Crammed into school buildings in the centre of Suleia, just 200 out of the West Darfur town's original 25,000 population were left after an attack by militia and the Sudanese army.
Thursday was the first time anyone from outside had been able to reach the town and the people remaining were mostly elderly women, those with babies or old men.
They were not able to run as far as others to escape the bombing and the militia who looted and burned and killed.
Suleia was targeted as part of an army offensive on three towns to retake them from the Darfur rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) almost a week earlier.
Among the survivors, Hawa Suleiman had no breast milk to feed her five-month-old baby after she spent a week under a tree with no food following the attack.
"The Janjaweed came and took everything, our food, our furniture," said the 35-year-old mother, who did not know where any of her other six children or her husband was.
Her face, cut with traditional tribal markings, was worn with worry as she struggled to quieten her crying, hungry child. She said she came back on Thursday because she heard aid workers had brought food.
A joint U.N.-humanitarian convoy brought food to the area for the first time since mid-December. Some 160,000 people had been cut off from aid since then, said U.N. official Amy Martin.
"We have not bathed for a week," said 75-year-old Mohamed Eissa Abdallah, bent over double with age and leaning on a wooden staff. His face and clothes were caked with dust and mud.
"I buried my brother with my own hands," he said.
Many of the survivors said at least one member of their family had been killed.
A Sudanese staff of the International Committee for the Red Cross was killed in the attack on Suleia. Washington calls the Darfur violence genocide, a term Khartoum rejects, blaming Western media for exaggerating the conflict.
The offensive was the largest in many months and aid agencies say it affected 50,000-60,000 people, less than initial rebel estimates of up to 200,000. Up to 12,000 refugees fled into neighbouring eastern Chad, the U.N. refugee agency said.
