Darfur survivors vow to tell story of those killed after Sudan camp attacks

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Ataques mortais de drones da RSF revelam profundas divisões entre Sudão e Etiópia.

He found nothing. Jumaa explained that his old phone was looted during last year’s attack by Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces on the camp. Pointing to the bare walls around him, Jumaa said that all he has left are his memories of the camp, and the people who once called it home.

Zamzam, established in 2004, was home to generations of people displaced by western Sudan’s Darfur war, which began in 2003 and continued for nearly two decades.

Alongside Abu Shouk camp and al-Salam camp, Zamzam formed part of one of Darfur’s largest concentrations of displaced people.

Jumaa recordou uma comunidade agitada, com seu mercado aberto todos os dias e crianças caminhando para a escola.

Zamzam continuou como refúgio para civis até a guerra atual do Sudão, que começou em 2023. A RSF, lutando contra as Forças Armadas Sudanesa e seus aliados, capturou o acampamento em abril de 2025, após meses de ataques.

Famine had been confirmed in the camp in August 2024.

Mukhtar Musa, a survivor of the assault, watched the community he knew descend into starvation and violence. He said restrictions on the movement of goods had exhausted food supplies, leaving some residents with little choice but to eat animal feed and peanut shells.

Umm Kulthum Ali Saleh described the months before the final attack as the hardest of her life. The RSF siege on Zamzam stopped goods from entering. She searched for food every morning, and recalled seeing women cooking grass and mixing mud with flour to bake bread.

Saleh believes the blockade was not merely a military measure, but a deliberate way to weaken the camp’s residents in advance of the final offensive, and Zamzam’s fall.

Em 11 de abril, o RSF lançou um assalto de três dias, mobilizando carros, camelos e cavalos, incendiando casas de palha e instalações de saúde.

Um relatório do Escritório de Direitos Humanos das Nações Unidas documentou pelo menos 1. 013 civis mortos, incluindo 319 que foram executados sumariamente em casas, mercados, escolas, clínicas e mesquitas.

The report documented other abuses, including rape, gang rape, sexual slavery, and other forms of sexual violence, particularly targeting the Zaghawa community.

Musa was a witness to some of those mass killings, and said he saw RSF fighters kill civilians while chanting religious slogans. He described seeing bodies scattered around the main market and near schools, and said fighters continued pursuing civilians along roads leading out of the camp.

Saleh também relembrou ver corpos espalhados pelas estradas, com apenas galinhas, burros e ovelhas vagando entre os prédios abandonados.

The attack forced tens of thousands to flee Zamzam, with many remaining in the el-Fasher area, and others fleeing south to Tawila and Dar al-Salam.

A violência continuou a engolir el-Fasher e seus campos de deslocamento circundantes nos meses seguintes.

With Zamzam under its control, the RSF launched an attack on el-Fasher in August 2025, and soon captured the Abu Shouk camp.

O Escritório de Direitos Humanos das Nações Unidas disse que pelo menos 40 pessoas deslocadas foram mortas dentro de Abu Shouk, enquanto 19 outras ficaram feridas.

A Organização Internacional para a Migração relatou que pelo menos 500 residentes fugiram do acampamento naquele dia.

The RSF captured el-Fasher itself on October 26, 2025. More than 6,000 people are believed to have been killed in the attack, in el-Fasher as well as on escape routes out of the city.

The UN found that RSF fighters targeted civilians, including members of non-Arab communities, and committed acts amounting to war crimes.

O RSF já negou ter como alvo civis em Zamzam e el‑Fasher, mas reconheceu que alguns combatentes cometeram abusos.

The survivors of Zamzam, al-Shouk, and el-Fasher focus on bearing witness to the tragedy they faced.

Jumaa said the destruction of Zamzam marked not the end of the violence, but the beginning of another wave of displacement.

Para ele, o acampamento continua vivo nas lembranças daqueles que um dia viveram lá – mesmo que agora estejam deslocados em outro lugar.

Musa, meanwhile, said he cannot forget the first days of the siege, and the bodies he saw on the streets.

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Em números

• O Escritório de Direitos Humanos das Nações Unidas disse que pelo menos 40 pessoas deslocadas foram mortas dentro de Abu Shouk, enqu