A MAJOR international rights group today accused the paramilitary group fighting against Sudan’s military of committing war crimes during its attack earlier this year on the country’s largest displacement camp in the Darfur region.

The UAE-backed Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which is fighting the Egypt and Saudi Arabia supported Sudanese military, rampaged through the Zamzam camp in April as part of its siege of the city of el-Fasher, the provincial capital of North Darfur province.

The RSF seized the city, the military’s last stronghold in Darfur, in October.

Amnesty International said in a report that the RSF’s multi-day attack on Zamzam involved killings of civilians, hostage taking and the destruction of mosques, schools and health clinics, and that they must be investigated as war crimes.

Amnesty International’s secretary-general Agnes Callamard said: “The RSF’s horrific and deliberate assault on desperate, hungry civilians in Zamzam camp laid bare once again its alarming disregard for human life.”

Amnesty’s report was the latest by an international rights group to accuse RSF of atrocities in Sudan’s 30-month war. These have included mass killings and rapes in attacks on towns and cities, particularly in Darfur.

The Sudanese military has also been accused of atrocities in the war.

A power struggle between the military and the RSF erupted into war in April 2023. The conflict has killed 40,000 people, though some rights groups say the death toll is significantly higher, and has created the world’s worst humanitarian crisis with over 14 million displaced. Many areas have experienced famine, including at the Zamzam camp.

“This was not an isolated attack, but part of a sustained campaign against villages and camps for internally displaced persons,” Ms Callamard said of the Zamzam assault.

The RSF didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. But following the attack, the group claimed that the camp was used as a base by the military and its allied militias, and said that its fighters did not target civilians.

United Nations secretary-general Antonio Guterres has called the crimes committed in el-Fasher “horrendous” and called for accountability.

Amnesty criticised the UAE, as it has done in the past, over what it says is the Gulf nation’s support for the RSF.

Ms Callamard, the group’s chief, called for ceasing all arms transfer to the UAE, given “the very high risk of diversion to the RSF.”

The UAE, Egypt and Saudi Arabia have all denied the accusation of fuelling what is increasingly recognised as a proxy war being waged in Sudan.