RSF accused of looting, destroying MSF hospital in Darfur camp

April 29, 2025 (EL FASHER) – A spokesperson for a major camp for displaced people in Sudan’s North Darfur state on Tuesday accused the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) of destroying and looting a field hospital run by medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).

The RSF seized full control of the Zamzam camp, 12 km (7.5 miles) southwest of the state capital El Fasher, on April 12, after which they allegedly carried out widespread violations and forcibly displaced thousands of residents, the spokesperson and local sources said.

Zamzam camp spokesperson Mohamed Khamis Douda told Sudan Tribune that “Rapid Support Forces looted and destroyed the field hospital of the French Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in Zamzam camp.”

Douda said the hospital had provided vital medical services in an area hosting over a million displaced people, including those who fled El Fasher itself and surrounding villages attacked by the RSF.

RSF fighters published videos from inside the hospital, claiming it housed combatants from the army-allied Joint Force and treated their wounded.

Douda accused the RSF of brazenly documenting their own alleged violations in videos, including “the killing of humanitarian workers and students of Khalwas (religious schools), destruction of infrastructure, and committing crimes of ethnic cleansing.”

MSF France, the International Relief Organization, and French aid group Solidarités International were among the last NGOs operating in Zamzam camp despite months of RSF shelling, but they recently halted operations due to worsening insecurity, according to camp officials.

The RSF allegedly killed nine staff members of the International Relief Organization in the area on April 12. On April 27, RSF forces arrested about 40 personnel from the same NGO as they tried to evacuate civilians towards the town of Tawila, west of El Fasher, the spokesperson said.