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Twice every week, a collection of females come together at a plain house in Ardamata, located on the edges of Geneina in Sudan’s West Darfur region, to share their personal experiences, shed tears, and share a cup of coffee.
The women in the group are either current or former educators, and they have all experienced the trauma of being targeted and sexually abused based on their ethnicity. This was carried out by Arab militias, with support from the paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces, on November 5th, after the army garrison in Ardamata fell.
A majority of those targeted in the rape campaign belonged to the Masalit community, an African tribe with darker skin, who were the dominant group in Geneina until they were displaced during conflict starting in April last year.
Mariam Abdulkarim, an Arab woman who used a pseudonym, started a group for survivors without any financial support or formal education. She alleges that on 5 November, while carrying her three-year-old child with her estranged husband’s dark skin, she was sexually assaulted by a group of men.
During an interview in her kitchen, Abdulkarim shared that she was told, “You have given yourself to that nawab [slave]. We will also have our turn or else we will harm your son.” She was cooking rice with dried meat over coals at the time.
“I pleaded with them to spare my son, but one of them threatened me with the ultimatum of ‘either you or your son.’ In desperation, I sacrificed myself instead,” she tearfully recounted. “I struggled with thoughts of ending my own life and suffered many sleepless nights. But now, when tears fall from my eyes, I find solace.”
According to Abdulkarim, the day after the gang-rape, the perpetrators returned to her residence and issued a threat to abduct her children. She pleaded with them to spare her children, but they compelled her to pack all her possessions into their vehicles. She gestured to the now empty room as she spoke.
The Guardian spoke with numerous women and a few men from Ardamata who disclosed that they were sexually assaulted, touched without consent, or otherwise harassed in November. According to these individuals, the assailants who entered their homes after the garrison was seized can be categorized into three groups: those who only came to rape, those who came to harm and murder, and those who arrived – sometimes with their wives – to steal. Local Arab leaders rejected the claims of rape.
The individuals who arrived to commit the killings were searching for what Abdulkarim referred to as “comrades” – a term used locally to describe members of armed self-defense groups from the Masalit community. These group members were responsible for multiple instances of sexual assault against numerous students in a university dormitory in Geneina in April of the previous year. The leaders of these groups were not able to provide any response or statement.
In April, Sudan was thrown into disorder as ongoing conflicts between its armed forces, headed by General Abdel Fattah Burhan, and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), led by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, escalated into violent clashes on the streets of the capital city, Khartoum.
Violent conflict expanded beyond its initial location in Sudan and became especially heinous in the Darfur region, where the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) targeted African civilians, particularly those belonging to the Masalit ethnic group. The RSF, descended from the Janjaweed militia, initiated a campaign of widespread destruction in the Darfur area over twenty years ago.
The Associated Press received a report on 1 March from UN experts, who stated that the RSF and its associated militia were responsible for widespread sexual violence. The panel of experts highlighted a specific incident in which women and girls were raped by RSF members in a storage facility run by the UN World Food Programme, which was under the control of the RSF.
Zahra Adam, the head of a women’s centre in a refugee camp in Adré, across the border in Chad, told the Guardian the victims had entered the facility in search of food. “They were hungry and they got into the place to get food, but all were raped,” she said.
A woman, aged 27, reported being sexually assaulted by members of an Arab militia in her neighborhood of Geneina in June. After escaping to Adré, she shared that she lost a significant amount of blood during the attack and was assumed to be dead by the perpetrators, leading them to not continue the assault.
A woman from an Arab background reported being sexually assaulted in her own residence after her assailants realized her husband was an African man based on a photograph from their wedding. “I pleaded with them, asking why they were doing this to me. I am your cousin and if anyone else were to harm me, I would turn to you for protection,” the woman stated. “But they replied, saying I should seek help from fellow comrades because I am married to one of them.”
Rephrased: According to Volker Türk, the UN’s high commissioner for human rights on Sudan, this month it was stated that using sexual violence, such as rape, as a tactic of war has been a prominent and abhorrent feature of the ongoing conflict.
“I documented 60 instances of conflict-related sexual violence with at least 120 victims across the country since the start of the war,” he stated. He also noted that these numbers are a small representation of the true extent of the issue.
Türk reported that 81% of the documented incidents were linked to men wearing RSF uniforms and armed men associated with the RSF.
According to a representative from the UN Population Fund, the societal bias against acts of violence based on gender results in a discrepancy between the reported cases of rape and the actual number of victims. The representative also stated that survivors of gender-based violence often experience lasting effects on their physical and mental well-being, such as harm, unintended pregnancy, sexually transmitted infections, and, in some instances, even death.
After the garrison fell, Abdulkarim stated that she provided shelter for her neighbors in her home, hoping that her Arab descent would provide them with some safety.
Despite her efforts to conceal him under her bed, one man was fatally wounded in her house. However, she was able to intervene and prevent several women from being assaulted.
Abdulkarim explained that when a group of young women sought refuge in their house, he arranged for other sheltering women to provide breastfeeding for their infants. This caused the attackers to overlook the women, thinking they were married.
Source: theguardian.com
