HRW report details widespread sexual violence in Sudan’s capital

July 29, 2024 (NAIROBI) – A new report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) details widespread sexual violence against women and girls in Sudan’s capital, Khartoum amid the ongoing conflict, particularly by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

Released on Monday, the report, “Khartoum is Not Safe for Women: Sexual Violence against Women and Girls in Sudan’s Capital”, documents cases of rape, including gang rape, and forced marriage since the conflict began in April, 2023.

Victims, according to the 89-page report, range from young girls to elderly women.

“The RSF’s widespread sexual violence against women and girls in Khartoum and other areas is shocking and abhorrent,” said Nisha Varia, women’s rights advocacy director at HRW, adding, “These horrific attacks have left countless survivors traumatized and without access to crucial support services.”

The RSF has not responded to these allegations.

The report also highlights the denial of medical care to survivors and the blocking of humanitarian aid by warring factions.

“The international community needs to urgently address the crisis of sexual violence in Sudan and ensure survivors have access to necessary care and support,” Varia added.

The HRW report adds to growing concerns about the humanitarian situation in Sudan, where conflict has displaced millions and caused widespread food shortages and other crises. It also highlights the devastating health and mental health consequences for survivors and the destructive impact of warring parties’ attacks on health care and the Sudanese Armed Forces’ (SAF) willful blocking of aid.

“The Rapid Support Forces have raped, gang raped, and forced into marriage countless women and girls in residential areas in Sudan’s capital,” said Laetitia Bader, deputy Africa director at Human Rights Watch, adding “The armed group has terrorized women and girls and both warring parties have blocked them from getting aid and support services, compounding the harm they face and leaving them to feel that nowhere is safe.”

The US-based human rights body said in the report that they also interviewed 42 healthcare providers, social workers, counselors, lawyers, and local responders in the emergency response rooms that they have established in Khartoum between September 2023 and February 2024.

“No civilian is safe,” said Mohamed Osman, one of the authors of the report, which is based interviews with donors, health workers and first respondents.

According to the report, the physical, emotional, social, and psychological scars left on the survivors are immense. Healthcare workers encountered survivors seeking assistance for debilitating physical injuries they experienced during rapes and gang rapes. At least four of the women died as a result. Many survivors who sought to terminate pregnancies resulting from rape faced significant barriers to abortion care. Survivors described or showed symptoms consistent with post-traumatic stress and depression, including suicidal thoughts, anxiety, fear, and sleeplessness.

“I spoke to a survivor who was raped and had just discovered she was three months pregnant,” a psychiatrist said. “She was clearly traumatized and shivering, afraid of how her family would react. She said to me, ‘If they discover my situation, they will kill me.’”

Survivors told the medical providers that they were raped by as many as five RSF fighters. The RSF has also abducted women and girls and confined them in homes and other facilities they occupied in Khartoum, Bahri, and Omdurman, subjecting them to sexual violence and other abuse. RSF members have sometimes sexually assaulted women and girls in front of their family members. The RSF also forced women and girls into marriages.

Fewer cases were attributed to the Sudanese Armed Forces members, but an uptick in cases was reported after SAF took control of Omdurman in early 2024. Men and boys have also been raped, including in detention.

Both warring parties have blocked survivors’ access to critical and comprehensive emergency health care, Human Rights Watch found.

SAF has willfully restricted humanitarian supplies, including medical supplies, and aid workers’ access, imposing a de facto blockade on medical supplies entering RSF-controlled areas of Khartoum since at least October 2023. The RSF has pillaged medical supplies and occupied medical facilities.

Local responders have been compelled to play the leading role in responding to sexual violence. They are paying a heavy price, as both warring parties have intimidated, arbitrarily detained, and attacked doctors, nurses, and emergency care volunteers, including because they support rape survivors. In several instances, RSF members committed sexual violence against the service providers, they said.

Conflict-related sexual violence is a war crime. As is the case with forced marriage, when sexual violence is committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack on a civilian population, as is happening in Sudan, it may also be investigated and prosecuted as a crime against humanity, Human Rights Watch said.

The willful obstruction or arbitrary restriction of humanitarian aid also violates international humanitarian law, and pillaging as well as attacks targeted at civilians, including healthcare workers and first responders, constitute war crimes. Intentionally directing attacks against humanitarian assistance operations, including personnel, premises, and vehicles, is also a discrete war crime prosecutable under the statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC).

According to Human Rights Watch, neither warring party has taken meaningful steps to prevent its forces from committing rape or attacking health care, nor to independently and transparently investigate crimes committed by their forces, Human Rights Watch found.

On July 23, the RSF spokesperson wrote to Human Rights Watch rejecting claims that the RSF occupies any hospitals or medical centers in the three cities of Khartoum State. He did not provide evidence that it has carried out effective investigations into allegations of sexual violence by its forces, far less hold any to account.

The rights body urged the African Union and the United Nations should immediately work together to deploy a new mission to protect civilians in Sudan, including preventing sexual and gender-based violence, supporting the delivery of comprehensive services to all survivors, and documenting conflict-related sexual violence. The mission should have a mandate and capacity to monitor the obstruction of and facilitate access to, humanitarian assistance.

“International donors need to urgently increase political and financial support to local responders. Countries should work together to impose targeted sanctions on commanders responsible for sexual violence, and attacks on healthcare workers and local responders,” the statement said.

It added, “UN member states, particularly from the region, should continue to support international investigations into these crimes, including by the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for Sudan. The United Nations should prioritize ensuring that it rebuilds capacity to respond to conflict-related sexual violence across its system.”

Similarly, the Strategic Initiative of Women in the Horn of Africa (SIHA) recently published a report on violence against women in the state of Al Jazeera in Sudan.

The report shed light on various forms of sexual violence, citing rape, gang rape and forced marriage.

Hala Al-Karib, the Regional Director of SIHA called for an international tribunal to punish those who committed crimes against innocent civilians.

Last week, SIHA released a report on Conflict-Related Sexual Violence (CRSV) titled “Al Jazirah State and the Forgotten Atrocities,” detailing the underreported RSF’s violence against women in Al Jazirah after they overran most parts of the state in December 2023.

(ST)