Attacks on the camp of nearly half a million IDPs are escalating as they await "their inevitable fate, which is a slow death," suffering from "severe hunger and lack of medicines".
On March 5, Sudan's Rapid Support Forces (RSF) continued shelling the famine-struck Abu Shouk camp, hosting nearly half a million Internally Displaced People (IDP) on the northern outskirts of the besieged city of El Fasher, the capital of war-torn Sudan's North Darfur state.
Over 80 victims - mostly women, children and elderly - were reported on March 4 as the shells fell on the crowded market area. Artillery fire has destroyed water sources, medical facilities, and thousands of houses and makeshift shelters erected by the displaced people.
Since the current round of shelling began on March 2, at least 28 people have been killed, Adam Rojal, spokesperson of the General Coordination of Darfur Displaced People and Refugees, told Peoples Dispatch.
Amid a severe shortage of medicines and medics, dozens suffering severe injuries may not be able to get the required treatment. The RSF bombed the only fully operational hospital in El Fasher on January 24, killing 70 people inside.
Repeated bombing of Abu Shouk Camp
Another eight people were killed on January 24 by the RSF's attack on the Abu Shouk camp. The following week, several houses in the camp were destroyed by 88 shells fired indiscriminately by the RSF on January 29.
Since the start of this war between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary RSF, this camp has been bombed over 30 times, Rojal said. The SAF and the other Darfurian armed groups allied with it have positioned themselves along its northern and eastern sides, "exposing the IDPs to RSF attacks and turning the camp battlefield to achieve political or military gains," he added.
"Stop endangering civilian lives. Stay away from populated areas. Abandon selfishness and cease this insane war," Rojal urged the warring parties in a statement on March 2. Former allies, the two were ruling together in a military junta, violently cracking down on the pro-democracy mass protests, before turning on each other and plunging the country into a civil war in April 2023.
Siege of El Fasher and impact on aid
RSF has since taken over the four other Darfur states. North Darfur is the only Darfurian state where the SAF has held out. Mounting its attack on this last regional foothold of the SAF, the RSF laid a siege on El Fasher last April, cutting it off from food aid.
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The worst affected were the IDP camps, where hundreds of thousands were already dependent on food aid before this war. Displaced during the Darfur civil war in the 2000s, when the SAF spawned the militias that later coalesced under the RSF, 370,000 IDPs had found refuge in Abu Shouk camp, which was established in 2004.
Its population has increased to around 450,000 as the war between SAF and RSF displaced an additional 14 million people, 3 million of whom have fled to neighboring countries and 11 million became IDPs, causing the world's largest displacement crisis.
The population of Zamzam camp, the largest IDP camp in Sudan, doubled since the start of this war, rising from 350,000 to the current estimate of up to 800,000. This increased the number of people dependent on food aid, cut off by RSF's siege on the city.
In August, Zamzam became the first place in the country where the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) declared a famine. By December, the famine had spread to Abu Shouk and five other areas.
Starvation as a weapon of war
Both the warring parties are using this conflict to starve the IDPs and kill the surviving witnesses of war crimes committed by the SAF, and the militias that went on to constitute the RSF during the Darfur civil war, Rojal said.
On January 3, the SAF killed several IDPs reeling under famine with an airstrike on the crowded Naivasha market in the camp, the only functional market in El Fasher, purportedly targeting RSF presence.
Amid repeated attacks on the camp, "all services in Abu Shouk have completely collapsed, the situation is catastrophic," laments Rojal. Suffering "severe hunger and lack of medicines", the IDPs of Abu Shouk "are awaiting their inevitable fate, which is a slow death, and no one is listening."
