Attack on Sudan’s Zamzam refugee camp may have claimed over 1,500 civilian lives

Attack on Sudan’s Zamzam refugee camp may have claimed over 1,500 civilian lives

An in-depth Guardian inquiry suggests that more than 1,500 civilians may have been slaughtered during a three-day assault by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) on Zamzam Refugee Camp in North Darfur—making it likely the second-deadliest atrocity of Sudan’s ongoing conflict. Zamzam, the country’s largest site for people displaced by war, came under sustained RSF attack from April 11 to 14. Survivors’ testimony describes mass shootings, widespread abductions and scores of bodies still lying uncollected across the camp grounds.  

Until now, estimates of the death toll had peaked at around 400 non-Arab civilians, with the United Nations simply referring to “hundreds” killed. But a special committee convened to tally the casualties has already documented more than 1,500 deaths. That figure jumps even higher when dozens of unreported graves and unretrieved corpses are included—a reality underscored by Mohammed Sharif, a former member of Zamzam’s administration committee: “Their bodies are lying inside houses, in the fields, on the roads,” he told The Guardian.  

One seasoned Darfur atrocity investigator, who spoke anonymously after interviewing numerous survivors, believes up to 2,000 people may have perished. “Everyone I spoke to knew relatives who were executed,” the expert said. “I’ve never encountered such brutality, not even during the 2000s genocide against African ethnic groups by the militias that became the RSF.”  

Abdallah Abugarda of the Darfur Diaspora Association UK added that roughly 4,500 members of his network personally knew someone killed in Zamzam. He estimates at least 2,000 former camp residents remain unaccounted for. “Zamzam, home to displaced people for more than two decades, has witnessed one of the most heinous crimes in recent history—and yet the world has barely reacted,” he said.  

Médecins Sans Frontières deputy emergencies chief Claire Nicolet condemned the RSF’s targeting of “some of the most vulnerable people on the planet.” She described survivors’ ordeals: “They faced mass looting, sexual violence and further assaults as they fled, then endured appalling conditions in makeshift camps down the line.”  

Numerous women were reportedly abducted during the carnage. Sharif estimates more than 20 were driven to Nyala, an RSF stronghold some 160 kilometres from Zamzam, where their fate remains unknown.  

The scale and systematic nature of the violence drew the attention of the International Criminal Court last month, when it announced “reasonable grounds” to believe war crimes and crimes against humanity are unfolding across Darfur. In West Darfur’s capital, Geneina, over 10,000 mainly Masalit and other non-Arab civilians are thought to have been killed by the RSF and allied militias in a two-month spree beginning April 2023. A separate bout of fighting in November 2023 in a Geneina suburb left more than 800 dead, according to UN figures.  

The Sudanese army, too, faces allegations of indiscriminate bombing and civilian mass murder. As the war edges towards its third year, Zamzam’s tragic tally underscores a broader pattern of atrocity that has uprooted millions and generated the world’s largest humanitarian emergency.