As Sudan’s Zamzam Camp Falls, Women and Girls Bear the Brunt of Violence in Darfur

The fall of Zamzam, Sudan’s largest displacement camp, marks a catastrophic escalation in the RSF’s protracted campaign of violence in Darfur, one whose greatest toll is being exacted on women and girls. 

Targeted since the start of the war exactly two years ago this week, women and girls are enduring systematic rape, sexual slavery, and execution in what Nathaniel Raymond, Executive Director of Yale’s Humanitarian Research Lab (HRL), called “the defining feature of this genocidal war.”

“There's nothing that the international community didn't have adequate warning on,” said Raymond. “This was arguably the most accurately predicted mass atrocity attack in human history.”

With RSF forces seizing Zamzam on Sunday after months of artillery bombardment, reports have surfaced of mass executions, burned-down hospitals, looted markets, and the killing of humanitarian workers—some filmed as they were executed, humanitarian sources say. A United Nations agency also told More to Her Story that they have received credible reports of the rape of women by RSF soldiers, as well as the abduction of at least 25 women and girls by the RSF from Zamzam.

Those who managed to flee have been displaced to the neighboring cities of Tawila and Dar As Salam in North Darfur, many having made the journey on foot with little food or water. The UN agency confirmed the heightened risk of gendered violence along the route from Zazam to these cities, “based on consistent documentation of sexual violence against women and girls during flight in North Darfur,” they told More to Her Story.

According to HRL, satellite imagery and thermal data released Wednesday have provided time-stamped evidence of widespread militarization in and around Zamzam. An area equivalent to over 24 soccer fields was destroyed by fire at the hands of RSF soldiers, leveling Zamzam. HRL’s satellite imagery also shows that hundreds of RSF vehicles have effectively trapped civilians inside the camp. 

“The wounded inside the camp have not been able to leave, and there is a shortage of basic medical items such as gloves, painkillers, cotton, gauze, intravenous fluids, and any other supplies needed to save lives. We urgently need these items here in El Fasher,” a local health worker told the human rights group Avaaz, adding, “There is a severe shortage of anything that could save lives. Even when aid is available, it is extremely expensive.”

At the center of Sudan's ongoing devastation are women and girls, who are bearing the brunt of a gendered civil war that has now entered its third year. Many have been displaced multiple times and are often the sole caretakers of their families, left with few resources and limited protection. Access to maternal and reproductive healthcare has collapsed, with many women forced to give birth without medical assistance.

As Dr. Abeer Dirar, a Sudanese OB-GYN who is working with displaced Sudanese patients on the border between Sudan and Egypt, told More to Her Story: “The compounding effect of physical injuries, sexual violence, and limited access to essential healthcare services has placed female patients in a vulnerable position.” In conflict zones like Khartoum and North Darfur, women and girls are also facing increased threats of enforced disappearance and sexual violence, all while the health infrastructure around them crumbles.

Looking forward, humanitarian sources say the RSF has sights on El Fasher, the final city in Darfur not controlled by the RSF and located south of Zamzam: The group has begun bombarding El Fasher with artillery strikes, while HRL satellite imagery has shown a force of 200 vehicles with mounted weaponry amassed in Zamzam readying for an attack on El Fasher.

While the imagery collected by HRL will feed into future legal cases of suspected crimes carried out by the RSF at the International Criminal Court—helping to establish command responsibility and uncover efforts by the RSF to conceal mass killings—HRL’s most immediate goal is to share intelligence with humanitarian agencies as they navigate RSF-controlled roads, avoid checkpoints, and reach survivors. 

“We're basically in an emergent phase where we're trying to best support our humanitarian actors who are on the front line,” said Raymond.

Humanitarian agencies criticized international leaders for remaining largely silent amid a war that the United Nations has described as one of the worst humanitarian crises in the 21st century. At a peace conference attended by global policymakers in London on Tuesday, humanitarian sources criticized the deafening silence on atrocities occurring in Zamzam, El Fasher, and more broadly on Sudanese women and girls.

“While Darfur continues to burn, [politicians] continue to capitulate. Yesterday's conference was a diplomatic flop that seemed more geared towards political grandstanding than seeking solutions that might end the horrendous suffering we are witnessing in Sudan,” said Laetitia Bader, who is the Horn of Africa Director at Human Rights Watch, in a statement.

The war has drawn mounting criticism from humanitarian organizations and women’s rights advocates, who argue that the crisis in Sudan has been deprioritized on the global agenda since the start of hostilities in April 2023. The United States, once the world’s leading supplier of humanitarian aid to the country, has continued to halt support. In 2021, the U.S. Joe Biden Administration suspended $700 million in aid following Sudan’s military coup, disrupting humanitarian operations on the ground. 

“For the better part of a quarter-century, the women and girls of Darfur have been under assault,” Raymond warned. “If we are not looking at this through a gendered lens, we are not seeing the conflict clearly. And we will not stop it.”