At least 20 children and nine aid workers among dead
Sudan‘s notorious paramilitary group killed at least 100 people in a two-day attack on famine-hit camps for displaced people in the Darfur region, a UN official said.
About 20 children and nine aid workers were among those killed by the Rapid Support Forces, or RSF, and allied militias during their offensive on the Zamzam and Abu Shorouk camps and the nearby city of El-Fasher, the provincial capital of North Darfur province, on Friday.
El-Fasher is under the control of the military, which has fought the RSF since Sudan descended into a civil war two years ago, killing more than 24,000 people, according to the UN, though activists say the number is likely far higher.
The camps were attacked again on Saturday, the UN humanitarian coordinator in Sudan, Clementine 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 the 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.
Ms Nkweta-Salami did not identify the aid workers but the Sudanese Doctors’ Union said in a statement that six medical workers with the Relief International were killed when their hospital in Zamzam came under attack on Friday.
They included Dr Mahmoud Babaker Idris and Adam Babaker Abdallah, head of the group in the region, the union said. It blamed the RSF for “this criminal and barbaric act”.
In a statement on Saturday evening, Relief International mourned the death of the nine workers, saying they had been killed the previous day in a “targeted attack on all health infrastructure in the region”, including the group’s clinic.
The group said the central market in Zamzam along with hundreds of makeshift homes in the camp were destroyed in the attack.
The offensive forced nearly 2,400 people to flee the camps and El-Fasher, the General Coordination for Displaced Persons and Refugees, a local group in Darfur, said.
Zamzam and Abu Shouk shelter over 700,000 people forced to flee their homes across Darfur during past bouts of fighting in the region, Ms Nkweta-Salami said.
The Sudanese military last month regained control of Khartoum, a major symbolic victory in the war. But the RSF remained in control of most of Darfur and some other areas.
The two camps are among five areas in Sudan suffering famine, according to the global hunger monitoring group Integrated Food Security Phase Classification.
The war has created the world’s largest humanitarian crisis, with about 25 million people, half of Sudan’s population, facing extreme hunger.
