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.
© 2025 AFP
