Sudan’s RSF accused of ‘sickening’ sexual violence on women, girls: Report

Amnesty International documents 36 cases of women and girls as young as 15 subjected to many forms of sexual violence.

Members of Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have been subjecting women and girls to “horrific” sexual violence and gang rape, as part of their strategy in the country’s civil war, according to Amnesty International, a global rights group.

In a 30-page report published on Thursday, Amnesty accused the RSF of inflicting “widespread sexual violence … to humiliate, assert control and displace communities across the country”.

Since April 15, 2023, the RSF has been battling the Sudanese Armed Forces for control of the country, resulting in an armed conflict that has also given rise to what the United Nations described as one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.

While the military reclaimed the capital, Khartoum, last month, the country remains essentially divided into two.

Both forces led the ouster of President Omar al-Bashir in 2019. Two years later, in 2021, they joined forces again to remove a transitional government. They split in April 2023, igniting the current civil war.

“The RSF’s atrocities, including rape, gang-rape and sexual slavery, amount to war crimes and possible crimes against humanity,” Amnesty said. “The RSF’s assaults on Sudanese women and girls are sickening, depraved and aimed at inflicting maximum humiliation.”

Deprose Muchena, a senior Amnesty official for regional human rights impact, said that the RSF targeted civilians, particularly women and girls, “with unimaginable cruelty during this war”.

Amnesty documented at least 36 cases of women and girls as young as 15 being subjected by RSF forces to rape, gang rape and other forms of sexual violence.

One woman, a 34-year-old mother of five, described how in May 2023, she was abducted from her home by seven men wearing the RSF uniform and taken to a house where another three women were also being held.

“I was detained in that house for 30 days where they kept raping me almost every day,” she said.

Another woman raped in Omdurman said: “Women are not leading or participating in this war, but it is women who are suffering the most.”

In October, a UN fact-finding mission found widespread sexual violence during Sudan’s war. It accused the paramilitaries of being behind the “large majority” of cases. The RSF rejected the accusations as propaganda.

Both the RSF and the army are under United States sanctions and accused of war crimes.

Call to stop atrocities

Since the war began, the RSF has also been accused of looting, taking over civilian homes and committing other forms of abuses.

The war has killed tens of thousands of people and, according to the UN, displaced about 12 million more.

The diplomats “agreed that the Sudanese Armed Forces and Rapid Support Forces must return to peace talks, protect civilians, open humanitarian corridors, and return to civilian governance”, the State Department statement said following the meeting.

The United States under Joe Biden and Saudi Arabia have previously sponsored several unsuccessful rounds of negotiations to end the bloody conflict.