The northeast African nation was plunged into a deadly conflict in mid-April 2023, when long-simmering tensions between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the head of a paramilitary rebel group, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), erupted.
Fighting began in the capital Khartoum but rapidly spread. Before long, huge swathes of the country were engulfed in a war that has killed nearly 30,000 and driven more than 14 million people - about 30% of the population - from their homes, according to the United Nations.
Reports of sexual violence often emerge during conflicts, and both sides are accused of committing atrocities and war crimes.
But a report by Amnesty International suggests that RSF rebels have waged a calculated campaign of sexual violence against defenceless civilians, using rape, murder and torture to terrorise, demoralise and subjugate the population living in areas they seized.
Survivors describe being raped in front of their children, relatives and neighbours. Those who resisted were set on fire, stabbed and shot.
Each one explained in detail how the attacks caused massive physical or mental harm and had devastating impacts on their families. All fled their homes after.
And for every despairing account of abuse that follows, there are undoubtedly thousands more that will never be heard.
Hamida*, a 30-year-old mother who lived in Madani in Sudan's Gezira state, recounted how four RSF troops barged into her house after morning prayers with only one thing on their mind.
'One of the men grabbed me and said he wanted to rape me. I tried to resist but he hit me with his gun and said I am going to rape your small daughter if you resist,' she said.
'Two of them then tied my hands together and they removed my clothes. Three of them raped me while my daughter was watching. It was so humiliating.
'I did not go to any hospital because I did not want anyone to know about it. You are the first people I am sharing this with. I feel broken,' she told investigators.
Raping their captives in front of family members was a seemingly ritual method that the RSF soldiers engaged in to inflict maximum psychological damage.
Anyone who tried to intervene was beaten or summarily executed by other soldiers watching the crimes against humanity unfold before their eyes.
Amina, a 32-year-old mother of six from Al-Samer in Gezira, told investigators: 'One of them forcefully tied my arms behind my back, and the other raped me in front of my 11-year-old son.
'My son screamed at them saying 'leave my mother alone, stay away from my mum'.
'One of them hit my son in the back with his gun butt and broke his backbone. My beloved son, Mohamed, died 17 days later.'
Amina went on to explain that her rapist also impregnated her and she ultimately gave birth to a boy. She was afforded no medical care during or after the pregnancy.
Rahma, a woman from Nyala city in South Darfur, was tied to a tree and had her limbs held apart by a pair of soldiers as a third raped her while her six-month-old baby cried in their house.
Meanwhile, Hussein, a 42-year-old man who lived in a village called Al-Serhia, described the day RSF fighters broke into his home.
'My wife, my kids, and my two sisters-in-law were in the house with me that day. My wife and I were in one room. They asked us to lie on the floor. They took her gold and then the four of them raped her in front of me and my two kids.
'I tried to stand and stop them from raping my wife, and then one of them shot my wife in the chest. She died immediately. They then started beating me badly with their guns until I fainted.
'Another group of RSF soldiers came to our house and raped my sisters-in-law. It was the darkest day of my life.'
There are floods of reports of such raids conducted by RSF soldiers, storming into houses and leaving a trail of devastation in their wake as they leave.
But other unfortunate victims are subjected to an even darker fate.
Two women, Batul and Mariam, explained how they were kidnapped by RSF soldiers and locked away, reduced to nothing but toys to be abused by any number of depraved fighters.
Batul, a nurse who lived in the Sudanese capital, was dragged from her home by RSF soldiers who had overrun the hospital where she worked.
They forced her to treat some of their injured soldiers. Then more than a dozen of the fighters raped her.
After the ordeal, she asked to leave the hospital, but her captors refused. For the next 45 days, Batul was locked in the medical centre and routinely gang raped - her only respite coming when injured RSF members needed treatment.
She described one particularly brutal day as follows: 'At around 10am, eight RSF soldiers came to the room where I was detained. They beat me badly and then raped me one after the other.
'My unhealed C-section wound opened because I am diabetic and had given birth nine months earlier. I started bleeding and became unconscious.
'I woke up several hours later. They kept beating and harassing me every day. They later released me after 45 days while in very bad condition.'
She also explained how one of her colleagues who resisted the rape was doused in petrol, set alight and shot dead.
Mariam, another resident of Khartoum, was abducted and driven to a house where she discovered RSF soldiers were holding several women on whom they enacted their depravity.
'I was detained in that house for 30 days where they kept raping me almost every day. They released me after 30 days when I became very sick,' she said.
'They also kept repeatedly raping the other women. I know because I heard them cry every day.'
Women were even taken to military checkpoints set up by the RSF to keep bored soldiers entertained.
One man interviewed by Amnesty said his wife Nabha was separated from him and held at the fighters' checkpoint at the village of Ombadda.
He said: 'They raped my wife for more than four consecutive days. They detained me in a separate shop. I could hear my wife scream as they raped her every day, but I was not able to help.'
As the survivors interviewed by Amnesty and many others like them who fled Sudan begin contemplating the unimaginable treatment they endured, the atrocities in their home country continue apace.
The fighting between the SAF, led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the RSF, commanded by Mohamed Hamdan 'Hemedti' Dagalo, shows no signs of abating.
Both sides are widely reported to have conducted indiscriminate attacks as they try to wrest territory from one another.
Airstrikes, shelling, and assaults on urban neighbourhoods have devastated Sudan's large cities and tiny villages alike, all while weapons continue to pour into the country - from Russia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates among others - in defiance of long-standing international arms embargos.
Besides the tales of sexual violence, there are also accusations that the RSF - a predominantly Arab force - is conducting genocide against the Masalit people of Western Sudan.
The Sudanese government in recent weeks sought an audience at the International Court of Justice and called for emergency measures to be taken against the UAE, which it claims is arming and funding the RSF.
'The genocide against the Masalit is being carried out by the Rapid Support Force, predominantly Arab from Darfur, with the support and complicity of the United Arab Emirates,' acting Justice Minister Muawia Osman said in his opening statements at The Hague-based court today.
The UAE has rejected the accusations, with government representatives issuing a statement today that read: 'Everything that was said in court was circumstantial and would not meet a evidentiary standard. There was no credible evidence presented to support their claims.'
Now, nearly two years into the conflict and a torrent of evidence of crimes against humanity, accusations are mounting that the international response remains grossly inadequate.
Deprose Muchena, Amnesty International's Senior Director for Regional Human Rights Impact, said: 'The RSF's assaults on Sudanese women and girls are sickening, depraved and aimed at inflicting maximum humiliation.
'The world must act to stop the RSF's atrocities by stemming the flow of weapons into Sudan, pressuring the leadership to end sexual violence, and holding perpetrators including top commanders to account.
'The horror of the RSF's sexual violence is overwhelming, but the cases documented among refugees represent a small fraction of the violations likely committed.
'The RSF's attacks on civilians are shameful and cowardly... any countries supporting them, including by supplying them with weapons, shares in their shame.
'The international response to the suffering of Sudanese women and girls has been reprehensible. The world has failed to protect civilians, provide sufficient humanitarian aid or hold perpetrators accountable for these crimes.'
Muchena added: 'It's time for people and governments around the world to establish the truth of what has happened in Sudan, bring suspected perpetrators to justice and provide reparations and comprehensive sexual and reproductive health care to survivors.'
Amnesty International's investigation into sexual violence in Sudan was carried out between November 2024 and February 2025, under circumstances that were as complex as the conflict itself.
With Sudan largely inaccessible due mostly to the widespread fighting but also because of communication blackouts imposed by the government, the majority of interviews were conducted in person at the Kiryandongo refugee settlement in Uganda.
Thousands of refugees who fled their homes are now squeezed into the camp, and many of them suffered heinous abuse and torture.
In total, the organisation spoke to 30 people of which 16 were survivors of sexual violence.
Five were relatives of victims, five were human rights investigators monitoring the conflict, and four were healthcare and aid workers offering medical and psychosocial support to survivors.
*Amnesty International has changed the names of interviewees for their safety.
No comments:
Post a Comment