A paramilitary drive in Sudan has stormed the nation’s largest displacement camp, looting and setting hearth to the market and several other properties, an area refugee group has stated.
The Zamzam camp in North Darfur has been the goal of intense artillery shelling since late final 12 months, however that is the primary time the Speedy Assist Forces (RSF) has been accused of sending in fighters.
An eyewitness advised the BBC the state of affairs on the camp was “extraordinarily catastrophic”. There have been many casualties, however the camp’s hospital not had a functioning surgical procedure, he stated.
The close by metropolis of el-Fasher, one of many centres of the civil battle that erupted in 2023, is already underneath siege by the RSF because it battles the military.
The army and RSF had been allies – coming to energy collectively in a coup – however fell out over an internationally backed plan to maneuver in the direction of civilian rule.
The Sudanese IDPs and Refugees Bloc stated Zamzam camp was invaded on Tuesday.
Nevertheless, an RSF spokesman denied its fighters had penetrated it, saying that they had seized a close-by army base belonging to an armed group that fights alongside the Sudanese army, after it had shelled RSF checkpoints for days.
Zamzam hosts about half one million displaced individuals who have been already affected by famine.
Reviews stated the assault compelled hundreds of them to flee once more.
North Darfur’s Well being Minister Ibrahim Abdullah Khater advised the BBC that these injured within the assault weren’t capable of attain el-Fasher for remedy as a result of the RSF was blocking the street and stopping entry to the town.
“Those struggling probably the most are the displaced folks,” he stated.
The humanitarian disaster worsened late final 12 months when Zamzam got here underneath heavy artillery hearth, which help organisations, together with Docs With out Borders, blamed on the RSF.
A bunch of worldwide non-governmental organisations issued a press release in December, saying the assaults on Zamzam marked “an escalation in violence on a website which has beforehand been spared from energetic hostilities”, though it was “according to a sample of assaults” on different camps for displaced folks.
“This underscores the truth that there are actually no protected locations for folks to flee to in North Darfur,” it stated.
The siege of el-Fasher started final April – a 12 months into the battle.
It’s the solely metropolis nonetheless underneath military management in Darfur, the place the RSF has been accused of finishing up ethnic cleaning in opposition to non-Arab communities.