Darfur survivors vow to tell story of those killed after Sudan camp attacks
Survivors of attacks on displacement camps in Darfur recall the lives they built, and violence that forced them to flee.
In a small house in Omdurman, Hassan Saber Jumaa, a senior administrator at the Zamzam displacement camp in Sudan, sat on a simple wooden chair. He scrolled through his phone, looking for any photograph he might have of Zamzam, which is near el-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, and once sheltered hundreds of thousands.
He found nothing. Jumaa explained that his old phone was looted during last year’s attack by Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces on the camp. Pointing to the bare walls around him, Jumaa said that all he has left are his memories of the camp, and the people who once called it home.
Zamzam, established in 2004, was home to generations of people displaced by western Sudan’s Darfur war, which began in 2003 and continued for nearly two decades. Alongside Abu Shouk camp and al-Salam camp, Zamzam formed part of one of Darfur’s largest concentrations of displaced people.
Saleh also recalled seeing bodies littering the roads, with only chickens, donkeys, and sheep wandering among the abandoned buildings.