Updated: 18 December 2025 17:34:18
United Nations: More Than 1,000 Killed in RSF Attack on Zamzam Camp
moatinoon
A report released on Thursday by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said that Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces committed widespread and grave abuses — including mass killings, rape, torture and abductions — during their takeover of the Zamzam camp for displaced people in the Darfur region in April.
Volker Türk, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, said that “the deliberate killing of civilians or persons hors de combat may constitute a war crime,” calling for an independent, thorough and effective investigation and for those responsible to be held accountable through fair judicial proceedings.
The report, based on monitoring by the U.N. Human Rights Office, including interviews with 155 survivors and witnesses conducted in July 2025 in eastern Chad, said that at least 1,013 civilians were killed during the three-day assault from April 11 to 13. It described the violence as “a consistent pattern of serious violations of international humanitarian law and gross abuses of international human rights law.”
According to the report, 319 of those killed were summarily executed inside the camp or while attempting to flee. Others were killed in their homes during house-to-house searches, or in the main market, schools, health facilities and mosques. The attack also forced more than 400,000 people to flee the camp once again.
The report included harrowing testimonies from survivors, among them a community leader who said that RSF fighters fired indiscriminately through holes in the window of the room where he was hiding with 10 others, killing eight of them. A woman who returned to the camp in search of her 15-year-old son said she found bodies scattered along the roads, while only animals roamed the area.
The report documented 104 cases of conflict-related sexual violence involving 75 women, 26 girls and three boys, most of them from the Zaghawa ethnic group. The abuses included rape, gang rape and sexual slavery, committed both during the attack and along escape routes from the camp. The report concluded that sexual violence was used “deliberately to instill terror within the community.”
It also said that in the months leading up to the assault, the RSF imposed a complete siege on Zamzam camp, blocking the entry of food, water and fuel and targeting those who attempted to deliver supplies. At least 26 people were executed along the road between the camp and the town of Tawila, in what the report described as a warning to deter efforts to bring food into the camp, forcing some families to feed their children animal fodder to survive.
Mr. Türk said the abuses were “consistent with patterns of violations our Office has repeatedly documented, including during the RSF takeover of El Fasher in late October,” warning that a culture of impunity was becoming entrenched in Sudan.
He urged the international community — particularly countries with influence — to act urgently to prevent further crimes, to press for an end to violence in Darfur, Kordofan and other regions, including by halting arms supplies that fuel the conflict, and to intensify diplomatic efforts toward a lasting ceasefire.
