Sarah had survived famine, multiple wars, and years of displacement in Sudan’s Zamzam camp and never considered fleeing until a paramilitary attack turned the site into a “killing field”.

Last week, shelling and gunfire shook the streets as the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), at war with the army for nearly two years, stormed the famine-stricken camp in the Darfur region.

“Bombs were falling on houses. There were bodies on the street. There was no way we could stay,” the 22-year-old literature student told the AFP news agency after arriving in the town of Tawila, about 60km (37 miles) west of Zamzam.

Hundreds of families are seeking safety in the small, hunger-ridden town, cut off from nearly all humanitarian and media access.

Getting to Tawila was a terrifying process that took days. Sarah and her family of 10 set out in the middle of the night to seek safety on foot.

“People were robbed and attacked on the road. One young man was killed,” she said.

Sarah requested anonymity for fear of retribution.

Zamzam camp has received waves of people displaced from across Sudan’s vast Darfur region since war broke out in April 2023 between the army and the RSF.

Already home to 500,000 people, aid groups estimate the camp may have swelled to nearly one million people and was the first place famine was declared in Sudan last August under a United Nations-backed assessment.

Some people have been in the camp for two decades, since the Janjaweed – since repackaged as the RSF – tore through Darfur, fighting local farming communities on behalf of then-President Omar al-Bashir in Khartoum.

Last Tuesday, the paramilitary began a ground assault on Zamzam, setting fire to the camp’s main market, witnesses said.

Satellite imagery from Maxar Technologies showed heavy damage and entire buildings razed at the eastern entrance to the camp, where the RSF clashed with army-allied militias.

Yale University’s Humanitarian Research Lab, which uses remote sensing data, said arson attacks and structural damage in Zamzam were “consistent with intentional razing in a ground attack”.

The Darfur General Coordination of Camps for the Displaced and Refugees said: “The camp’s streets have turned into killing fields full of blood and body parts … fires have engulfed homes and screams mix with the sound of bullets.”