More than 100 civilians, including at least 20 children and nine aid workers, were killed in Sudan’s Darfur city of El-Fasher over the weekend after coordinated attacks by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the United Nations (UN) confirmed on Saturday.
The UN reported that the RSF, engaged in conflict with Sudan’s regular army since April 2023, launched “coordinated ground and aerial assaults” on Friday, targeting El-Fasher as well as the Zamzam and Abu Shouk displacement camps.
#Sudan 🇸🇩: a desperate situation is unfolding in #Darfur as the #RSF has overrun the Zamzam IDP camp near #ElFasher, leaving hundreds killed and forcing thousands to flee towards the besieged city.
The city of El-Fasher is on the brink after a year of brutal siege. pic.twitter.com/NReidyJklJ
— Thomas van Linge (@ThomasVLinge) April 12, 2025
El-Fasher is the last remaining state capital in Darfur not under RSF control. The army recaptured the national capital, Khartoum, last month.
The Sudanese Organisation for the Protection of Civilians said among the dead were nine humanitarian workers from Relief International, who were staffing the only clinic left in Zamzam camp. The group said RSF forces entered a bunker where staff had taken shelter and executed them.
UN Humanitarian Coordinator Clementine Nkweta-Salami condemned their deaths.
“Attacks on civilians, on humanitarian workers, and on civilian infrastructure are grave violations of international humanitarian law,” Nkweta-Salami said in a post on X.
Contrary to reports from humanitarian organizations about the deaths of civilians and aid workers, the RSF, which claimed it had taken control of the famine-stricken Zamzam camp following two days of intense shelling and gunfire, said it had deployed “military units to secure civilians and humanitarian medical workers in Zamzam” after fully “liberating the camp from the grip of” the Sudanese Armed Forces.
In a statement on Saturday, UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell reported that Zamzam camp remains blocked. “Armed groups have been targeting rural villages, and insecurity has made the delivery of aid and commercial goods nearly impossible.”
She warned that an estimated one million people in El Fasher town and Zamzam camp, half of them children, are at grave risk if additional supplies do not urgently reach the area, where famine is already threatening the lives of children.
“The limited humanitarian response that has managed to continue within the camp is now under threat due to the escalating violence,” Russell said. “Sustained, rapid, and unimpeded humanitarian access is the only way lifesaving aid can reach families, including children, trapped in areas affected by the fighting,” Russell said.
