Sudan's notorious paramilitary group launched a brutal two-day assault on famine-stricken camps for displaced people in the Darfur region, leaving more than 100 dead, including 20 children and nine aid workers, a U.N. official reported Saturday.
The Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and allied militias targeted the Zamzam and Abu Shorouk camps, along with the nearby city of El-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur province, on Friday, according to Clementine Nkweta-Salami, the U.N. resident and humanitarian coordinator in Sudan.
El-Fasher remains under military control, as Sudan has been embroiled in civil war for two years, with the RSF clashing with the military. The conflict has claimed more than 24,000 lives, according to the United Nations, though activists suggest the true death toll is likely much higher.
The camps were attacked again on Saturday, Nkweta-Salami said in a statement. She said nine aid workers were killed "while operating one of the very few remaining health posts still operational” in Zamzam camp.
"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.
Nkweta-Salami did not identify the aid workers, but Sudan’s Doctors’ Union said in a statement that six medical workers with Relief International were killed when their hospital in Zamzam came under attack on Friday.
The victims include Dr. 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.”
The offensive forced about 2,400 people to flee the camps and El-Fasher, according to the General Coordination for Displaced Persons and Refugees, a local group in Darfur.
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, Nkweta-Salami said.
Late last month, the Sudanese military regained control of Khartoum, a major symbolic victory in the war. But the RSF still controls most of Darfur and some other areas.
The two camps 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.
