Sudan’s civil war sees RSF forces raping women and girls on an “appalling scale and scale”, rights group says

Johannesburg – Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces, one side on the ground civil War that divided the African nation for more than a year and created another of The worst human problems in the worldthey are accused of raping dozens of women and girls and using others as sex slaves in a new report by Human Rights Watch. A New York-based rights group says the military’s use of sexual violence in South Kordofan state since September 2023 amounts to war crimes and possible crimes against humanity.

HRW sets out the findings of an investigation based on the cases of nearly 80 women and girls in a report published on Monday, detailing the shocking new allegations of torture in Sudan, where both sides in the civil war already exist. accused of war crimes.

The researchers collected evidence from 79 women and girls between the ages of 7 and 50 who were raped by HRW, with most of the incidents taking place at the RSF military base in Dibeibat, near the town of Habila in South Kordofan.

Survivors and witnesses told the group that the men who carried out the attack were either RSF soldiers in uniform or members of allied forces.

“Survivors described being gang-raped in front of their families and for a long time, including being sex slaves,” said HRW Associate Crisis and Conflict Director Belkis Wille, who conducted several interviews with survivors.

Ezzaddean Elsafi, a senior adviser to the RSF, denied the allegations in the HRW report to CBS News, saying that “people wearing RSF uniforms” behind the alleged attacks are fake, not real RSF forces.

“RSF takes this very seriously and will investigate. We are very sensitive to violence against women and the perpetrators will be held accountable,” said Elsafi, denying that the group has a significant presence in South Kordofan, although admitting that it is strong “in the area of ​​Debibat,” near -boarder with the province of North Kordofan.

“This is completely untrue,” he said of the HRW report.

HRW said it had shared a summary of the results of its investigation with the RSF commander-in-chief, General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, but had not received a response.

Wille has spent years documenting sexual violence in conflicts around the world, including ISIS militants against Yazidi women in Iraq, but told CBS News, “What really surprised me after meeting these women and girls was the breadth and scale” of CBS News. crime in Sudan.

CBS News has seen a video of the full interview with HRW conducted with an 18-year-old woman the group identified as Hania. She said she was pregnant in February when RSF fighters raided her home in Habila and arrested her, her 17-year-old neighbor and 16 other girls she knew in her area. He said they were taken in 10 vehicles to the military base in Dibeibat.

When they arrived, Hania said she saw more than 30 other girls from her town who were already there, and about 100 soldiers who had taken them captive.

He said that when he tried to resist being raped, one of the soldiers “started beating me with an iron whip.” In the next three months, he said, “the fighters come in groups of three every morning to take the girls to rape them, and then in the evening another group of three come and take another group of girls to rape them.”

Hania said that RSF men arrested her and other women and girls in a type of animal pen made of wire and tree branches, where they were chained in groups of ten people.

“What was clear from these cases is that in areas where RSF is controlled, there is no safe place – not when you’re running away, not even in your own home. Women and girls are at risk of rape wherever they are,” Wille told CBS News. .

Another woman, Hasina, 35, told HRW that six RSF men in uniform shot and killed her husband and stole all their cattle and money. He said these cows were his family’s investment, so since they were stolen along with his money, he felt he had no way to escape like many of his neighbors, he and his six young children, some are just children, he has no other choice but to run away. stay in their home.

The RSF soldiers returned three days later, he said, and “all three men raped me, they left.”

Later that night, “the other three came back and raped me and told me to stay in my house.”

She said she was gang-raped almost every day for the next month before she escaped.

HRW met with Hasina at Camp Al-Hailu, a makeshift shelter for the homeless in South Kordofan.

“Of course she can’t get up and continue because of her health. Her children are now in the camp with little food and they look very malnourished when I see them. … She is struggling to work as a mother,” said Wille, adding that the women living in the tents near Hasina were helping to take care of her children.

Wille said there is no psychological support for abused women in the camp or in the rest of the country.

“When I brought up the question of justice and accountability to these women, they all just looked at me, as justice is meaningless to them,” he said. “The extent of what is happening here means that the RSF has become accustomed to their behavior. None of these women have ever heard of a soldier or a fighter who has ever held himself accountable.”

Hania and her friend who was also pregnant managed to escape from their captors. They were interviewed by HRW in the Nuba Mountains. They said 49 girls are still being held in this facility and have heard about girls being held in two other RSF bases.

“We have no way to find out more about these women, as it is very difficult and dangerous, and in these areas there is no electricity, there are no mobile phone networks, so there is no information coming out. Wille said. “We will probably never know what happened to these women and girls.”

The charity International Rescue Committee says the humanitarian crisis caused by Sudan’s civil war will be the largest on record for the second consecutive year in 2024, with more than 30 million people in need of aid. It is estimated that nearly half of Sudan’s 50 million people are dying of severe starvation.

Last week, nearly 20 months after the war began, the war seemed to be intensifying, with both sides accusing the other of committing new atrocities. International efforts to establish a peace agreement have stalled and there is no end to the war.