The Rapid Support Forces (RSF) announced on Sunday that they have taken control of a displaced persons camp affected by famine, where more than 350 people have died since Friday due to operations launched by the paramilitaries in this area located in North Darfur, western Sudan.

The RSF deployed “military units to protect civilians and humanitarian medical personnel in the Zamzam camp, in North Darfur state, following the successful liberation of the camp from the control of the Sudanese Armed Forces and their allies,” the paramilitaries stated in a press release.

They also categorically rejected “false accusations that their members attacked civilians within the Zamzam camp” and accused the Army and its allies of using the camp as a “military barracks and innocent civilians as human shields.”

Since Friday, more than 350 people have died, according to the North Darfur government, due to RSF attacks in the Zamzam and Abu Shouk camps, as well as in the city of Al Fasher, the capital of North Darfur and the last stronghold of the Sudanese Army in the region.

The Zamzam camp, the largest in Darfur, houses approximately half a million people and is one of the areas where famine has been declared—the highest level of food insecurity according to World Food Programme (WFP) standards—since last August.

It is located about 15 kilometers south of Al Fasher, which has been besieged for months by militias opposed to the Khartoum government.

Since the Sudanese Army took Khartoum more than two weeks ago, the RSF has escalated its operations against military strongholds in Darfur. The RSF now controls almost all of Darfur except for Al Fasher and some nearby areas.

The war in Sudan, which began in April 2023, has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths and forced more than 12 million people to flee their homes within the country, while nearly 4 million have sought refuge in neighboring nations.

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