A prominent Sudanese doctor’s group has accused the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) of raping at least 19 women as they fled the city of el-Fasher in Darfur.
The Sudan Doctors Network said in a statement on Sunday that it documented the rapes among women who had fled to the town of al-Dabba in the neighbouring Northern State.
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Two of the women were pregnant, the group said.
“The Sudan Doctors Network strongly condemns the gang rape being perpetrated by the RSF against women escaping the horrors of El-Fasher, affirming that it constitutes a direct targeting of women in a blatant violation of all international laws that criminalise the use of women’s bodies as a weapon of oppression,” the group wrote on X.
Sudan has been engulfed in civil war since April 2023, when fighting erupted between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary RSF. The conflict has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced more than 12 million, according to the United Nations. It has also left some 30 million in need of humanitarian aid.
The RSF took the city of el-Fasher, the capital of the state of North Darfur, in October after an 18-month campaign of siege and starvation. The city was the Sudanese army’s last stronghold in the region.
Survivors who fled the city in the subsequent days recounted mass killings, rape, pillaging and other atrocities, prompting an international outcry.
Amnesty International has accused the RSF of “war crimes”, while the UN Human Rights Council has ordered an investigation into the abuses in el-Fasher. Officials who visited Darfur and spoke to survivors described the region as an “absolute horror show” and a “crime scene”.
Widespread sexual assault
Mohammed Elsheikh, a spokesperson for the Sudan Doctors Network, told Al Jazeera on Sunday that he was “100 percent sure” that sexual violence committed by RSF fighters is far more widespread than reported.
“Because most of the communities look at it as a stigma, most of the raped women tend not to disclose this information,” he said.
Elsheikh said the network had also documented 23 cases of rape among women who fled el-Fasher for the nearby town of Tawila.
“Unfortunately, the age of these raped victims varies from 15 years to 23 years old,” he said.
In its statement, the Sudan Doctors Network urged the international community to take urgent action to protect Sudanese women and girls.
It also called for “serious pressure on RSF leaders to immediately stop these assaults, respect international humanitarian law, and secure safe corridors for women and children”.
The latest accusations came amid a growing outcry over another RSF attack on a pre-school in the state of South Kordofan that local officials said killed at least 116 people. Some 46 of the victims were children, according to the officials.
On Sunday, Justice Minister Abdullah Dirife said Khartoum was willing to pursue political talks aimed at ending the conflict, but insisted that any settlement must “ensure there is no presence for ‘terrorist’ militias in both the political and military arenas”.
Speaking to Al Jazeera on the sidelines of the Doha Forum, he said the rebels “need to agree to give their weapons in specific areas and leave all these cities, and the police should take over”.
Dirife also called for putting a stop to the “transfer of weapons and the infiltration of mercenaries into Sudan” and claimed that fighters and arms were entering from regions including South America, Chad and the UAE.
The RSF currently holds all five states of Darfur, while the Sudanese army retains control of most of the remaining 13 states, including Khartoum.
Dirife also accused the RSF of repeatedly breaking past commitments to adhere to regional and global mediation initiatives.
“The last initiative we signed was the Jeddah Declaration. However, this militia didn’t commit to what we agreed on,” he said in Doha.
The Jeddah Declaration – brokered by the United States and Saudi Arabia in May 2023 – was meant to protect civilians and lay the groundwork for humanitarian access. Several ceasefires followed, but both sides were accused of violating them, prompting the mediators to suspend talks.
The UN has meanwhile formally declared famine in el-Fasher and Kaduguli in South Kordofan and warned of the risk of a hunger crisis in 20 additional areas across the Greater Darfur and Greater Kordofan regions.
The World Food Programme’s Deputy Executive Director Carl Skau told Al Jazeera on Sunday that the agency was providing aid to five million people, including two million in areas that are difficult to reach, but warned that assistance has fallen far short of needs.
“World attention needs to be on Sudan now, and diplomatic efforts need to be stepped up in order to prevent the same disaster we saw in el-Fasher,” he said.
