El Fasher, June 18)Darfur 24)The armed confrontations between the Sudanese army, the armed movements allied with it, and the Rapid Support Forces, which entered its second month,have forced all the southern refugees in the Bentiu camp to flee to the Zamzam camp for displaced persons, 15 km west of El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur.

Ibrahim Deng, a community leader in the camp, told Darfur 24, “Last Friday’s battles forced hundreds of refugees in Bentiu to flee completely from the camp to the Zamzam camp for the displaced amid harsh humanitarian conditions.” He added, “And now they are sleeping under the trees in the vicinity of the Zamzam police station,” adding how many people have joined. Other refugees are returned to their families at the South Sudanese refugee gathering center in “Daqaig”, south of Abu Shouk camp.

The civil administration of the Zamzam camp for displaced people warned of a humanitarian catastrophe befalling the refugees who have been sleeping on the ground for more than four days, as the battles continue.

Yahya Suleiman, an activist in the camp, told Darfur 24 that the conditions of those fleeing Bentiu are extremely critical and require urgent intervention, before referring to the conditions of the rest of the displaced people fleeing from El Fasher to the camp for the same reasons.

The Darfur 24 correspondent monitored the suffering of the displaced people in Zamzam from the difficulty of obtaining drinking water, despite their suffering from the high percentage of nitrates in the water (salinity), which in turn threatens to exacerbate cases of water-related diseases, in addition to the high water tariff, as the price of the jarana reached 500 Sudanese pounds.

 

Hundreds have been killed and wounded since the outbreak of fighting in the strategic city, which is considered the only one in the Darfur region where the army still has a presence after the Rapid Support Forces controlled more than 90 percent of the region’s areas.

Before the outbreak of fighting, the city was home to a quarter of the Darfur region’s population of about 6 million people, which constitutes 20 percent of Sudan’s area and includes about 14 percent of the country’s population of about 42 million people.