Zamzam, in Darfur, has been a place of refuge for decades. A sprawling camp in western Sudan, some have estimated that it houses up to 700,000 people – a place of relative safety from the violence that has engulfed the region over the last 20 years.

It was also one of the last holdouts in Darfur, one of the few places in the region not yet under the control of the Rapid Support Forces. The paramilitary group has fought a devastating civil war with the Sudanese army since April 2023.

As the Guardian journalist Kaamil Ahmed reports, it was never going to last. In mid-April, the RSF launched a devastating attack on the camp itself, killing as many as 400 people, and causing hundreds of thousands to flee across the desert.

It was, perhaps, part of a concerted plan, for in the same week that the RSF took Zamzam, it announced a breakaway government over all the Sudanese territory it controls. Just weeks earlier, the Sudanese government had its own decisive moment, finally wresting back control of the capital, Khartoum. So will Sudan be effectively split into two?

The human rights activist Altahir Hashim tells Michael Safi what it has been like for him trying to learn what happened to his family in Zamzam, and his fears for the war in Sudan ahead.