Massacre at Zamzam: over 1,500 killed in Darfur refugee camp atrocity

More than 1,500 civilians may have been massacred during an attack on Sudan’s largest displacement camp in April, in what would be the second-biggest war crime of the country’s catastrophic conflict.

A Guardian investigation into the 72-hour attack by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) on North Darfur’s Zamzam camp, the country’s largest for people displaced by the war, found repeated testimony of mass executions and large-scale abductions. Hundreds of civilians remain unaccounted for. 

The magnitude of likely casualties means the assault by the RSF ranks only behind a similar ethnic slaughter in West Darfur two years ago.

The war between the Arab-led RSF and Sudanese military, which broke out in April 2023, has been characterised by repeated atrocities, forcing millions from their homes and causing the world’s largest humanitarian crisis. 

Until now, reports about the attack on Zamzam between 11 and 14 April had indicated that up to 400 non-Arab civilians were killed during the three-day assault. The UN has said “hundreds” died.

However, a committee set up to investigate the death toll has so far “counted” more than 1,500 killed in the attack, which occurred on the eve of a British government-led conference in London intended to bring peace to Sudan.

Mohammed Sharif, part of the committee from Zamzam’s former administration, said the final total would be significantly higher, with many bodies still not recovered from the camp, which is now controlled by the RSF.

“Their bodies are lying inside homes, in the fields, on roads,” Sharif told the Guardian.

An atrocity expert with decades of experience in Darfur, who has interviewed scores of survivors from Zamzam, believes up to 2,000 people may have been killed.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, they added that the levels of violence were striking even when viewed alongside the genocidal slaughter of ethnic African groups in Darfur during the 2000s by the Arab militias who would later become the RSF.

“Every single testimony from everyone who escaped knew family members who were killed. That’s something I’ve never seen before.” 

Abdallah Abugarda, of the UK’s Darfur Diaspora Association, said that about 4,500 members of his organisation knew a friend or relative killed in the attack.

At least 2,000 Zamzam residents, he said, remain missing.

“The massacre at Zamzam, home to displaced people for over 20 years, is one of the most heinous crimes in recent global history. Yet no global outrage has followed,” added Abugarda.

Claire Nicolet, deputy head of emergencies for Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), said the attack had targeted “one of the most vulnerable people on earth”. Those who survived, she said, had faced “widespread looting, sexual violence and other attacks while on the road and appalling living conditions in transit displacement sites”.

Large numbers of women were abducted and remain missing. Sharif said they knew of more than 20 who had been taken to Nyala, an RSF stronghold 160km from Zamzam.

Last month, the International Criminal Court said it had “reasonable grounds” to conclude that war crimes and crimes against humanity were unfolding in Darfur.

In Geneina, West Darfur’s capital, more than 10,000 people – mainly Masalit and other non-Arab Sudanese – are believed to have been killed by the RSF and allied militias over two months from mid-April 2023.

An episode of fighting during November that year in a suburb of El Geneina killed more than 800, according to the UN.

The Sudanese military has also been accused of myriad war crimes, in particular the massacre of civilians in indiscriminate bombing raids.