The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), locked in a brutal war with the Sudanese army since April 2023, hit Abu Shouk displacement camp near North Darfur's besieged capital El-Fasher with "artillery shelling and stray gunfire", the camp's emergency response room said in a statement.

Abu Shouk shelters tens of thousands of people who fled both the violence of previous conflicts in Darfur and the current war.

In recent weeks, RSF fighters intensified their attacks on El-Fasher -- the last major urban centre in Darfur still under army control -- and its surrounding displacement camps -- Abu Shouk and Zamzam.

Paramilitary assaults in the region have escalated since the army regained control of the Sudanese capital Khartoum last month.

The United Nations said RSF assaults in North Darfur killed at least 481 civilians over the past two weeks alone.

Its tally included "at least 129 civilians" killed over just five days last week in El-Fasher, Um Kedadah district and Abu Shouk.

It also reported "at least 210 civilians, including nine medical professionals", killed in the Zamzam camp between April 11 and 13.

RSF forces seized Zamzam after a bloody offensive that left the camp -- once home to nearly a million displaced people -- almost empty according to the UN.

Now in its third year, the war has killed tens of thousands, displaced 13 million and created what the UN describes as the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

The conflict has split Sudan between the army, which controls the north, east and centre, and the RSF which dominates nearly all of Darfur and parts of the south.

Famine has officially hit five areas across Sudan, including in Zamzam and Abu Shouk camps, as well as parts of the country's south, according to a UN-backed assessment.