Once they got into the perimeter of the Sudan Zamzam camp, the rapid support forces began the assault – bombing, pulling anti -aircraft cannons mounted on van and rushing into the camp while singing racial insults while they were shooting their victims.
It is estimated that 700,000 people had searched refuge in Zamzam, the largest travel camp in Sudan, but last weekend, they were forced to seek a blanket and trace the best escape. Most had already fled these fighters.
Those who have been able to bring together all the personal effects that can be transported on their backs or have embarked on donkeys and camels and rushed to start the long walk to El Fasher City, 14 km (8.7 miles), or a Tawila travel camp, 60 km west of Zamzam.
Mohamed *, a community organizer, told the Guardian that he had tried to sneak in front of the combatants to reach the medical center with the international NGO which was affected during the first stages of the attack on April 11, When nine staff members were killedincluding one of his friends.
“They were barbaric, inhuman. They sang by killing people at home. It is a behavior that you would not even find in the desert, “he said, adding that the fighters, who claimed to look for fighters from the Sudanese government hiding in the camp, attacked people in their homes or in their cars when they were trying to escape.
“I came across an RSF vehicle – the fighters shouted racist insults and I started to shoot us. I was shot in my right leg, then someone who was hiding in one of the houses dragged me inside. ”
The rescuers had only salt and leaves to treat and dress your injury. They spent the next two days hiding.
Battle for Zamzam Raged for three days. The RSF and its Allied militias said they had taken control on April 13. At least 400 civilians, including women and children, had been killed In Zamzam and near UM Kadada before April 15, according to the United Nations Bureau for Humanitarian Affairs Coordination, although it indicates that it did not have access to assess the actual scale of damage.
For most people, it is not the first time that they have escaped from the RSF. The camp increased in size during the current civil war, when people fled other parts of the Darfur taken by the RSF, a collection of militias who follow the former warlord Mohamed Hamdan Dagaloknown as Hemedti. But the camp has existed since the 2000s, before the war. Residents in the longer term fled similar violence by the RSF in its previous form as Janjaweed's militias.
Another Zamzam resident says he was in his house when the bombings started, causing a fire to go out around him. The neighbors gathered, gathered the elderly and ran north for the road to El Fasher.
“The bombings were intense. People started running everywhere, south, east, west. The bombings were so intense and they used all types of heavy weapons, we couldn't even talk about each other. We walked at the foot – it was tiring and difficult. We took breaks to sit down and sometimes people collapsed on the ground. ”
The UN stimulates 400,000 people had fled Zamzam Tuesday, heading for El Fasher or Tawila.
The Coordinator of the Patrès Sans Frontières for Northern Darfur, Marion Ramstein, said that 10,000 people arrived in Tawila in the first 48 hours of the assault on Zamzam, most of them in an advanced state of dehydration and exhaustion.
“Some children literally died of thirst on their arrival, after having traveled for two days under a hot sun, without a single drop of drinking water,” explains Ramstein, who says hospitals are so overcrowded that children must share beds.
A displaced person already living in Tawila says he saw thousands of families arriving at Tawila hungry, thirsty and often with injuries after the arduous trip.
“Many of them came on foot. Some of those who had cars were arrested on the way and then looted (by combatants) and many young people were missing or killed, “he said. “Families here are in the open air without water.”
The situation is similar to El Fasher, where the man who fled his burning house in Zamzam says that most of the injured are still waiting to be treated or have received raw first aid, such as the use of fire to cause injuries.
A doctor from El Fasher says there is an urgent need for shelters, food and water, but the region's ability to provide them is limited by a year of siege on El Fasher and its surroundings – the last big city in Darfour Two years of war.
“Even now, I can hear the rumble of heavy artillery nearby. The RSF always bombes somewhere in El Fasher, 24 hours, ”he said. “The RSF has looted the whole periphery of El Fasher, killing many people, has burned many villages, looted their property.”
Headquarters have indicated that prices on the food markets are high. According to a list of market prices distributed by the governorate of northern Darfur, after the attack on Zamzam, the price of one kilogram of wheat increased by 3,000 Sudanese pounds (£ 3.80) to 15,000 when purchased with money but experienced 22,000 people when purchased using the mobile bank, on which most people rely. Famine had already taken root In the Zamzam camp, and the last fights added to the crisis.
While at least half of the Zamzam population fled, a significant number cannot leave. Mohamed and other activists accuse the RSF of holding them hostage and using them as human shields to prevent the Sudanese army from launching a counterattack.
He says that the fighters stop people on the roads and choose who they allow you to pass according to the color of the skin.
“The main objective is a large -scale mass genocide and to move any tribe not associated with the RSF,” explains Mohamed.
A communication failure Note that the details of the consequences of the attack and the number of people have been killed and injured cannot be established, but information slowly flows to families outside the Darfur.
In relation: Atrocities go up daily. The promised help does not happen. Why did the West turned his back on Sudan?
Altahir HashimAn activist from Darfuri based in the United Kingdom, said that it was only after several days that he discovered that his mother and siblings were able to escape but that many of his cousins died. Many of his friends have also lost family members.
According to the humanitarian research laboratory of the Yale School of Public Health, which uses satellite imagery to monitor violence in Sudan, fires continued to spread after the RSF took control of Zamzam, with 1.7 m² of the camp – equivalent to 24 football fields – Destroyed by a fire between April 11 and 16.
“Even so far, people who are still in the camp are killed and raped. Even those who tried to escape west, they brought some of the little girls, the elderly and they kill them. So far, there have been a lot of injured who have not been treated, ”he said.
“People (who escaped) are really exhausted because what happened in Zamzam is a serious tragedy. They are indescribable, things that have not happened in humanity before. ”
* The name has been modified
