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The Darfur Genocide Never Ended
- Emtithal Mahmoud, New York Times
- 5 days ago
- 5 min read
Another chapter of horror has been unfolding in Sudan’s Darfur region, my home.
On April 13, the Rapid Support Forces, an armed group backed by the United Arab Emirates, seized the Zamzam camp — a sanctuary and the largest camp for displaced people in Sudan. As a refugee and survivor of genocide, I’ve been glued to my phone, watching grainy videos of the atrocities and trying from afar to help evacuate survivors and get them food, water and medicine and tracking who is dead or alive.
For two years, the R.S.F. has been locked in a war with the Sudanese Armed Forces, Sudan’s official military, backed by Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt, Iran and Russia. The capital, Khartoum, after being subjected to months of looting and sexual violence under R.S.F. occupation, is back under the Sudanese Armed Forces’ control, but in North Darfur, my hometown, El Fasher, is on the brink of falling to the paramilitary.
While the groups continue to fight, gaining and losing ground, the one constant seems to be that Sudanese civilians bear the brunt of their abuse.
People from Darfur remember too well the attacks of the early 2000s, which were recognized as genocide in 2003 and which the International Criminal Court is prosecuting. The U.N. genocide prevention expert and the United States have warned that it is happening all over again. In my view, the Darfur genocide never ended. If the ethnic cleansing that took place in El Geneina in 2023, the siege of El Fasher and the burning of dozens of villages in the past few months were not evidence enough, the atrocities in Zamzam surely are. Our lives and our very existence as a Sudanese people are at risk.
In Zamzam a week of relentless shelling and gunfire has killed more than 400 people — children, humanitarian workers, community leaders, members of my family. Hundreds of thousands of people living in the camp have been forced to run for their lives. Young children trying to flee have reportedly died of thirst. Clinics lie in ruins; community kitchen volunteers and doctors are reported dead; the injured bleed out without aid. Footage posted on social media shows apparent executions of civilians. Among the missing in Zamzam are 58 women and girls from my extended family who eyewitnesses say were kidnapped by the R.S.F. Some people who did not manage to escape, including two of my uncles, have disappeared.
I have worked, taught, mourned and celebrated in Zamzam. For years, the camp was a place of sanctuary and hope for survivors of the Darfur genocide. Starting from nothing, it became a thriving community where displaced families rebuilt their lives and worked to give children a better future. Like many young people, I stepped in to help, teaching in Zamzam in 2013 and 2017. We built up the camp and the economy, filling the gaps left when international aid groups were evacuated from the region and after decades of disenfranchisement, dispossession and economic and political isolation.
Now all that has been obliterated. Satellite images indicate Zamzam is burning — a haunting echo of the past when similar pictures called the world to action in Darfur. Within days in February, Doctors Without Borders and the World Food Program shut down operations in the camp because of the danger.
As the R.S.F. and the Sudanese Armed Forces have hindered access to aid across Darfur, blocking or looting aid deliveries, man-made famine has hit Zamzam hard. Last year Doctors Without Borders warned that a child died of malnutrition every two hours there. Save the Children reported in December that families were eating animal feed to survive. Still, as violence spread in recent months, people have continued to seek refuge in Zamzam. It was safer than anywhere else.
The International Organization for Migration reported that up to 400,000 people were forced to flee Zamzam amid the R.S.F. attack. They have been relocated to barren land north of El Fasher, with very limited access to food or water. Exhausted survivors heading by foot to the town of Tawila, some 36 miles west of Zamzam, have collapsed. Nearby, Abu Shouk, another camp for displaced people, has also been repeatedly attacked by the R.S.F. Dozens have been killed. This isn’t just displacement; it’s annihilation.
The R.S.F.’s actions are part of a larger campaign of terror. The group has been accused of using extrajudicial killings, sexual violence and deliberate starvation as weapons of war against civilians. But both the R.S.F. and the Sudanese Armed Forces have relentlessly brutalized civilians in their power struggle. Their atrocities may amount to war crimes, according to a U.N. fact-finding mission. And yet the international humanitarian, peace and diplomatic efforts focused on ending the conflict have not only excluded civilians but also constantly focused on the warring parties. And the generals centered by those efforts have repeatedly failed to end the war. They must be held to account before another massacre is upon us.
Years ago, when I was 24, I led a peace walk across Sudan to inspire a collective responsibility for peace. People’s hopes were simple yet profound: They wanted food on their tables, schools, good health and the chance to see their children grow up. Today those dreams feel further away than ever.
Sudan’s best hope lies with individuals who care — brave survivors on the ground and Sudanese groups, like the I.D.P. Humanitarian Network, that have kept camps like Zamzam alive. Although raising money is essential to saving lives, all the funding in the world will not be enough to end this war if wealthy nations continue to back the warring parties.
Pressure from world leaders on military leaders and their supporters to allow the delivery of aid and to agree to an immediate cease-fire in the most affected areas will be crucial. Without immediate action, including from the United Nations and the African Union, to protect civilians and create an open process that prioritizes civilian input and approval in peace efforts, our erasure will continue both in policy and in practice. If we are at the table, we should not be tokens or an afterthought. We should be leading the efforts that will determine how we live the rest of our lives.
To my uncles and cousins still trapped in Zamzam: Your pain is not invisible. Your courage is not forgotten. The world failed you today, but we will fight so it does not fail you tomorrow. In the face of genocidal violence, our hope is an act of defiance.
(c) 2025, The New York Times
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