Rights group accuses RSF of systematic sexual violence in Sudan’s civil war

Report finds paramilitary radical liable for immense bulk of attacks arsenic struggle devastates civilian population.

A women’s rights organisation has documented astir 1,300 cases of endemic intersexual and gender-based unit crossed war-torn Sudan, with the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) blamed for the overwhelming bulk of attacks.

The Strategic Initiative for Women successful the Horn of Africa (SIHA) released findings connected Thursday showing it had verified 1,294 incidents spanning 14 states since Sudan’s brutal civilian warfare started successful April 2023.

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The disclosure underscores however intersexual unit has go a systematic limb successful the war, the study said, which is 1 gruesome portion of what humanitarian organisations person called the world’s largest humanitarian crisis.

The SIHA web attributed 87 percent of cases wherever perpetrators were identified arsenic RSF fighters, describing the violations arsenic “widespread, repeated, intentional, and often targeted” alternatively than contained incidents.

Rape accounted for much than three-quarters of documented incidents, portion 225 cases progressive children arsenic young arsenic 4 years old.

The radical outlined a calculated three-stage signifier accompanying RSF territorial advances. Initial location invasions and looting accompanied by rape, followed by attacks successful nationalist spaces arsenic power solidifies, and yet the semipermanent detention of women subjected to torture, pack rape and forced marriage.

“Women and girls from non-Arab tribes successful Darfur, including the Masalit, Berti, Fur and Zaghawa, were straight targeted,” the study said. In Al-Gezira state, witnesses described RSF forces singling retired lighter-skinned girls and women aged 14 to 30 arsenic “trophies”.

Just past week, the Sudan Doctors Network, a aesculapian monitoring organisation, documented 19 further rape cases astatine al-Afad Camp successful al-Dabba, wherever women fleeing the precocious fallen metropolis of el-Fasher were attacked by RSF forces. Two survivors are large and receiving care.

Fighting for power of Kordofan

The main warring has shifted from Darfur, pursuing the RSF seizure of el-Fasher successful October, to the immense cardinal Kordofan region, which sits betwixt territory controlled by the government-aligned Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) successful the eastbound and RSF-held areas successful the west.

The paramilitary unit presently holds a commanding presumption and has been advancing connected municipality centres crossed West Kordofan.

After RSF forces captured the Heglig oilfield adjacent the South Sudan borderline connected December 8, some warring parties agreed to let South Sudanese troops to unafraid the site, which serves arsenic a captious economical lifeline for some countries.

South Sudan confirmed that 7 of its soldiers were killed connected Thursday successful a drone onslaught by the SAF.

On December 5, RSF fighters attacked a preschool successful Kalogi locality, killing much than 100 people, including 46 children. The attackers past targeted paramedics and civilians who rushed to assistance victims successful what authorities described arsenic deliberate termination drone strikes.

United Nations quality rights main Volker Turk warned days earlier that Kordofan faces “another question of wide atrocities,” saying past was “repeating itself” aft planetary warnings earlier el-Fasher’s autumn went mostly unheeded.

Since precocious October, the UN has documented astatine slightest 269 civilian deaths from bombardment, artillery occurrence and summary killings successful the region, though connection blackouts suggest the existent toll is acold higher.

The struggle has displaced 12.4 cardinal radical and forced 3.3 cardinal to fly arsenic refugees since erupting successful April 2023.

Massad Boulos, a elder advisor to President Donald Trump, met this week with British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper, with some governments committing to “cut outer fiscal and subject backing for the belligerents” fuelling the war.

Washington sanctioned 4 Colombian nationals this week for moving a recruitment web that has brought much than 300 subject veterans to combat for the RSF, though the measures did not people a United Arab Emirates institution that investigators accidental arranged the deployments.

The UAE has repeatedly denied supporting the paramilitary force.