darfur, however, is being held by the RSF, which has been siege for more than a year at El Fasher, the last major city in the region. It was expected to accelerate the attack in recent weeks, after the RSF forces were expelled from Khartoum by the army in late March.
There were signs for days before Friday’s violence that a major attack was imminent.
The video of the Deputy Leader of RSF Abdul Rahim Dagalo mobilizing his strengths in the area released in the social media. On Thursday, the RSF began to stroke Abu Shouk, another camp north of the city, killing at least 12 people, according to local rescue workers.
The fighters also began attacking the Zamzam camp with artillery, shooting and aircraft, according to assistance groups and local activists. A famine was officially declared to the camp last August.
A Sudan research team, Fikra for study and development, urged the UN to launch Zamzam’s food.
US officials have repeatedly warned of a possible ethnic massacre if the RSF surpasses El Fasher. Similar violence against the Ethnic Masalit Group at the end of 2023 led to thousands of deaths and was central to the US decision in January to accuse the RSF of Genocide.
Abdalrahman altayeb References are contributed by Port Sudan, Sudan.
