The United Nations said on Monday that preliminary figures from local sources show more than 400 civilians were killed in fighting on Friday and Saturday around Zamzam and Abu Shouk displacement camps and the town of Al Fasher in North Darfur.
This includes 10 humanitarian personnel from Relief International, who were killed while operating one of the last functioning health centres in Zamzam camp, said a UN spokesperson.
Just between Thursday and Saturday last week, the UN rights office "has verified 148 killings", spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani said.
"But this is very much an underestimate as our verification work is ongoing," she said, stressing that the number did "not even include yesterday's violence".
"Credible sources have reported more than 400 killed," she said.
Her comments came after UN rights chief Volker Turk decried in a statement that the "large-scale attacks ... made starkly clear the cost of inaction by the international community, despite my repeated warnings of heightened risk for civilians in the area".
"Hundreds of civilians, including at least nine humanitarian workers, were reportedly killed," he said, warning that "the attacks have exacerbated an already dire protection and humanitarian crisis in a city that has endured a devastating RSF siege since May last year".
Between 60,000 and 80,000 households—or up to 400,000 people—have been displaced from Sudan's Zamzam camp in North Darfur after it was taken over by the Rapid Support Forces, according to data from the UN's International Organization for Migration.
The RSF seized control of the camp on Sunday after a four-day assault.
Rights groups have long warned of possible atrocities should the RSF succeed in its months-long siege of the famine-stricken camp, neighbour to the army's only remaining stronghold in the Darfur region, Al Fasher.
Ankara urges end to Al Fasher siege after strikes on Zamzam camp kill civilians and aid workers.
Satellite imagery from Maxar Technologies showed burning buildings and smoke in Zamzam on Friday, echoing prior RSF attacks. The RSF has dismissed such allegations.
At the start of the war, the camp was home to about half a million people, a number that is thought to have doubled.
The RSF accelerated its assault on the camp after the army regained control of the capital Khartoum, cementing its re-taking of the centre of the country.
It has also accelerated drone attacks into army-controlled territory, including an attack on the Atbara power station in the north of the country on Monday according to the national electricity company, cutting off power to the wartime capital of Port Sudan.
The war in Sudan erupted in April 2023. The conflict has since displaced millions and devastated wide swathes of the country, spreading famine in several locations.
