By Emma Farge
GENEVA (Reuters) – Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and allies have committed “staggering” levels of sexual abuse, raping civilians as troops advance and abducting some women as sex slaves during the more than 18-month war, a U.N. mission said on Tuesday.
Victims have ranged between eight and 75 years, said the U.N. fact-finding mission’s report, with most sexual violence committed by the RSF and allied Arab militia in an attempt to terrorize and punish people for perceived links to enemies.
“The sheer scale of sexual violence we have documented in Sudan is staggering,” said mission chair Mohamed Chande Othman in a statement accompanying an 80-page report based on interviews with victims, families and witnesses.
The report echoed investigations by Reuters and rights groups into widespread sexual abuse in the conflict.
The RSF, which is fighting Sudan’s army, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. It has previously said it would investigate allegations and bring perpetrators to justice.
The paramilitary RSF has roots in so-called Janjaweed militias, which helped the military crush a rebellion in Sudan’s western Darfur region two decades ago.
In the current conflict, the RSF has seized control of large parts of Sudan including in West Darfur where it is accused of carrying out ethnic killings against the Masalit people with the help of Arab militias.
The U.N. mission said racist slurs against non-Arabs in parts of West Darfur state were widely used during sexual attacks, indicating ethnicity targeting.
FORCED IMPREGNATION
One victim from El Geneina in West Darfur said her rapist told her at gunpoint: “We will make you, the Masalit girls, give birth to Arab children,” the report said.
In another case, a West Darfur woman was held captive for over eight months by RSF guards and impregnated by her main captor during repeated rapes, it added.
In four other incidents, women were taken from the street before being beaten and raped then released or abandoned unconscious on the street. Perpetrators mostly wore either RSF uniforms or scarves concealing their faces, victims said.
The report said it had documented a smaller number of sexual violence cases involving the Sudanese army, with more investigation needed. It also said it had credible reports that both warring parties had recruited child soldiers.
Last month, the mission found that both the army and RSF had committed major abuses like torture and arbitrary arrests.
Though pushed out of global headlines by the Ukraine and Gaza conflicts, Sudan’s war has created one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters, with thousands killed, more than 11 million uprooted, widespread hunger and involvement of foreign powers.
(Reporting by Emma Farge; Additional reporting by Khalid Abdelaziz in Dubai and Nafisa Eltahir in Cairo; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)
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