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For decades, Sudan's largest refugee camp was a place of safety, until war erupted last year. Now, there have been almost daily attacks on that camp, which hosts hundreds of thousands of people, many of them suffering from famine. The attacks have been blamed on a paramilitary group at war with Sudan's army, as NPR's Emmanuel Akinwotu reports.
EMMANUEL AKINWOTU, BYLINE: An almost daily barrage of artillery shelling has been launched at a place of refuge.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: (Shouting in non-English language).
AKINWOTU: The attacks have struck Zamzam, Sudan's largest refugee camp, on the outskirts of the city of Al-Fashir in Darfur. In one recent scene posted by local Sudanese media and verified by NPR, black smoke gushes from torched huts and vehicles in the aftermath of an attack. An elderly civilian who was not named, dressed in white, watches in anguish then vents his anger, first at the assailants behind this, then at the wider world for failing to help them.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: (Shouting in non-English language).
AKINWOTU: "Cowards," he says. "Where are you? Where are the human rights? Where is the international community?"
Unarmed civilians are dying in broad daylight from mercenaries, from the Janjaweed. The Janjaweed are the infamous, largely Arab militia group responsible for atrocities during the Darfur genocide 20 years ago. The group evolved to become the Rapid Support Forces, or RSF, now locked in a brutal war with Sudan's army, fighting for control of the country. Zamzam Camp was established during the genocide. For decades, the camp was a place of refuge, but now it's in the line of fire.
UNIDENTIFIED MEDIC: We need security. We need medicine. We need food.
AKINWOTU: A medic for the Relief International aid group spoke to NPR on condition of anonymity, fearing reprisals from the RSF. Some 80 people have been killed, almost 400 people have been injured, and the casualties are mounting.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON MEDIC: At this time, we don't have medical supply, even in iodine, even trauma kits.
AKINWOTU: But doctors there barely have the supplies to treat them. The shelling has compounded an already critical situation.
NATHANIEL RAYMOND: Children, in particular, have been dying from a lack of food. People are eating peanut shells, animal fodder.
AKINWOTU: Nathaniel Raymond is the executive director of the Humanitarian Research Lab at Yale University's School of Public Health, producing analysis of the situation in Darfur. The camp is the only place in the world where famine has been officially declared. Now hundreds of starving people have fled for their lives.
RAYMOND: People are trying to exit Zamzam on foot travel, with donkey carts, trying to get away with very few places that they can safely go.
AKINWOTU: The RSF have denied shelling Zamzam, but local reports and international aid groups like Doctors Without Borders have said otherwise.
RAYMOND: Zamzam is in a posture that we call a kill box.
AKINWOTU: And Yale HRL's analysis of satellite imagery shows the RSF have stationed artillery guns 35 kilometers from the camp. While the onslaught on Zamzam continues, desperate refugees plead for help.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: (Non-English language spoken).
AKINWOTU: In the same footage, another man, who local media did not name, points in despair at the destroyed structures around him.
"It's not a camp for armed movements," he says. "This is the house of a displaced citizen - an innocent person's blood. This is a hut. This is a cart. This is a home."
Emmanuel Akinwotu, NPR News, Lagos. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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