Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces killed more than 1,000 civilians during three days of attacks on the Zamzam displacement camp in April, the U.N. said Thursday as it called for a war crimes investigation.
A report from the U.N. human rights office said it had documented widespread killings, sexual violence, torture and abductions committed during the brutal offensive by the RSF, which has been fighting Sudan's regular army since 2023.
The rights office "documented the killing of at least 1,013 civilians" in that attack between April 11 and 13, the report said, adding that it had also confirmed that "at least 319 individuals were summarily executed."
"Some were killed in their homes during house-to-house searches by the RSF; others were killed in the main market, in schools, health facilities and mosques," the office said in a statement.
More than 400,000 inhabitants of the camp for internally displaced people (IDPs) were displaced once again due to the attack, it added.
The assault was part of the paramilitary force's push to seize the city of el-Fasher, the army's last stronghold in the western Darfur region, which the RSF captured in late October amid reports of more mass killings, sexual violence, abductions and looting.
"Such deliberate killing of civilians or persons (outside of) combat may constitute the war crime of murder," U.N. rights chief, Volker Türk, said in the statement.
"There must be an impartial, thorough and effective investigation into the attack on the Zamzam IDP camp, and those responsible for serious violations of international law must be punished within fair proceedings."
The report, which comes two days after a Yale University study that found the RSF destroyed and concealed evidence of mass killings they committed after overrunning el-Fasher, also details patterns of sexual violence.
The office said it had documented at least 104 victims – 75 women, 26 girls and three boys – assaulted between April 11 and May 20, mostly from the Zaghawa ethnic group.
They were "subjected to gruesome sexual violence, including rape and gang rape, and sexual slavery, both during the attack on the camp and along the exit routes," the office said.
"The findings contained in this report are yet another stark reminder of the need for prompt action to end the cycles of atrocities and violence," Türk said.
"The world must not sit back and watch as such cruelty becomes entrenched as the order of the day in Sudan."
Earlier on Dec. 3, U.K.-based Amnesty International also accused the RSF of committing war crimes in Zamzam.
The U.K.-based rights group said that the RSF's multi-day attack involved killings of civilians, hostage taking and the destruction of mosques, schools and health clinics, and that they must be investigated as war crimes.
"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 Agnes Callamard, Amnesty International’s secretary-general.
"This was not an isolated attack, but part of a sustained campaign against villages and camps for internally displaced persons," Callamard said of the Zamzam assault.
Amnesty said in its report that 47 people who were killed in the assault were fleeing the violence and hiding in homes, at a clinic and seeking refuge in a mosque.
"Civilians were ruthlessly attacked, killed, robbed of items critical to their survival and livelihood, and left without recourse to justice, while grieving the loss of their loved ones," Callamard said.
Citing survivors, the rights group also reported that many people were killed in the shelling of densely populated areas between April 11-13, including a shell that landed near a mosque during a wedding ceremony.
