Thousands flee homes in Sudan’s North Darfur amid rising insecurity – IOM

March 3, 2025 (DAR EL SALAM) – Over 3,600 families have fled their homes in villages of Dar El Salam and Kalimendo localities in Sudan’s North Darfur state due to escalating insecurity, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said on Monday.

The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have in recent days launched retaliatory attacks on dozens of villages in Dar El Salam, part of a broader displacement campaign that has previously targeted villages west of El Fasher and north of Kutum this year and last.

“2,653 families were displaced last Saturday from various villages in the Dar El Salam locality due to worsening insecurity,” the IOM, a U.N. agency, said in a statement.

The IOM said families were displaced from the villages of Hillat Abdalla Mustafa, Um Arada, Abaker Khashim Alsokar, Ismail Badawi, Um Redim, Gherawet Basham, Sanana, Raida, Kenbie, Um Dorni, Banat Shariq, Banat Kharib, and Hillat Khazan to other locations within El Fasher locality.

On Sunday, Mohamed Khamis Doda, a spokesperson for the Zamzam displacement camp, said the RSF had attacked 52 villages in Dar El Salam on Saturday, looting livestock, killing civilians and displacing thousands of residents to the Zamzam camp, about 12 km (7.5 miles) from El Fasher, North Darfur’s capital.

Doda attributed the attacks to retaliation for the army and its allies’ destruction on February 27 of an RSF military supply convoy in the Ed El Beid area. The convoy had been en route to El Fasher.

The IOM said 800 families had been displaced from the village of Eid Albaid in Kelemando locality on Friday due to growing insecurity, moving to other locations within the same locality.

Some 605,000 people fled El Fasher and other areas in North Darfur between April 1, 2024, and January 31, 2025, due to RSF attacks and accompanying widespread abuses, including killings, rape, looting and humiliation, the IOM stated.