Fighters in Sudan’s civil war raping girls as young as seven, HRW says

Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and its allies are raping women and girls as young as seven and holding them in sexual slavery during the country’s civil war, a report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Monday.

The findings, which are based on extensive interviews in the state of South Kordofan, come 20 months after a brutal conflict broke out in Africa’s third largest country. Tens of thousands of people have been killed, and millions of others have been displaced.

HRW’s report said that the RSF — the paramilitary force that is fighting the Sudanese army — is committing widespread sexual atrocities.

This echoes the conclusions drawn in October by the UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for Sudan, which accused the RSF of perpetrating large-scale sexual violence.

The RSF’s leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo known as Hemedti, could not be reached for comment. The RSF has previously said it would investigate such allegations and hold perpetrators accountable.

The Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), led by Hemedti’s rival Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, have also carried out rape and gang rape in the capital Khartoum and surrounding cities, according to the UN research and previous HRW reports.

However, organisations such as HRW say that the majority of sexual crimes in Sudan have been committed by RSF troops and militias allied to them.

As part of HRW’s recent investigation in South Kordofan, researchers spoke to a 35-year-old Nuba woman who said she was targeted because of her ethnicity.

“My husband and my son tried to defend me, so one of the RSF fighters shot and killed them. Then they kept raping me, all six of them,” she said.

HRW spoke to seven rape survivors as well as a dozen witnesses. In total, the NGO received information about 79 girls and women aged between the ages of seven and 50 who are thought to have been raped.

Most of the incidents occurred this year near the town of Habila in South Kordofan.

“Survivors described being gang raped, in front of their families or over prolonged periods of time, including while being held as sex slaves by RSF fighters,” said Belkis Wille, HRW’s associate crisis and conflict director.

“This research highlights what we have been hearing for some time now about the magnitude of sexual violence in Sudan, with the RSF coming into homes and raping women and girls time and again,” Wille added.

“Yet so far, Sudanese victims have barely had access to services, let alone redress or meaningful efforts to stop these horrific crimes.”

Wille called on the UN and the African Union to offer assistance to these girls and women, and to help bring their attackers to justice.

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One of the victims highlighted in the report is Hania, 18, who was three months pregnant when RSF fighters took her from her home in Fayu, a town near Habila.

Hania, whose name was changed to protect her identity, said she was held as a sex slave along with dozens of girls and women at a large RSF military base in Dibeibat, 85 kilometres north of Fayu.

Soldiers came in the morning and in the evening to pick out girls to rape, Hania said. After a failed escape attempt, the captives, who were given only a mix of sorghum flour and water to eat, were chained together in kneeling positions, she told HRW.

“They made a pen-like setup with wires and tree branches, like the one they keep animals in. We were tied up with chains, 10 girls on one chain. If we needed to go to the toilet, they set us free for only one minute,” she told HRW in its report.

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Hania told HRW that one of the fighters beat her with a metal-tipped whip when she tried to stop him from raping her. She ended up being hospitalised for nearly three weeks.

The 18-year-old and a friend of the same age, who fell pregnant during their captivity, were freed after three months by a soldier who took pity on them.

None of the women HRW interviewed thought their attackers could be brought to justice. “There is nothing anyone can do for justice. I just have to report to God,” one told HRW.

As well as the violence that has been unleashed, the conflict in Sudan has left the country on the brink of famine, with more than half of the country’s population facing acute hunger, according to the UN World Food Programme.

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International efforts to bring about peace have yet to result in any sustained dialogue between the RSF and the SAF.