Humanitarian emergency in Tawila – an epicentre of displacement in Darfur in Sudan – and the efforts of local volunteers and community groups responding on the ground is sprinting into a catastrophe.

Interviewees with local and the internally displaced show the latter are largely dependent on their families sending money via mobile banking applications, or on local volunteers and other displaced people who are already inside Tawila and have managed to secure slightly better conditions.

On most mornings, people can be seen crossing from Tawila down into the valley, carrying food and supplies. Much of that is then shared collectively, with displaced families dividing what they have to ensure everyone receives something.

Still, the resources of local responders are limited, especially the earlier groups of displaced people, most of whom have not been able to find jobs in Tawila’s main market given its relatively small size.

Hadia Awad, a 24-year-old from Zam Zam, said her four children relied on local residents providing meals to get through their first days in Tawila, but since then they have struggled to find enough food.

“Other than those meals, we haven’t received any humanitarian aid,” Awad said. “We also haven’t been able to find work to support ourselves and our children, except for occasionally gathering some straw [for people to] make shade.”

Interviewees from Zam Zam all described enduring horrific abuses by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and allied forces, both when they attacked the camp and on the journeys they took to Tawila.

The UN has estimated that over 400 people were killed during the assault on Zam Zam, which took place over several days in early April, although local sources suggest that is an underestimate.

The RSF has sought to justify the attack by claiming that Zam Zam was a “military zone” used by armed groups supporting the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) in El Fasher. In reality, the camp was overwhelmingly a civilian space, home to hundreds of thousands of displaced people.

The killings came after nearly two years of similar attacks, during which RSF forces have committed numerous mass atrocities, mostly notably against the non-Arab Masalit community of West Darfur state.

Zam Zam resident Fayza Elmer said her family hid in trenches during the attack, and then watched on as RSF forces went through neighbourhoods stealing people’s vehicles and other valuables.

Elmer said her family initially travelled to El Fasher but RSF bombardments forced them to abandon the city and head to Tawila. During that journey, they encountered RSF forces in civilian vehicles and, later on, allied militias on camels.

“We encountered four men riding camels,” Elmer said. “They stopped us and said, ‘Where are you going, enemy women? Today, we will kill all of you.’ They ordered us to leave the main road and unload our belongings from the donkeys.”

Elmer said the armed men took aside the men and boys in her group, and then beat them with whips while searching for money and smartphones. She said they also took her 16-year-old daughter and sexually assaulted her.

“We heard reports of rape cases involving those who fled before us and those who came after. Women and girls were forcibly taken from their families, who were beaten or killed if they resisted. No one could defy brute force.”

“When they ordered us to leave, we refused and insisted we would not go without my daughter,” Elmer said. “In response, they poured out all of our drinking water on the ground to make our children suffer from thirst. Later, they brought back my daughter.”

Awad, the 24-year-old, described facing similar levels of abuse as her family left Zam Zam with dozens of others, stepping over corpses and wounded people on the streets along the way.

Awad said they encountered a group of camel-riding armed men in the village of Um Hajaleed. She said the men threw her brother to the ground, held a knife to his throat, and demanded money and mobile phones,

“They asked, ‘Why haven’t you liberated El Fasher?’” Awad said. “We told them we were civilians and displaced people and that they should be the ones offering us help, not robbing us. Their response was: ‘You brought this upon yourselves.’”

Awad said the fighters dragged the family to an open field, cut the ropes tying their donkeys to the carts – causing the carts, along with the children, to collapse to the ground – and then stole the animals and beat the family again.

“We heard reports of rape cases involving those who fled before us and those who came after,” Awad added. “Women and girls were forcibly taken from their families, who were beaten or killed if they resisted. No one could defy brute force.”

Now in Tawila, Awad – like all the displaced people who spoke to The New Humanitarian – said she is relieved to have escaped the violence. But the humanitarian conditions they face mean the suffering is far from over.

“We have no tents or plastic sheets, so we sleep on bare ground without covers,” Aawad said. “Some people are already sick and we fear illnesses will spread among the healthy.”

• A Tell Media report