Zamzam IDPs caught between conflict and famine
December 28, 2024 (ZAMZAM) – Fiddah Jabir, 40, has seen her life turned upside down since the first Darfur war erupted in 2003, when she was first displaced to the Zamzam camp south of El Fasher, only to lose two decades of her life in abject misery.
Yet, she never imagined that displacement, fear, and terror would return to haunt her once more. Like millions of other displaced people and refugees, she believed that the cycles of war were over for good when a peace agreement was signed between the Sudanese government and armed factions in October 2020 following the fall of the ousted President Omer al-Bashir’s regime.
However, the 2020 peace did not last long. With the outbreak of the April 2023 war and the war in El Fasher in particular, Fiddah found herself once again in the crossfire. The Rapid Support Forces (RSF) attacks on the Zamzam camp forced her to flee daily with her children and elderly father to the neighboring town of “Shuqra” in search of safety that she could not find in her own camp.
In early December, the RSF began attacking the Zamzam camp, which is about 12 kilometres south of El Fasher, with a large number of long-range artillery shells that fell on the homes of the displaced, killing at least 57 displaced people, including women, 15 children, and the elderly.
Despite widespread domestic and international condemnation of the RSF attacks on the camp, their forces have not stopped shelling it daily, turning the lives of the displaced into an unbearable hell as their homes, built of straw and wood, are consumed by fire.
The artillery shelling has increased the suffering of the displaced in Zamzam, as food insecurity rates have risen alarmingly, exacerbating the famine that was declared last August. This attack has pushed thousands to flee permanently towards safer areas in Jebel Marra and East Darfur.
“Every day at 4 AM, I leave my house with my children and my father and head to the town of Shuqra,” Fiddah Jabir tells Sudan Tribune. “It’s a difficult journey on foot and using animals. We spend the daylight hours there and return home at sunset. We do this daily, fearing the artillery shells that the Janjaweed [referring to the RSF] fire at us.”
“Life in Zamzam has become very difficult,” Fiddah adds. “We stopped working in the market after the leaders of the native administration decided to halt work to protect the lives of the displaced temporarily.”
Fiddah points out that many of the displaced have come to rely on “balila” for their daily sustenance, a simple dish of boiled sorghum grains in water with a little salt and sometimes sugar, served to children and the elderly as a main meal in an attempt to silence their hunger.
Fears of genocide
The Zamzam camp is overshadowed by anxiety and fear of another massacre. The displaced fear that the RSF will repeat in Zamzam what it committed in El Geneina, where it was accused of ethnic cleansing and genocide. These fears are exacerbated by the RSF’s claims that the camp’s residents are loyal to the fighting forces in El Fasher.
A member of the joint force’s command and control room confirmed to Sudan Tribune that the RSF has a plan to empty the Zamzam camp of its inhabitants through artillery shelling, in preparation for its invasion and control.
This comes as part of the RSF’s efforts to bring down the city of El Fasher, as the camp represents the only outlet for food supplies coming from the Khazan Jadeed areas in East Darfur State and East Jebel Marra, which are under the control of the Sudan Liberation Movement led by Abdel Wahid al-Nur.
The source revealed the presence of large RSF forces stationed around the villages of Dar al-Salam locality south of El Fasher, in addition to the towns of Abu Zurayqah and Shangil Tobaya, indicating their intention to advance towards the Zamzam camp.
At the same time, he denied any military presence of the joint force inside or around the Zamzam camp, calling on the international community to take immediate action to stop the imminent attack on the overcrowded camp, fearing that the RSF and allied Arab tribal militias would commit crimes of ethnic cleansing and genocide against the population, especially the Zaghawa ethnic group, which constitutes the majority of the camp’s residents.
No military presence
The RSF justified targeting the Zamzam camp by claiming that the joint force had withdrawn into it and used the displaced as human shields. However, the head of the camp’s higher committee, Mayor Haroun Nimr, denied these allegations to Sudan Tribune, saying, “The residents of Zamzam are unarmed displaced people who do not belong to any military or political organizations, and there are no military leaders or forces in the camp.” Nimr questioned, “Why are we being targeted?”
Nimr noted that the attack that took place in early December and lasted for three days led to the flight of thousands from the shelters. He said, “They are now living in dire conditions, ravaged by hunger and disease due to the lack of food and medicine, and children are dying daily after their parents were unable to provide them with food.”
Ethnic cleansing
The spokesperson for the displaced people of Zamzam camp, Mohamed Khamis Douda, described the RSF’s shelling of the camp to Sudan Tribune as a “cowardly and treacherous act,” as it targeted a populated area that includes more than one and a half million displaced people suffering from hunger and disease in the absence of humanitarian aid and an extended siege for months. Douda revealed that the RSF fired about 37 artillery shells that fell on markets, shelters, and hospitals.
He believes that the attack on Zamzam is an ethnically based attack aimed at exterminating specific populations, as happened in Abu Zurayqah and other areas north of Kutum locality when the RSF displaced thousands of residents after burning their villages and looting their property, referring to attacks against villages inhabited by the Zaghawa.
Douda adds in his speech, “Zamzam represents our official entity and our displaced and helpless people… No to the indiscriminate shelling that targets children, the elderly, and the disabled who live in huts that cannot withstand the artillery, as homes were destroyed on the heads of their inhabitants, and there are children who died from burns.”
Khamis also accused political bodies – which he did not name – of giving the RSF the legitimacy to target the Zamzam camp and justifying it by saying that there are military manifestations inside the camp. He continued, “We do not know any remnants of the old regime or Islamists; we are unarmed displaced people who came here because of the war. The army leadership is there in El Fasher, not inside the Zamzam camp.”
He revealed the complete shutdown of markets, grain mills, water stations, and hospitals due to the direct shelling, and spoke of the flight of doctors from the health center supported by Doctors Without Borders after a shell fell near the health center.
He pointed out that they are struggling to provide treatment for the wounded and sick, adding, “The wounded are being transferred to the city of El Fasher, which is a hot zone. Unfortunately, some of them died due to the lack of health care… We must raise our voices and say no to the desecration of Zamzam and no to the commission of massacres.”
Hunger and cold ravage the displaced
In the “Baloula” centre in the Zamzam camp, a temporary shelter hosting those fleeing from El Fasher, the need for shelter and food is increasing as the displaced complain of severe hunger due to the absence of humanitarian aid.
In a sad voice, a displaced woman tells Sudan Tribune, “We were displaced from El Fasher and are now living in the Baloula centre. Since we arrived here, we have been living in endless torment. We do not have enough food for the day, and the cold and hunger are gnawing at our bodies. We have disabled children and elderly people who are suffering the most. We are in dire need of blankets and food.”
She spoke of the flight of most of the center’s residents after about four shells fell near it, while a small number of families remained because they could not be displaced again due to a lack of money. The speaker appealed to the international community to hasten to save the hungry by providing them with food and medicine.
Source: Sudanese Media Forum (SMF): Joint Newsroom.
Sudan Tribune wrote, edited, and translated this report. It is published simultaneously on the platforms of media institutions, organizations and newspapers that are SMF members.