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HRW accuses Sudan warring parties of widespread sexual violence

Author: Chany Ninrew | Published: July 29, 2024

Smoke billows above residential buildings in Khartoum on April 16, 2023. | AFP

Sudan’s warring parties, particularly the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), have committed widespread atrocities including gang rape and forcing women and girls into marriages in Khartoum, Human Rights Watch said in a report on Sunday.

The 89-page report documents widespread sexual violence, as well as forced and child marriage during the conflict, in Khartoum and its sister cities.

The watchdog said service providers treating and supporting victims also heard reports from women and girls of being held by the RSF in conditions that could amount to sexual slavery.

The research also highlights the “devastating health consequences” for survivors and the destructive impact of attacks on health care and the alleged blockade on aid by the Sudanese army.

“The Rapid Support Forces have raped, gang raped, and forced into marriage countless women and girls in residential areas in Sudan’s capital,” said Laetitia Bader, deputy Africa director at Human Rights Watch.

“The armed group has terrorized women and girls and both warring parties have blocked them from getting aid and support services, compounding the harm they face and leaving them to feel that nowhere is safe.”

The conflict between the junta under General Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan and RSF of General Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, erupted in April 15, 2023, and has killed tens of thousands, displaced millions and triggered one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.

Fighting continues daily in several parts of Sudan, with both sides accused of war crimes including the deliberate targeting of civilians, indiscriminate shelling of residential areas and blocking humanitarian aid.

The United Nations said the country is experiencing one of the worst humanitarian disasters in recent memory and the largest internal displacement crisis in the world.

HRW said despite restrictions on access to Khartoum, it interviewed 42 health care providers, social workers, counsellors, lawyers, and local responders in the emergency response rooms that they have established in Khartoum between September 2023 and February 2024.

It said 18 of the healthcare providers had provided direct medical care or psychosocial support to at least 262 survivors of sexual violence aged between 9 and 69 years between April 2023 and February 2024.

A 20-year-old woman living in an RSF-controlled area in Khartoum is quoted in the report as saying: ““Since this war started, it is not safe anymore to be a woman living in Khartoum under RSF. I have slept with a knife under my pillow for months in fear from the raids that lead to rape by RSF.”

The rights group further disclosed that healthcare workers narrated encountering survivors seeking assistance for debilitating physical injuries they experienced during rapes and gang rapes, with four women reported to have died.

HRW said it has found that both warring parties have blocked survivors’ access to critical and comprehensive emergency health care.

It accuses SAF of willful restriction of humanitarian supplies on RSF-controlled area, while also condemning the paramilitary group for having “pillaged medical supplies and occupied medical facilities.”

The group said the willful obstruction or arbitrary restriction of humanitarian aid violates international humanitarian law, while the pillaging and attacks on civilians and health care workers constitute war crimes.

It calls on the African Union and the United Nations to immediately work together to deploy a new mission to protect civilians in Sudan, including preventing S-GBV, supporting delivery of services to all survivors, and documenting conflict-related sexual violence.

The mission should have a mandate and capacity to monitor the obstruction of, and facilitate access to, humanitarian assistance.

It calls on UN member states, particularly from the region to continue to support international investigations into such crimes, including by the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for Sudan.

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