'Slaughtered like animals' The inside story of the massacre in Zamzam

As the UK prepared to host a global summit on bringing peace to Sudan, the RSF paramilitary group began a "genocidal" massacre in Zamzam refugee camp.

- Mark Townsend

But when reports emerged of the killings, London held its silence. For the first time, using intelligence reports and witness testimony, we piece together what occurred during the April atrocity - and why it was not stopped.

Zamzam Camp, Sudan Friday 11 April 2025 At only 22 years old, nurse Hanadi Dawood was an expert in the myriad ways poverty can kill. She knew straight away whether a child would last the day; you learn such skills in a place where an infant dies every two hours.

Hanadi ran a small health centre in Zamzam, a sprawling displacement camp in Sudan's Darfur region, the heart of what the UN and NGOs have said is one of the world's largest humanitarian catastrophes.

Her clinic was already busy before breakfast on 11 April, but outside Zamzam, the notorious Rapid Support Forces paramilitary group was massing on three sides. Some believed the RSF might hold off. Zamzam's 500,000 residents, predominantly women and children, were virtually defenceless and starving to death.

"Inside Zamzam you'd find one of - if not the - most vulnerable populations on the planet," says a UN war crimes investigator, requesting anonymity. Even so, soon after 8am, heavy artillery pounded Zamzam while drones buzzed above.

The offensive had begun.

9.30am

RSF units breached the camp's defensive wall. Near its southern entrance, up to 50 teenage girls were sitting staring at their phones. Witnesses saw them being bundled into RSF pickup trucks. None have been seen since.

Two hundred metres east, 30 RSF pickups entered Ahmadai neighbourhood. Sixty homes belonging to the ethnic Zaghawa tribe were set ablaze. Women were shot as they fled. Six stayed and were burned alive.

Five minutes north of Ahmadai, Fatima Bakhit was lying beside her husband, two sons and her blind uncle. Through a fence, the pregnant 25-year-old could see Zamzam's last functioning international clinic, run by Relief International.

11am