(Geneva) Rapes, including collective rapes, are “widespread” in Sudan after 18 months of civil war, according to a UN investigative report published Tuesday, which targets in particular the paramilitaries of the Rapid Support Forces (FSR).
Posted at 7:17 a.m.
Robin MILLARD
Agence France-Presse
“The scale of sexual violence we have seen in Sudan is staggering,” Sudan Fact-Finding Mission Chairman Mohamed Chande Othman said in a statement.
Children are not spared, and women and girls are kidnapped for the purpose of sexual slavery, underlines this new report.
“There is no longer a safe place in Sudan,” said Mr. Othman, whose mission was created 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 Türk, said on Tuesday that the escalation of violence in the state of Al-Jazeera, south of Khartoum, further exacerbated the risk of atrocities , and its services have already documented cases of sexual violence.
After 18 months of war between the head of the Sudanese army, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhane, and the paramilitaries of the Rapid Support Forces (FSR) of his former deputy, General Mohamed Hamdane Daglo, “the suffering is growing day by day” and “25 million people” now need help, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres lamented on Monday.
“All wars are brutal, but the toll of this one is particularly horrifying,” International Organization for Migration (IOM) Director General Amy Pope said at a press briefing from Port -Sudan.
Eleven million people are internally displaced in Sudan, including around 8.3 million since the war, which also caused 3.1 million others to flee the country, according to data provided by the UN on Tuesday.
Sudan’s 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 “deployment without delay” of an “independent and impartial” force to protect civilians.
It concluded in an initial report that the warring parties had “committed an appalling series of violations of human rights and international law, many of which can be characterized as war crimes and crimes against humanity.”
“Cycle of hatred and violence”
In their new report, UN investigators once again accuse them 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 the areas they 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, for the Darfur region, to their allies, the Janjawid, a militia, he underlines.
The report also notes “a few cases” involving the military, including military intelligence services. He notes that internally displaced civilians tend to flee to areas controlled by the army, “where it is more difficult for them to denounce” violations committed by the military.
The fact-finding mission also received “credible information” regarding rapes of men and boys.
“Without accountability, the cycle of hatred and violence will continue. We must put an end to impunity,” stressed mission member Joy Ngozi Ezeilo.
Investigators also call for the arms embargo on Darfur to be extended to the entire country. They also ask the authorities to cooperate with the International Criminal Court and hand over former dictator Omar al-Bashir to it.
