Rights group: Sudanese Arab militiamen use rape as a tool of war to terrorize, humiliate black Africans in Darfur
By RODRIQUE NGOWI, Associated Press Writer
NAIROBI, Kenya, July 19, 2004 (AP) — Sudanese Arab militiamen rape women and young girls in a violent campaign intended to hurt, humiliate and drive black Africans from the troubled western region of Darfur, a human rights organization said Monday.
The Janjaweed militiamen sometimes torture women and break their limbs to prevent them from escaping rape, abductions and sexual slavery, Amnesty International said in a report titled: “Sudan, Rape as a weapon of war in Darfur.”
Tens of thousands of people have been killed and more than a million of Darfur’s 6.7 million have fled their homes in the face of attacks by the Janjaweed or “men on horseback” in the local dialect who allegedly are backed by Sudan’s government.
The Janjaweed “are happy when they rape. They sing when they rape and they tell that we are just slaves and that they can do with us how they wish,” a 37-year-old victim, identified as A., is quoted as saying in the report.
Sudan on Saturday ordered that committees of women judges, police officers and legal consultants investigate rape accusations and help victims through criminal cases in Darfur, a region the size of Iraq.
U.N. officials, rebels and refugees have accused Sudan’s government of backing the Janjaweed with airplanes, helicopter gunships and vehicles in a campaign equated with ethnic cleansing. The government denies any involvement in the attacks.
While the Arab militiamen have routinely killed black African men and torched hundreds of villages, they have also systematically targeted women and girls for sexual violence, some as young as 8 years old, the Amnesty report says, citing hundreds of interviews in camps in neighboring Chad sheltering some 200,000 refugees from Darfur.
“Women and girls are being attacked, not only to dehumanize the women themselves but also to humiliate, punish, control, inflict fear and displace women and to persecute the community to which they belong,” the London-based rights group says.
“In many cases the Janjaweed have raped women in public, in the open air, in front of their husbands, relatives or the wider community,” the group said. “The suffering and abuse endured by these women goes far beyond the actual rape … survivors now face a lifetime of stigma and marginalisation from their own families and communities.”
Women in Darfur who have undergone ritual genital mutilation are at an even greater risk of injury and face higher risks of infection by HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, the report says.
Darfur’s troubles stem from long-standing tensions between nomadic Arab tribes and their African farming neighbors over dwindling water and agricultural land. Those tensions exploded into violence in February 2003, when two African rebel groups took up arms over what they regard as unjust treatment by the government in their struggle with Arab countrymen.
The United Nations estimates up to 30,000 people have been killed in Darfur, but some analysts put the figure much higher. The death toll could surge to more than 350,000 if aid doesn’t reach more than 2 million people soon, the U.S. Agency for International Development has warned.
Pressure has mounted on Sudan to end the slaughter. The latest peace talks ended prematurely Saturday with rebels walking out, saying the Sudanese government must first disarm the Janjaweed.
The rebels were also seeking government commitments to allow an international inquiry into the killings, to prosecute those responsible, to lift restrictions on aid workers and to release prisoners of war.
The peace talks began after a concerted diplomatic push by the U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, who visited the region earlier this month.
Powell said Friday he expected to hear from U.S. experts this week on whether Sudanese officials should be charged with genocide.