Latest news with #MiniMinawi
Yahoo
18-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Survivors recount horrific RSF attack on famine-hit Sudan camp
Sarah had survived famine, multiple wars and years of displacement in Sudan's Zamzam camp and never considered fleeing, until a paramilitary attack turned the site into a "killing field". Last week, shelling and gunfire shook the streets as the Rapid Support Forces, at war with the army for nearly two years, stormed the famine-stricken camp in the Darfur region. "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 AFP after arriving in the town of Tawila, around 60 kilometres (37 miles) west of Zamzam. In the small, hunger-ridden town, cut off from nearly all humanitarian and media access, an AFP journalist who had exclusive access met some of the hundreds of families seeking safety. "In the middle of the night, we took the children and our grandmothers and started walking," Sarah said of her family of 10, requesting anonymity for fear of retribution. It took them three terrifying days to reach Tawila on foot. "People were robbed and attacked on the road. One young man was killed," she said. The Zamzam camp, home to between 500,000 and a million people according to aid groups, was the first place famine was declared in Sudan last August under a UN-backed assessment. Since war began in April 2023 between the army and the RSF, it has received wave after wave of people displaced from across Sudan's vast Darfur region, most of which is under paramilitary control. Now Zamzam's residents, some of them displaced for months, others for two decades, are again running for their lives. - 'Killing fields' - In recent weeks, thousands of families have fled RSF attacks around El-Fasher, the North Darfur state capital just north of Zamzam, which has been besieged since May. Last Tuesday, the paramilitary began a ground assault on Zamzam, setting fire to the camp's main market, witnesses said. By Thursday, satellite imagery from Maxar Technologies analysed by AFP showed heavy damage and entire buildings razed at the eastern entrance to the camp, where the RSF clashed with army-allied militias. Yale University's Humanitarian Research Lab, which uses remote sensing data, said arson attacks and structural damage in Zamzam were "consistent with intentional razing in a ground attack". "The camp's streets have turned into killing fields full of blood and body parts ... fires have engulfed homes and screams mix with the sound of bullets," said a local advocacy group, the Darfur General Coordination of Camps for the Displaced and Refugees. The attack lasted at least three days, witnesses told AFP. According to Darfur governor Mini Minawi, whose forces are battling the RSF as part of the pro-army Joint Forces coalition, the attack killed at least 19 people. The UN says at least two humanitarian workers have also been killed. A field hospital inside the camp, run by medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF), is the only recourse for those wounded in the fighting, but with no surgical capacity, staff can only stabilise patients, not treat them. "We had to leave some people wounded on the ground," Zamzam resident Adam Issa said after fleeing his burning home. Running for their lives, families took all they could carry, but by the time they got to Tawila, they had nothing left. "At five checkpoints, RSF fighters stopped us and searched us, accusing us of siding with the army, that our husbands are soldiers," Maqboula Mohamed told AFP. "They took our phones and all our money. They left us with nothing. They even took our blankets," she said. The 37-year-old had already been displaced multiple times before. In Shagra, another village, she said the RSF fighters who killed several of her relatives warned survivors: "Even if you go to Zamzam or El-Fasher, we'll follow you." - 'Immediate action' - On Thursday, the RSF said it had conducted "swift operations to liberate the displaced persons" in Zamzam, which it said had been "turned into a military base" by the Joint Forces. The paramilitary, which the US determined in January had committed genocide in Darfur, said its forces "have never targeted civilians". There is no confirmed toll from the Sudan war, but last year former US envoy Tom Perriello said some estimates reached 150,000. In the town of El-Geneina alone, the RSF and allied militias killed between 10,000 and 15,000 people in ethnically motivated attacks in 2023, UN experts determined. Fear of similar massacres has mounted since the RSF's rampage through North Darfur. The UN children's agency, UNICEF, has warned escalating violence in Zamzam and El-Fasher "is putting hundreds of thousands of children at risk". In a statement to AFP, Zamzam's civilian administrators said the RSF's goal was to "eradicate" the displaced population entirely. "What is happening now in Darfur is not just a conflict, but a documented genocide that requires immediate international action," they said. Amnesty International said Friday the "unconscionable" attack on Zamzam "underscores the urgent need for real international pressure", and called for a countrywide arms embargo. In Tawila, an armed group named the Sudan Liberation Army has vowed to protect the hundreds of families seeking safety. But with no food or money, Sarah and other displaced people sleep on the dirt in the open steppe. "We ran away with just the clothes on our backs. We have nothing, not even a blanket to cover ourselves with when we sleep," she told AFP. ibr-bha/it/ser
Middle East Eye
14-02-2025
- Health
- Middle East Eye
RSF attack on Darfur's Zamzam camp leaves all supplies on verge of running out
Two days after a brutal ground attack by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), Sudan's largest displacement camp has been left in complete ruins. Zamzam camp in North Darfur is home to nearly half a million people, most of whom are from the Zaghawa community and were displaced during the Darfur genocide two decades ago. On 11 February, RSF fighters reportedly entered the camp, armed with heavy weapons, artillery and firearms. The fighters opened fire on people in the camp, raided homes, looted shops and shelled the main market area, according to multiple media reports. The perpetrators eventually left the camp following fierce clashes with the Joint Forces, a coalition loyal to Sudan's army. New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters Another attack took place the following day, which was also later repelled by the Joint Forces. The RSF and Sudan's army have been at war since April 2023. The conflict has displaced more than 10 million people, and left over 12 million facing high levels of acute food insecurity. At least 31 people were killed and 81 wounded at Zamzam camp over the two days, a health ministry official said. Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said it received seven people at its field hospital in Zamzam on Tuesday who were dead on arrival. 'Zamzam camp is being subjected to the most heinous attack by the Rapid Support Forces,' Mini Minawi, commander of his own army-aligned forces and governor of the Darfur region, wrote on X, accompanied by a video of the destruction. He added that belongings were burned, pastures destroyed and livestock 'unable to walk after gasoline was poured on them'. Kashif Shafique of Relief International said that if the situation in Zamzam camp did not change in the next two to three weeks, 'all food will run out'. He added that his organisation would also run out of medical supplies at its field hospital in the camp if routes were not opened. 'Ethnically motivated killings' Zamzam camp is located near al-Fasher, the only city in the Darfur region under the control of Sudan's army. The RSF has laid siege to the city since April, cutting off supply routes and attacking surrounding areas. Shayna Lewis, Sudan specialist at Avaaz, a US-based NGO, said the RSF likely violated international humanitarian law in its attack on Zamzam. 'The deliberate targeting of civilians and civilian objects is banned under IHL, and all belligerents must distinguish between combatants and non-combatants at all times,' Lewis said. 'Even if the RSF were pursuing military targets in the camp, the proportionality of such an attack is highly dubious. These attacks must be independently investigated and may constitute war crimes.' The damage to the camp was documented by the Humanitarian Research Lab at Yale's School of Public Health, using satellite imagery. It identified that the RSF had committed arson attacks and a ground incursion that razed 'nearly half of the main market in Zamzam'. Sources told Avaaz that civilians were struggling to flee Zamzam camp to find safety from the RSF's attack. 'Families in Zamzam are trying to hide themselves and trying to get out, but the RSF is going from door to door to find people, loot their belongings, and kill the men. We don't have news from Zamzam today,' said one source, in the nearby town of Tawila. The Zamzam camp in North Darfur's on 14 January 2025 and the same location on 13 February 2025 (top) showing heavy damage (Maxar Technologies/AFP) A report released last year by the Raoul Wallenberg Centre concluded that a genocide was taking place against non-Arab groups in Darfur, at the hands of the RSF and allied militias. It stated that there was "clear and convincing evidence" that Sudan, the United Arab Emirates, Libya, Chad, the CAR and Russia, via the actions of the Wagner Group, were "complicit in the genocide". How the UAE kept the Sudan war raging Read More » The Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, an advocacy group, said this week's attack was part of a pattern of ethnically motivated killings. 'The attack on Zamzam is not an isolated incident, but rather directly linked to the ongoing siege of el-Fasher and a wider pattern of the RSF systematically targeting non-Arab communities,' it wrote in a statement. 'Those with leverage over the RSF, including the United Arab Emirates, must urgently use their influence to pressure the group to halt its campaign of ethnically motivated killings, allow humanitarian access and commit to a ceasefire to prevent further atrocities.' MEE has reported on the network of supply lines that exist to funnel arms and other goods from the UAE to the RSF, via allied groups and governments in Libya, Chad, Uganda and the Central African Republic (CAR). The UAE has repeatedly denied providing military support to the RSF, but at the end of last year, outgoing Biden administration official Brett McGurk said that Emirati officials had promised to cease supplying the paramilitary group - a promise US officials do not believe the UAE has kept.
