Sudan's biggest refugee camp was already struck with famine. Now it's being shelled [View all]
LAGOS, Nigeria — Sudan's largest refugee camp — which hosts at least half a million people, thousands of whom are suffering from famine — has been attacked by artillery shelling almost daily for two weeks. More than 80 people have been killed and close to 400 injured in the Zamzam camp in Sudan's besieged western region of Darfur, according to local media.
Displaced people residing in the camp and aid groups including Doctors Without Borders (MSF) have blamed the constant shelling on the Rapid Support Forces or RSF, the Sudanese paramilitary group locked in a brutal civil war with Sudan's army since April 2023.
The siege has sparked a new humanitarian catastrophe, with the attacks preventing already very limited quantities of aid into Zamzam, and leaving its few medical facilities overwhelmed. It marks an alarming turning point in a region overrun by violence and atrocities against civilians, with mounting evidence from local and international human rights groups of ethnic cleansing committed by the RSF in Darfur.
Although it is overshadowed by wars in the Middle East and Ukraine, Sudan's 20-month conflict has killed as many as 150,000 people, according to some estimates. It has led to the world's worst displacement crisis, affecting 1 in 5 of the country's prewar population. The U.S. is among those accusing the RSF of ethnic cleansing, and also accuses Sudan's military of war crimes. In a statement last December, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said: "Since the outbreak of fighting on April 15, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have unleashed horrific violence, death, and destruction across Sudan. Civilians have borne the brunt of this needless conflict."
https://www.npr.org/2024/12/21/g-s1-39301/sudan-darfur-zamzam-camp-rsf-attack-famine
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