Every time the phone rings, Musab dreads receiving a call from his family overseas.

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This story contains reference to sexual assault.

Communication with loved ones in Sudan is rare and fleeting for Musab Hassan.

A member of the Zaghawa ethnic group, Hassan survived what in the early 2000s the International Criminal Court labelled as genocide in Darfur.

Now, from the safety of Sydney, he’s spent every day waiting on word from the family he left behind.

Throughout the most recent bout of conflict, internet and telephone services have been heavily disrupted.

“We have no luxury to even have a long conversation, because they just come for a few moments and go away because it’s not safe,” he tells SBS News.

“They immediately tell you that X and Y from the family got killed today or injured today or kidnapped today or even raped today.

“We get those kind of news every day.”

‘Killed in front of his children’

Hassan’s family is in the Zamzam refugee camp in North Darfur, which has been under attack by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) for over a week.

The violence has erupted out of the almost two-year-old conflict between the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces and the Sudanese Armed Forces.

Amid the struggle for power, RSF militants seized control of almost all of Sudan’s Darfur region with their attacks on the local Masalit, Fur and Zaghawa ethnic groups declared a genocide by the US State Department in January 2025.

Zamzam is home to an estimated 1.5 million displaced people and many had fled here in search of safety, only to be forced to flee again.

A map showing the location of Zamzam refugee camp in Sudan

Credit: SBS News

The Zamzam refugee camp was the first place famine was declared in a United Nations-backed assessment last August.

Hassan, who serves as chairman of the Zaghawa Community Association of New South Wales and Canberra, has been able to see glimpses of the destruction through videos sent from his loved ones.

Hassan said he has lost many friends and family members in the conflict, including his uncle, a prominent poet and comedian.

“He got killed because the RSF tried to approach his house and he refused,” Hassan said.

“He got killed in front of his children, in a peace camp.”

Inside the Sudanese camp

After hours of attempts, SBS News was finally able to speak with Musab’s contacts inside the camp, including Halima Hasan.

In the call, she described how the local market and shelters were burned down, leaving many wounded and killed.

“They kidnapped many children and we do not know their whereabouts until now,” Hasan told SBS News.

A man interviews a person online on a laptop

In a rare interview, SBS News was able to speak to people inside Zamzam, where communication blackouts are common. Credit: SBS News

The situation is beyond difficult, she added, saying many children had died from the lack of food.

“The children here suffer from severe malnutrition and the centres that provided treatment have closed their doors,” Hasan said.

“We have more than 40 deaths due to malnutrition.”

Calls for a stronger stance from the Australian government

Musab is hoping Australia will do the same.

“When the government in Australia called for example a ceasefire in Darfur for example, this should be changed because it is a genocide taking place. I’m pretty sure that… my 90 years old grandma and my 90 years old grandfather, they have no weapon to fight, to cease fire.”

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade says in a statement that: “The Australian Government is extremely concerned by the conflict” and they “unequivocally condemn the appalling violence directed at civilians.”

For Musab, such condemnation and concern is welcome, but provides little comfort while he despairs for the safety of his family.

“If it continues like that without international intervention, at the end of this project the entire community of two million people in Darfur of the Zaghawa community is going to be wiped out.”

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