The air in Zamzam Camp suddenly appeared to sag in the middle of April.
In North Darfur, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) stormed the displacement camp, launching a brutal three-day assault that left countless others dispersed, hurt, or missing.
Through impromptu shelters, gunfire echoed. Families scurried in every direction. Many didn’t even make it.
The RSF claimed to have taken control of the “Zamzam military base” on April 13. However, those who lived there claimed that Zamzam was merely a place where displaced families clung to life and that such things didn’t exist.
Five months of suffocating siege led to the takeover. Survival was at risk because roads and resources were blocked.
A shelter turned into a battleground
Since the 2000s, Zamzam, which is 15 kilometers (9.3 miles) south of El-Fasher, has been a refuge for people who have been displaced by the Darfur conflict.
Rights organizations at the time claimed that the violence was ethnic cleansing and that the state-backed “Arab” nomadic militias had committed genocide against primarily “non-Arab” sedentary communities.
About 300, 000 people have ended up in Zamzam since 2003. Since Sudan’s civil war broke out between the RSF and the Sudanese military in April 2023, violence has spread throughout the western region of Darfur.
Zamzam has changed from a refuge into a killing field in the last year.
Food, medicine, and basic security have been lost to the camp due to aid blockades, repeated RSF attacks, and famine.
Numerous RSF assaults were successfully repelled by the military and its allies, but the troops soon returned to El-Fasher, their final stronghold, leaving the camp exposed once more.
The death toll for North Darfur is likely to exceed 500, according to Dr. Ibrahim Abdallah, the director general of health in the region.
It’s difficult to follow because of Sudanese custom of burying the dead right away to pay their respect, he said. “Transporting the bodies for documentation is a near-impossible situation because Zamzam is located a few kilometers away from el-Fasher.”
Finding another nightmare after fleeing one
A young woman who spoke to Al Jazeera from El-Fasher, where she, her husband, and their two younger brothers escaped, asked to remain anonymous for safety.
She claims that fear has followed them and shared her story with Al Jazeera about her escape from Zamzam.
She and her 15-year-old and 9-year-old brothers moved into Wadi Shadra in North Darfur after her parents passed away, living with them there in January 2024.
The blended family fled to Zamzam, where they believed they had escaped the worst, after the RSF attacked Wadi Shadra.
Then, more than a year later, another attack.
She said, “It started at dawn on Friday, April 11.” “From the south, a large force stormed the camp and headed for one of the markets. As gunfire rang out, there was fire that erupted in every direction.
As a shell exploded in their home and another struck a neighbor’s, killing three children, they spent the entire day hiding in trenches without getting food or water.
Then they fled, heading for Saluma, a village that is close by.
“But there, the RSF followed us there.” She remarked, “They tore down the homes and yelled, “We must go to Tawila right away.”
They had no other choice but to walk for hours to El-Fasher in the blazing sun because their donkey had been killed and their cart had been destroyed.
That day, I lost my aunt and two of her children. What happened to her other three children, at this time, remains unknown.
Nasr’s tale of being taken away from his family
After RSF fighters seized Zalingei, the capital of Central Darfur, in October 2023, Nasr, who requested anonymity, and his family fled the city. The late RSF commander Ali Yakoub had twice threatened his father, who was a community leader.
Before arriving in Zamzam on November 22, 2023, the family traversed Sarf Omra, a province in Kabkabiya, North Darfur.
He arrived with his wife, two children, both of whom are young, three-year-old daughters and three-year-old sons, as well as his parents and a number of siblings.
They attempted to start over by constructing a fragile shelter together. Nasr traveled 30 kilometers (18. 6 miles) round to El-Fasher each morning to visit the livestock market and bring home food.
RSF fighters stormed the camp then in February. The roads were closed. The siege increased.
Nasr never returned to his immediate family.
His wife, children, elderly parents, and younger siblings remained hidden, entangled in the chaos.
In this world, a tree is worth more than a human is. In this world, Nasr claimed, “we lost all of our human worth.”
He criticized Zamzam’s claim of a “military base” as a cruel distortion. He recalled how people used trenches to shield themselves from constant bombardment.
Later, he discovered a video of his uncle being detained. One of the RSF leaders said to them, “Join the RSF or suffer.”
Nasr has been hysterically waiting by the side of the road hoping someone from Zamzam will communicate his family for the past few days in El-Fasher.
He fumbles about them in whispers, his voice tingling with fear.
He finally discovered that they had reportedly fled Tawila, but he continues, “I don’t know if they actually reached Tawila.”
More than 28 attacks occurred in five months.
Mohamed Khamis, the displaced people’s representative in Zamzam, is now a patient in an el-Fasher hospital.
During the assault by the RSF, he was shot in the thigh.
He claimed that the camp had experienced more than 28 attacks in five months, but none of them were as violent as the most recent.
He claimed that they stormed in at dawn using heavy weapons.
Khamis reportedly rushed to check on friends at a Relief International Clinic in the early stages of the attack, but he never made it.
He claimed that an armored RSF vehicle had taken me.
He was saved by residents and brought to safety after being shot and left on the ground by RSF fighters.
He claimed that during the rampage, “many young men were put to death.”
He continued to explain what transpired.
More than 12 women and girls who were escaping from RSF fighters were confirmed to have been abducted. Their whereabouts are unknown, as are their potential suffering.
No fewer than 200 cases of women and girls being raped are reported, according to Khamis, but he is certain that many more cases have not been reported.
No safe haven left.
The notion of safety has vanished in the minds of those who have been moved for a second or third time.
The RSF claims that Zamzam contains “military elements,” but testimony like Nasr’s and Khamis’ refutes that claim.
As if repetition would finally put an end to the world’s indifference, Nasr said, “There was nothing there but people trying to survive.”
But there is still silence.
