SUDAN’S PARAMILITARY RAPID Support Forces (RSF) attacked a famine-hit refugee camp in Darfur today, killing at least 40 civilians, first responders said, as fighting in the western region rages on.

The RSF stormed Abu Shouk camp, opening fire inside homes and on the streets, said the local Emergency Response Room — one of hundreds of volunteer networks providing frontline aid since war erupted between the army and the RSF in April 2023.

It said more than 40 civilians were killed and at least 19 others wounded in the attack.

The rescue group said civilians were “killed either by stray bullets or direct executions” at the camp, located on the northern outskirts of El-Fasher – the last major city in Darfur still held by the Sudanese army.

The RSF has laid a siege on El-Fasher since May 2024.

The local resistance committee, a pro-democracy volunteer group, confirmed the toll of at least 40 killed in Monday’s attack.

The group condemned what it called “horrific violations being committed against innocent, unarmed people”.

In recent months, North Darfur state capital El-Fasher and nearby displacement camps have come under renewed RSF attacks, after the group was pushed out of Sudan’s capital Khartoum by the army earlier this year.

A major RSF offensive in April on the Zamzam camp displaced tens of thousands of people, with many seeking shelter in El-Fasher.

The war between Sudan’s army and the RSF, now in its third year, has killed tens of thousands, displaced millions and created what the United Nations describes as the world’s largest displacement and hunger crisis.

The conflict has effectively split the country in two with the army holding the north, east and centre while the RSF dominates nearly all of Darfur and parts of the south.

Last year, famine was declared in three camps around El-Fasher, including Abu Shouk, and the UN warned it could spread to the city by May.

But data shortages have prevented an official declaration.

This week alone, malnutrition has killed at least 63 people in El-Fasher, mostly women and children, a senior health official told AFP.

Many families are unable to reach hospitals due to insecurity and lack of transport, choosing instead to bury loved ones quietly.

At a community kitchen in El-Fasher, organisers have said some of the children and women they serve arrive there with swollen bellies, sunken eyes and signs of acute malnutrition.

Abu Shouk community leader Adam Essa told AFP on Sunday that the camp has seen between five and seven child deaths daily.

Across Sudan, nearly 25 million people are suffering dire food insecurity, according to UN figures.

UNICEF’s Sudan representative, Sheldon Yett, warned this week of a “looming catastrophe”.

“We are on the verge of irreversible damage to an entire generation of children.”