“Union for Justice”: Violations by the Rapid Support Forces in Zamzam Camp Amount to Crimes Against Humanity
06/01/2026 – Union for Justice Foundation
The Union for Justice Foundation has issued a legal analysis of the latest report by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, which revealed the tragic scale of violations committed by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) during their takeover of Zamzam Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) Camp in Darfur in April of last year. The legal assessment of the documented facts indicates that the three-day attack, which lasted from 11 to 13 April, was not merely a military operation, but rather reflected a consistent and organized pattern of grave breaches of international humanitarian law and serious violations of international human rights law. These hostilities resulted in the killing of at least 1,013 civilians, placing the events firmly within the framework of crimes against humanity.
Documented evidence confirms that the killings were neither incidental nor the result of crossfire. Instead, they included summary field executions of 319 individuals who were deliberately killed either inside the camp or while attempting to flee the violence. Legal testimonies documented systematic house-to-house searches carried out by RSF fighters, during which civilians were shot inside their bedrooms, while others were targeted in locations that are protected under international law, such as schools, health facilities, and mosques. One community leader’s testimony illustrates the brutality of this strategy, recounting how fighters fired indiscriminately through the windows of a room where unarmed civilians were hiding, killing eight of them in cold blood. They left behind a camp emptied of life, scattered with corpses and destruction, ultimately forcing a second wave of forced displacement of more than 400,000 people.
Equally alarming, the report details horrific patterns of conflict-related sexual violence, deliberately used as a tool to spread terror and destroy the dignity of the population, particularly members of the Zaghawa community. A total of 104 survivors—including women, girls, and boys—were documented as having been subjected to gang rape and sexual enslavement, either inside the camp or along displacement routes. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, stated that these patterns of deliberate killing and systematic sexual violence may constitute war crimes, emphasizing that these atrocities are not isolated incidents but are consistent with violations previously documented in other areas such as El Fasher, reflecting a deeply entrenched culture of impunity adopted by the attacking forces.
The violations were not limited to direct violence but extended to the use of starvation and siege as weapons of war. For several months, the RSF prevented the entry of food, water, and fuel into the camp, in flagrant violation of the right to life. The cruelty escalated to the execution of 26 individuals on the road between Zamzam Camp and the town of Tawila, with the intent of deterring any attempts to bring food supplies. As a result, families were ultimately forced to feed their children animal fodder and peanut shells simply to survive. This systematic siege constitutes another war crime, namely the deliberate starvation of civilians as a method of warfare.
Based on testimonies from 155 survivors and witnesses interviewed in eastern Chad, the Union for Justice Foundation renewed its call on the international community to take immediate action to end the cycle of violence. The Foundation stresses the urgent need for an independent, comprehensive, and effective investigation to ensure accountability for those responsible and to provide reparations to victims. It also calls on influential states to take decisive steps to halt the flow of weapons fueling the conflict and to intensify diplomatic pressure to reach a lasting solution that protects civilians in Darfur, Kordofan, and across Sudan from these atrocities—crimes to which the world must not remain indifferent.
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