‘I heard them cry every day’: Sudan paramilitaries used women as sex slaves, says Amnesty

Nevin Al Sukari - Sana'a - Muawia Osman Mohamed Khair (L), Sudan's acting Minister of Justice, and Sudanese ambassador to the Netherlands Omaima Alsharief wait for the start of a hearing before the International Court of Justice in The Hague today — AFP pic.

CAIRO, April 10 — Sudan’s paramilitary forces subjected women to sexual slavery and gang raped women and girls as part of their war strategy, rights group Amnesty International said in a report today.

The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have been battling the army since April 15, 2023, and the war has created what the United Nations describes as one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.

While the military reclaimed the capital Khartoum in March, the country remains essentially divided in two.

“The RSF have carried out widespread sexual violence across towns and villages in Sudan to humiliate, assert control, and displace communities,” the report said.

Deprose Muchena, the group’s senior director for regional human rights impact, said the RSF’s attacks on civilians “are shameful and cowardly, and any countries supporting the RSF, including by supplying them with weapons, shares in their shame.”

The 30-page report, titled “They Raped All of Us”, details the harrowing testimonies of around 30 victims, some of them girls, and their relatives.

The acts of violence described in the report were all committed in four Sudanese states, including in the Khartoum and Darfur areas, from the start of war to October 2024.

Both the army and the paramilitary are under US sanctions and accused of war crimes.

Since the war began, the RSF has been accused of looting and taking over civilian homes, with rights groups documenting systematic sexual violence and other abuses.

The war has killed tens of thousands of people and, according to the United Nations, uprooted around 12 million more.

The report details the accounts of two survivors of sexual slavery who were held in the capital Khartoum, one of whom described being held captive for 30 days during which she was repeatedly raped.

‘I heard them cry’

One woman, a 34-year-old mother of five, described how in May 2023 she was abducted from her home by seven men wearing the RSF uniform and taken to a house where another three women were also being held.

“I was detained in that house for 30 days where they kept raping me almost every day,” she said.

“They released me after 30 days when I became very sick. They also kept repeatedly raping the other women. I know because I heard them cry every day.”

Another victim, aged 27, was held for several days inside a shop near a checkpoint after she was detained and ripped away from her husband’s side in May 2023.

Her husband said: “They raped my wife for more than four consecutive days. They detained me in a separate shop. I could hear my wife scream as they raped her every day, but I was not able to help.”

According to the report, several women said RSF members raped them because they suspected they were army supporters, while women medics were raped as a punishment for failing to save the lives of wounded fighters.

In October, a UN fact-finding mission found widespread sexual violence during Sudan’s war. It accused the paramilitaries of being behind the “large majority” of cases.

The practices included rape, gang-rape, sexual exploitation and abduction for sexual purposes as well as allegations of forced marriages and human trafficking for sexual purposes across borders.

The RSF rejected the accusations as propaganda.