Warring parties in Sudan are said to have committed a wave of rapes

During a recent trip to Sudan, Washington Post journalists interviewed survivors who said they had been attacked. Among them were a woman and a girl in the city of Omdurman who said fighters from the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces raped them and threatened their families in an attempt to force them to become spies. The RSF are in a bitter conflict with the Sudanese military after a power-sharing agreement collapsed 15 months ago.

The woman, who had completed a university degree in hospitality, said RSF fighters arrested her at a checkpoint and took her to a building with 15 other women and girls.

“They suspected me” of being a spy, she said. “They hit me on my knees, then they hit me on my back. They hit me in the face,” she added, pointing to her missing teeth. “Then the rapes started.”

Every three days, she said, a girl disappeared from prison. Sometimes they came back, sometimes they didn’t. When asked, prison guards said the girls had “gone to God,” she said.

The women interviewed by The Post spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal, and all interviews were conducted in the presence of a Sudanese security official.

The university graduate, who spoke while in military detention, said the RSF pressured her to spy for them and threatened her five young children, claiming they knew where she lived. After 13 days of abuse, she agreed, but soon turned herself in to the military. She has not seen her children since.

“I just want to go home. I just want to see my children again. I want to bring them here,” she whispered, tearing a tissue between her bitten fingernails.

The woman was held in the same military prison as a 15-year-old girl who was also arrested by the RSF at a checkpoint and raped for two days. Her brother was beaten, she said, and the fighters threatened to kill him if she did not become a spy. She agreed, she said, but was arrested when she arrived in a military-controlled neighborhood.

They said none of the victims had received medical care since their arrest, despite reporting the rapes.

HRW’s report accuses both the Sudanese military and the RSF of rape and focuses on the attacks that took place in the capital, Khartoum. The report draws on testimony from 42 people who cared for the women, including health workers, counselors and social workers, as HRW researchers were unable to travel to Sudan to speak to survivors due to the war.

The group points out that its investigations have largely focused on events in RSF-controlled areas, but that rapes by the military increased after it took control of the city of Omdurman, which lies across the Nile from Khartoum.

The cases cited in the report include a girl who sought help on social media after being raped but later committed suicide; a mother and her four daughters who were repeatedly raped in their own home; and a girl, her mother and her grandmother who were raped together. The report says some men were also sexually abused.

In a statement, RSF said it “does not claim to eliminate all violations, but it is working vigorously and professionally to eliminate or reduce them in accordance with international humanitarian law and international human rights law.” A military spokesman said he had not seen the report and could not comment.

The report says that both sides in the conflict have threatened and arrested doctors, nurses and paramedics because of their work, including for helping rape victims. The military has blocked the supply of medical supplies to RSF-controlled areas, the report says. Other medical aid organizations have also complained.

According to the report, RSF fighters also sexually assaulted health workers and arrested and threatened to kill a health worker who documented rapes. Another doctor told The Post by phone that she was raped when the RSF entered her hospital.

A women’s rights activist told HRW about two sisters who were held by RSF fighters for three days along with many other women and girls from South Sudan and Ethiopia. They described being raped, beaten and starved. A volunteer at the emergency room in northern Khartoum said a young girl was abducted by RSF in early June 2023, raped and held for a month along with other women.

In the town of Shendi, Post journalists spoke to an RSF fighter accused of committing rape. While the fighter was stationed on Tutti Island, a once-upscale neighborhood of Khartoum, local residents claimed on Facebook that he committed gang rape, extortion and other crimes. The Facebook post, shared by a Sudanese intelligence official, included the fighter’s name and a photo.

The fighter, who was being held by the military at the time of the interview, confirmed he was stationed at Tutti but denied involvement in rape. He said other RSF fighters would often enter houses and “then you would hear a woman screaming for help.”