Photography by Mohamed Issa

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Like many other women, they endured sexual assault at the hands of members of the Rapid Support Forces.

Their lives were turned into hell with no respite. Apart from bearing the brunt of the war like everyone else, they paid the price for being females whose bodies constituted a prize for the marauding hordes of the RSF who raped them at gunpoint.

According to the Hijri (Islamic) calendar, the war broke out on the 24^th of Ramadan 1444 (15 April 2023). Heavy sadness coincided with an unfulfilled joy at the arrival of Ramadan. Celebrations to prepare for the imminent Eid came to a halt with the sound of the first shot and the first knock on the doors of these women's homes.

According to the United Nations Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Sudan's (UNISOM) report at the end of October, RSF members committed widespread sexual violence in the states of Greater Khartoum, Darfur, and Al Jazirah. The report added that these acts reasonably amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, including torture, sexual rape, and persecution.

For more than two hours between Cairo and Port Sudan, I kept thinking about how to unlock doors long sealed by the rusty bolts of deeply entrenched social norms. After all, I had intended to raise a most thorny issue – that of the victims of sexual violence – at a time when the perpetrator runs scot-free and the victim, broken and full of shame, hides from everyone and relinquishes her most fundamental rights in fear of a conservative oriental society.

Sixty days to search for victims of sexual violence
 

For 60 days, I continued my arduous search for victims. Locating them proved highly stressful, especially as the community preferred to sweep the issue under the rug. However, I had a glimmer of hope when a few people showed interest in the issue and the removal of the attached stigma.

According to a report by the Anti-Violence Unit of the Sudanese Ministry of Social Development in September, a copy of which Ahram Online obtained, conflict-related sexual violence is a war crime whose perpetrators should never go unpunished. The report added that although the Rapid Support Militia committed 90 percent of these crimes, any crimes of sexual violence by regular forces must not be overlooked.

According to the report, 313 incidents of sexual violence have been documented through the services provided. This figure, however, represents no more than 2 percent of the actual incidents.

So, in early August, I started the search for victims in Port Sudan. The search took me to Kassala and Gedaref, located far east of the country and Omdurman in Northern Sudan. At times, many promised to help me reach the victims. Most of those who oversaw the shelters and refugee camps denied knowing the cases I had been looking for existed.

As I prepared my bag to travel to Gedaref, I found among my clothes a scrap of paper with data from a report by one of the victims who complained to the police that she had been raped in the state of Al Jazirah. The discovery somewhat allayed my doubts about the whole enterprise. My eyes picked up a phone number amid the information about the case. With heavy fingers, I wrote down the number and then dialled it. In the gloomy silence, I heard the broken voice of a woman who was quite old. I immediately asked her if this was S's phone number. The woman answered that she was her mother.

She then called her daughter, and a conversation began. We talked and soon agreed to meet. When we met, I discovered that sexual violence was not simply a term or a number denoting an incident in an official statistic; it embodied the humiliation of these women at the hands of the members of the militia. Between their journey of abortion or childbirth and proof of descent, these women have been socially ostracized and shunned by their closest relatives.

Victim A
 

On the outskirts of the state, and with the sun almost setting, the car that took me to see the victim moved slowly in the heavy rain until we arrived at the house. I could not help but feel the agony of the victim. The house's owner greeted me. She had three daughters, including a little girl carrying an infant. I began listening to A. "I do not know my real mother and father," she began. "I have known no one except my adopted father and mother. At the age of 14, I knew by coincidence that I was not their daughter when someone from my mother's family told me."

She added that her adoptive father had died years ago, and her adoptive mother developed kidney failure. "I used to take her to dialysis sessions. As the war raged, the sessions stopped, and my mother died one month later. Days after her death, and while I was at home, I heard a loud banging on the door. When I opened, I found two armed individuals wearing the RSF uniform. They asked me whether there were any men in the house. I told them that I was living alone. Then they left without any response."

'A' went on to say that after the electricity went out in the neighbourhood, she heard footsteps in the house, so she hid under the bed. She saw the feet of two people who searched the room with flashlights until they found her. "They forcibly dragged me from under the bed. When I looked into their eyes, I recognized them as the same men who had come to the house on the morning of that baleful day. They were, however, hiding their faces with a scarf."

She continued: "One of them ordered me to remove my clothes. When I refused, he put the nozzle of the weapon on my head. Meanwhile, the other began to undress me, and then he raped me. Soon afterwards, the other fell upon me. After it ended, they left me bloodied in silence and fear. When the sun rose the next day, my own had faded. They brought two others to my house who alternately feasted on my body and dignity continuously for three days."

On the morning of the fourth day, A said they left her after receiving a phone call. She knew later that they had left the whole region. Therefore, she escaped and sought refuge with a friend who had intended to migrate to "Kassala" and who took A with her. They ended up at the house of one of her friend's relatives. 'A' narrates that after a while, she went to a pharmacy where she discovered the pregnancy. As soon as she knew of the pregnancy, her friend expelled her, and A became instantly homeless.

'A' says, "I became homeless until I was hosted by a family in their house for days and attended one of the schools for the displaced. Every night, I felt the pain of my injured body and cursed the seed of life that began moving inside my belly. Days passed until I met Mrs. A. During her school visit, I told her my story, and she offered to host me at her home and help me through the birth process."

At a major medical centre in Kassala, I met Dr Hatem Latif, a gynaecologist who volunteered to support the strategic initiative of Horn of Africa women. Two months after the outbreak of the war, the network, in cooperation with the Sudanese Obstetricians and Gynaecologists Association, organized a workshop to raise awareness for 20 doctors from the state and the city of Khashm al-Qirba.

Latif stressed that during his work, he received many victims who the Rapid Support Forces had raped. He said two displaced girls from the city of Wad Madani had an abortion in the hospital, the first 21 years old and the second 18. He added that a family came to see him bringing along their daughter. The family had fled to Madani after the RSF invaded their town. After the invasion, the RSF kidnapped their daughter and took her to Khartoum. The family brought back the girl after paying a ransom to the RSF. The girl was, however, pregnant.

Latif says, "The family migrated to Kassala. They came to me with their daughter, and I performed an abortion. Another woman got pregnant and visits me regularly to follow up on her pregnancy."

Child S
 

In Gedaref state, at one of the displacement camps, we met a 13-year-old girl from Khartoum. After the war, she was displaced by her family and moved to Al Jazirah state. During the RSF's invasion of the state and the diaspora of the people, the child lost her family.

Through a woman interested in violence against women, I was able to meet that child after waiting two hours as the doctor visited her to follow up on her pregnancy. She had been 7 months pregnant. She is afraid of giving birth as she suffers from severe psychological trauma and finds herself occasionally wandering the streets of the camp silently. She is scared to sleep alone in the dark because she fears what she believes to be ghosts that appear to her and cause her to cry.

She narrated her plight, "After the RSF entered our area, I lost my parents and I took a car to the nearest place away from the war zone. Then members of the RSF wearing their easily identifiable uniforms forced me and seven girls to come down, tied us up blindfolded, and left us under a room for several days. I could hear the voices of about seven men. I felt them undressing me and preparing to rape me. I could hear how they whipped the other girls who were screaming. I could not resist."

S went on to say that she remained tied for days without food or water. "Suddenly, they took us to an unknown area, our bodies covered in blood and bruises. Then we found a car that took us to Sennar. After terrible suffering, I found my family, and we were displaced to Gedaref. After a medical examination, I learned that I was pregnant."

Near the state's centre lies the rehabilitation hospital for women and obstetrics. I met with the Director General and Medical Director, Dr Azzam Al-Hajj Othman, who confirmed that the cases of sexual assault came through the reproductive health department of the Ministry of Health in the state. Othman explained that in case the victim is of childbearing age, they give her contraceptives to forestall the occurrence of the pregnancy, especially in its early days. If, however, she comes to the clinic at a late stage of the pregnancy, "we begin by treating her for any sexually transmitted diseases and then perform an abortion if she chooses. I've already received many cases that have been raped."

Othman added that the cases he treated or who had an abortion were primarily migrants from Khartoum. He could not, however, estimate the actual number of cases they received but confirmed that they were mainly 18-year-olds. Othman noted that forensics and lawyers interested in working on cases of violence against women have more information about the numbers.

Victim M
 

I met another victim in Gedaref through the same woman who helped me meet the previous case. This time, the victim also lives in one of the camps for displaced people and does not know where her army husband disappeared.

M is a woman in her late twenties, a housewife who lived a quiet and stable life before the war. She did not know what had become of her husband and father, so she left quickly for her family's house in Wad Madani. After a gruelling and terrible journey, she reached her mother. Then, she returned home to bring some supplies.

M says, "On my way home, militia members stopped the car; they searched us and threatened the driver with death, arrested six girls and four men, and accused us of espionage. They took us to an unknown location."

She adds, "We were taken to a far place. They began to question us while we were tied and blindfolded, and during interrogation, they beat us. Hours later, I lost consciousness, and when I woke up, I found myself lying on the ground naked. I became hysterical and started screaming until two RSF members came and beat me, saying you are a spy; shut up, or we will kill you. After a while, they told me that they believed I was innocent and took me out. They stopped a car in the street and told the driver to take me home."

"When I came home I fell ill," M said, "my family and I stayed for 10 days until we were displaced to Gedaref. After arriving, I was bedridden for 20 days until I discovered my pregnancy."

Victim S
 

This is a girl from a simple family in her twenties. She is originally from Al Jazirah and lived in Omdurman before the war with her mother, sister, and sons. Her other sister is married and lives outside the country, but she sends them money occasionally to help them with living expenses.

S recounts her plight. Sitting on a small sofa in her simple house, she says, "As the militia invaded the state of Al Jazirah, communications and Internet services were cut off and then communication with my sister living abroad. We had nothing to eat but wheat from which we prepared "Kisra" and "Karasa" (traditional Sudanese dishes)."

One day, S narrates, while she was on her way to the place where they grind wheat, a car carrying four gunmen from the Rapid Support stopped her. They asked her where she lived, and she replied. Suddenly, one of them took hold of her. She screamed and cried but could not escape. According to S, "his three comrades ran after us. Then he took me to an abandoned house structure, threw me on the ground, and began to take off his clothes. The other two were with us. One of them grabbed my feet while the first one had begun to undress me and then raped me."

'S' went on to say that after they raped her, the men fled, leaving her to "collect what remained of [her] dignity." She returned home but could not shed any tears.

"My mother," S adds, "screamed when she saw my gunshot wound. A neighbour took me to the nearest health centre, where the doctor said it was dangerous to remove the bullet just yet. After almost a month, we returned to Khartoum, where I visited a hospital. The doctor told me that I was suffering from inflammation, and a Russian doctor treated me for my shoulder injury. After several months, I revisited the hospital. This time, the doctor told me after she examined me that I had been four months pregnant."

S narrates how fear of her family seized her. She implored the doctor to perform an abortion, but she refused. She left the hospital to seek out the midwives, but not one of them agreed to assist with the abortion. Resigning to despair, she gave up any attempt to have an abortion. During the trip to Kassala, the pain intensified, and the pregnancy became more apparent. She had no other recourse but to tell her mother, who was utterly shocked and even hit her. Months later, S gave birth to a male child, but fearing the stigma, her mother and sister refused to keep the child and sent him to a foster home. While in Kassala, I was able to help her reach her child through official channels and help from the locals.

I tried to speak to another case but could not meet her. The case received treatment at the Saudi Women's Hospital near the state's centre. The hospital primarily receives cases of sexual abuse, and abortions and childbirths are performed there. A medical source at the hospital, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told me that the victim who wishes to have an abortion has to obtain an official form from the Public Prosecution.

The source also spoke of a woman who, as part of her work as a member of the civil society, encountered a victim of sexual abuse. The victim was a displaced girl from Omdurman, an 18-year-old orphan who had given birth to a child. The woman working for the civil society took the girl in. I contacted the woman and the girl and met the victim. 

Victims A and E
 

From the country's far east to the north, I headed to Omdurman and met two women, A and E, in their thirties, selling tea in Bahri, one of the most prominent cities controlled by the Rapid Support Militia, north of Khartoum.

'A' sells tea in Bahri. After the war, she was displaced with her husband and children to the state of Al Jazirah. Since she found life in a displacement camp in Wad Madani too harsh, she returned to her home in Bahri to earn a living.

'E', however, is separated from her husband and has a 5-year-old daughter. She was selling tea in Bahri. When the war broke out, she was kidnapped from the market through a neighbour – a militia collaborator – and stayed in the same house as A. She was held up for a year, during which she was raped multiple times, and she knew nothing of her daughter or mother's fate.

The two women recounted horrifying details about their incarceration and subsequent sexual violation. "They abused us. We became their sex slaves. Sometimes they would rape us collectively or individually. They even put drugs in our drinking water."

Unit for Combating Violence Against Women
 

After returning to Port Sudan, I met with the head of the unit to combat violence against women and children, Salimi Ishaq, who confirmed 313 documented cases of sexual assault. Until the fall of Wad Madani, 80 cases were monitored in Khartoum, 42 in Nyala, 21 in El Geneina, and 34 in West Kordofan. Ishaq said Human Rights Watch documented 34 cases of militia rape of underage girls. She explained that women aged 12 to 54 were subjected to sexual slavery, detainment, and rape.

Ishaq added, "At the beginning of the war, the militia used to take victims to hospitals to document the incident. They would then leave the victim and take the report under duress to hide the evidence. This has happened at Ibrahim Malik Teaching Hospital in Khartoum." She noted that UN organizations tend to disregard the RSF's crimes, considering them part of the political situation in the country.

Dr Hatem Latif

Dr Azzam Al-Hajj Othman

Salimi Ishaq