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02-12-2023
KHARTOUM: Eleven women have spoken about soldiers gang-raping them for up to three days.
All the alleged victims are part of the ethnic-African Masalit tribe, caught up in the power struggle war in Sudan between the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the Sudanese Armed Forces.
The RSF and its partners have been targeting the non-Arab Masalit tribe from West Darfur since the start of the conflict in April and there have been multiple reports of sexual violence inflicted on civilians, according to activists and human rights organizations.
The 11 women who have most recently come forward all describe their attackers as uniformed men from RSF and their allies in robes and turbans commonly worn by Arab militiamen.
One 24-year-old said she was raped by four men in front of her mother on June 27, when they went back to their torched home to try and salvage their belongings.
The single mother of a toddler ended up falling pregnant and had to go to a medical clinic to terminate the pregnancy once she had fled to Chad.
A 19-year-old was also on her way to Chad, on June 16, when she and three other women were seized by men who put them in a car and drove them to a hut with mattresses on the floor, she said.
She told journalists how four armed men in RSF uniforms took turns raping her on the first day, two men raped her on the second day and one man raped her on the third before she was eventually let go on the fourth.
Her five siblings and she eventually managed to reach Chad, with both parents killed in the violence, where she is now raising all of them as the oldest.
They escaped with nothing, the only clothing she has left is the black robe she was wearing when she was raped.
The women, all in their teens or twenties were interviewed in the Chadian town of Adre, near the Sudan border, in July and August. All spoke on condition of anonymity, citing the stigma attached to rape or fear of reprisals.
Reuters was unable to independently corroborate all the details of their accounts but in many instances, relatives and friends confirmed elements of their stories.
Common patterns emerged from their descriptions. Nearly all said they were raped by multiple men.
Eight of the women said their ethnicity was specifically invoked by their assailants. The men mentioned their Masalit identity, they said, or used ethnic slurs for the Masalit and other darker-skinned non-Arabs.
Some believed they were singled out because of their work advocating for the rights of Darfur people. Three told Reuters they were human rights activists. A fourth said she is married to an advocate for displaced people. (Int’l Monitoring Desk)
