Sarah never considered leaving Sudan’s Zamzam camp before a paramilitary attack made the area a “killing field.” She had survived famine, numerous wars, years of displacement, and years of displacement.
The Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which have been at war with the army for almost two years, stormed the camp in the Darfur region last week as the country’s streets erupted.
“Bombs were falling on houses. There were bodies on the street. There was no way we could stay”, the 22-year-old literature student told the AFP news agency after arriving in the town of Tawila, about 60km (37 miles) west of Zamzam.
Hundreds of families are seeking safety in the small, hunger-ridden town, cut off from nearly all humanitarian and media access.
It took days to arrive in Tawila, which was a terrifying experience. In the middle of the night, Sarah and her 10-person family set out on foot to seek safety.
“On the way, people were robbed and attacked. One young man was killed”, she said.
Sarah requested anonymity for fear of retribution.
Since the army and the RSF started fighting in the vast Darfur region in April 2023, thousands of people have fled from Zamzam camp.
Aid organizations estimate that the camp, which has already hosted 500,000 people, may have surpassed one million people and was Sudan’s first place to declare famine in August, according to a report supported by the United Nations.
Some people have been fighting in the camp’s rural communities on behalf of then-President Omar al-Bashir for the past two decades since the Janjaweed, who has since been renamed the RSF, tore through Darfur.
Last Tuesday, the paramilitary began a ground assault on Zamzam, setting fire to the camp’s main market, witnesses said.
At the eastern entrance to the camp, where the RSF clashed with army-allied militias, were extensive damage and entire buildings destroyed, according to Maxar Technologies’ satellite imagery.
According to the Humanitarian Research Lab at Yale University, Zamzam’s arson attacks and structural damage were “consistent with intentional razing in a ground attack.”
Source: Aljazeera
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