Scale of sexual violence in Sudan is 'staggering', warns UN

Photo: Agence France-Presse Eleven million people are internally displaced in Sudan, including around 8.3 million since the war.

Robin Millard – Agence France-Presse in Geneva

Published yesterday at 9:41 AM Updated yesterday at 12:36 PM

• Africa

Rapes, including gang rape, are “widespread” in Sudan after 18 months of civil war, according to a UN investigative report published Tuesday, which targets in particular the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

“The scale of sexual violence we have seen in Sudan is staggering,” the chair of the Sudan fact-finding mission, Mohamed Chande Othman, said in a statement.

Children are not spared, and women and girls are being abducted for sexual slavery, the new report says.

“There is no longer any safe place in Sudan,” said Mr. Othman, whose mission was established late last year by the Human Rights Council to document violations committed in the country since the start of the conflict.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, said on Tuesday that the escalation of violence in Al-Jazeera state, south of Khartoum, was further exacerbating the risk of atrocities, and his office has already documented cases of sexual violence.

After 18 months of war between the head of the Sudanese army, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) of his former deputy, General Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, “the suffering is growing by the day” and “25 million people” now need help, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Monday.

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“All wars are brutal, but “The toll of this is particularly horrifying,” said the Director General of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), Amy Pope, during a press briefing from Port Sudan on Tuesday.

Eleven million people are internally displaced in Sudan, including about 8.3 million since the war, which also forced 3.1 million to flee the country, according to UN figures on Tuesday.

The Sudanese warring parties have been repeatedly accused of war crimes for deliberately targeting civilians and blocking humanitarian aid.

In September, the fact-finding mission called for the “prompt deployment” of an “independent and impartial” force to protect civilians.

It concluded in an initial report that the warring parties had “committed an appalling pattern of violations of human rights and international law, many of which amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.” humanity”.

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“Cycle of hatred and violence”

In their new report, UN investigators accuse them once again of having “committed massive violations of human rights and international humanitarian law, many of which can be assimilated to war crimes and/or crimes against humanity,” including torture, rape, sexual slavery and persecution based on ethnicity and gender.

The RSF are in particular “responsible for large-scale sexual violence in areas under their control,” the statement said.

“The vast majority of cases of rape and other forms of sexual violence documented” in the report are attributed to the RSF and, in the Darfur region, to their allies, the Janjaweed, a militia, it said.

The report also noted “a few cases” involving the military, including military intelligence. It notes that internally displaced civilians tend to flee to areas controlled by the military, “where it is more difficult for them to denounce” violations committed by the military.

The fact-finding mission also received “credible information” concerning the rape of men and boys.

“Without accountability, the cycle of hatred and violence will continue. We must end impunity,” said mission member Joy Ngozi Ezeilo.

The investigators are also calling for the arms embargo on Darfur to be extended to the entire country. They are also calling on the authorities to cooperate with the International Criminal Court and hand over former dictator Omar al-Bashir.