A UN report released on Thursday accused the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces in Sudan of widespread killings, torture and abductions during a three-day offensive at a displacement camp in April.
At least 1,013 civilians were killed during the attack from April 11 to 13 in Zamzam camp, in what the UN Human Rights Office report describes as “gross abuses of international human rights law”.
Of those killed, 319 were summarily executed, either in the camp or as they tried to flee. Some were killed in their homes during house-to-house searches by the RSF. Others were killed in the main market, in schools, health centres and mosques. More than 400,000 inhabitants of the camp’s original 500,000 were displaced once again due to the attack.
Zamzam, in North Darfur, western Sudan, is one of the largest internally displaced persons camps in the country.
The harrowing report comes days after an investigation by Lighthouse Reports, conducted in collaboration with CNN, uncovered a campaign of ethnically motivated atrocities carried out by the Sudanese Armed Forces that mainly targeted non-Arab communities.
Both sides in Sudan's civil war are accused of war crimes. Several of their leaders have been sanctioned by the US, the EU and the UN.
Army chief Gen Abdel Fattah Al Burhan, who is sanctioned by the US and accused of allowing his troops to use chemical weapons, has rejected calls for a ceasefire and pledged to keep fighting until the RSF is defeated. His troops have been linked to Islamist-backed figures and influence within Sudan’s security apparatus.
On Wednesday, Massad Boulos, US President Donald Trump's senior adviser for Arab and African affairs, said Washington and Riyadh have agreed on “practical steps” to bring about a humanitarian truce in Sudan.
In the Zamzam report, a community leader recounted how two RSF fighters inserted their rifles through holes in the window of the room where he was hiding with 10 other men and opened fire, “killing randomly eight of them”.
Cutting electricity supply
The report also detailed patterns of sexual violence. At least 104 survivors, comprising 75 women, 26 girls and 3 boys, most of them from the Zaghawa ethnic group, said they were subjected to “sexual violence, including rape”.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, said that “such deliberate killing of civilians or persons hors de combat may constitute the war crime of murder”. He added that “there must be an impartial, thorough and effective investigation into the attack on the Zamzam IDP [internally displaced persons] camp, and those responsible for serious violations of international law must be punished within fair proceedings”.
The civil war in Sudan has, since 2023, killed tens of thousands of people, displaced almost 13 million and created the world's largest hunger and displacement crises.
On Thursday, the electricity supply to major cities in Sudan, including the capital Khartoum and Port Sudan, was disrupted after a deadly drone attack on a power plant in the east of the country, local media reported.
Two civil defence personnel were killed when drones launched by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces hit the Al Mogran–Atbara power station, local media said, quoting the Sudan Electricity Company. The predawn attack damaged power supply transformers, leading to electricity cuts in several states, and caused a fire that was put out by the civil defence, the company said.
The army retook the capital in January and also controls the eastern, central and northern regions of the country, while the RSF controls the western Darfur region and parts of Kordofan.
The drone attack in Atbara came as Gen Al Burhan was due to arrive in Cairo for talks with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El Sisi on “ways to resolve the Sudanese crisis, in addition to strengthening and supporting the distinguished bilateral relations between the two countries in various fields”, according to a statement from the Egyptian Presidency.
