Sudanese Communists condemn RSF attacks on Zamzam IDF Camp

Smoke billowing from the Zamzam IDF Camp, April 13 -- image via video screenshot on X

Sudanese Communist Party: Public Statement on the Rapid Support Forces’ Attack on Zamzam IDP Camp

*No to ethnic cleansing.

*We demand protection for displaced civilians.

*We demand justice and accountability.

The Sudanese Communist Party strongly and unequivocally condemns the savage and inhumane attack carried out by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militias on the Zamzam camp for internally displaced persons (IDPs), south of El Fasher. This brutal assault left over a hundred civilians dead and many more injured, and brought widespread destruction to the camp’s already fragile infrastructure.

This is not an isolated act of violence—it is part of a deliberate and systematic campaign of terror. On April 11 and 12, RSF militias and their allied tribal forces launched a violent assault on Zamzam, using overwhelming force against unarmed civilians. The result was a massacre: 112 lives were lost, most of them women, children, and the elderly. Among the dead were 20 children, the entire medical staff of the Relief Organization’s clinic—the camp’s sole provider of healthcare—and a group of women volunteers who were burned alive while preparing food, including a pregnant woman.

Zamzam Camp has endured repeated attacks, forced displacement, and relentless violence at the hands of the RSF. This most recent assault specifically targeted the camp’s vital lifelines: the destruction of the kitchen extinguished the only source of food, and the attack on the clinic—with the murder of all its staff—was a calculated move to deprive residents of medical care, dooming the wounded to die untreated. This was not just a military act—it was psychological warfare aimed at instilling terror and despair among the displaced.

The assault on Zamzam is part of a wider campaign to forcibly depopulate North Darfur’s IDP camps, dismantle the social fabric of their communities, and erase any hope of return for those displaced. It is a strategic effort to break the displaced population’s resilience, destroy their unity, and prevent them from reclaiming their homes and lands—now targeted by settlers brought in under RSF protection.

This violent campaign cannot be separated from the ethnic cleansing operations that have plagued Darfur since 2003. With the backing of the defunct regime, these tribal militias have consistently targeted communities of African descent—now with renewed ferocity under the RSF’s command.

The blood of thousands of innocent people across Darfur stains the hands of the RSF. The massacre at Zamzam will take its place alongside the long list of atrocities committed by this militia—acts of genocide, ethnic cleansing, and grave violations of international humanitarian law.

We hold the de facto government and its military apparatus complicit through their failure—and refusal—to protect civilians. Zamzam lies within the area of army command in El Fasher. The ruling authorities, who claim to hold power to safeguard the people, have shown nothing but impotence in the face of such crimes. Worse, they continue to collaborate with Islamist militias waging war in their name, unleashing terror not on combatants, but on unarmed civilians.

*We call on all international and local human rights organizations and civil society bodies to unequivocally condemn this atrocity and to mobilize pressure to disarm and disband these militias, and to halt further violations.

*We demand that the United Nations and the African Union fulfill their responsibilities in protecting civilians in IDP camps.

*We insist on the immediate identification and prosecution of those responsible for this massacre.

We urge the Sudanese people, in all their political and social formations, to intensify their resistance through a united, broad-based grassroots movement. Only through the defeat of this war, the revival of the revolution, and the realization of its founding principles can we achieve true peace, stability, and justice—and restore the harmony that once bound our people together.

Sudanese Communist Party

Political Bureau

April 13, 2025