Zeinab and her sister were fleeing the war in Khartoum when paramilitaries hijacked their bus. They took her to a warehouse. And then hell began.
• Also read: Saudis and Americans want a new ceasefire
In mid-May, a month after the start of the merciless battle between the army and the paramilitaries of the Rapid Support Forces (FSR), these Zeinab, her sister and two other women separated from the male passengers, says the young woman.
She tried in vain to hide her younger daughter. And when a man “in civilian clothes who appeared to be the commander” ordered her to lie on the ground, she tried to resist, she said, testifying to AFP under a pseudonym from the country where she had finally found refuge.
She was then “held by a man who pointed a gun to her chest while another raped her.”
tip of the iceberg
Before they finally released her, his sister and the other women, including one with her young son, were all raped.
In late April, in West Darfur, 12 other women experienced the same nightmare: men “in RSF uniforms” ordered them to take the spoils of their looting to a warehouse, where “they were all raped at the same time,” she told AFP Amna, one Activist who speaks under a pseudonym for fear of reprisals.
Souleima Ishaq al-Khalifa, a doctor who heads the government agency to combat violence against women, recorded at least 49 sexual assaults in the first two weeks of the war. All in Darfur and Khartoum, where fighting is concentrated.
All but six of the survivors blamed “men in FSR uniforms” as the perpetrators, she told AFP.
Since April 15, fighting between General Mohamed Hamdane Daglo’s paramilitaries and General Abdel Fattah al-Burhane’s regular army has left more than 1,800 dead and more than a million and a half displaced and refugees.
The number of sexual assaults is not known, but the representative of the UN agency for women in Sudan, Adjaratou Ndiaye, told AFP news agency that she had received information about “mass rapes” in Darfur.
dr Khalifa says he gets new calls “day and night.” But for an activist with the Sudanese Women Rights Action (SUWRA), “this is just the tip of the iceberg”.
And the cases we can document account for only “2 to 3%” of rapes, she told AFP from abroad on condition of anonymity.
rape in public
Any time a woman goes out, say, “to buy groceries,” “she is in danger,” says Dr. Khalifah.
A 15-year-old girl was “publicly raped by FSR militiamen,” reports the “Resistance Committee” of North Khartoum.
These groups, which used to organize protests against the power of the military, now manage a mutual aid network in each neighborhood for food, care or evacuations.
dr Khalifa emphasizes: “Women are also at risk at home.”
A woman in her 30s was raped in her home, says the SUWRA activist.
“She was alone with her young children when she heard the screams of her neighbors downstairs,” she said. Three women from the same family were raped by several men.
Then they went upstairs, broke down her door, and one of them raped her, she said.
The vast majority of survivors blame the FSR, which has a much stronger presence in residential neighborhoods than the army, which is often locked in its barracks.
But dr Khalifa says she has also received information about “rapes by men in army uniforms” that she “has not yet been able to confirm.”
For a group of lawyers, who have been documenting rapes by security forces for years, sexual assaults are “systematic” and target “all strata of society.”
Lack of emergency contraceptives
According to the activists, it is those victims who manage to get to the hospitals – often under fire from the belligerents – who have suffered the most violent attacks.
To help them, the doctors’ union has published a list of establishments that distribute treatment in the event of possible HIV infection.
But with three quarters of hospitals out of order and the rest suffering from drug shortages, it is often necessary to improvise and inform doctors and pharmacists.
Without the morning-after pill, survivors often end up with only a prescription for high-dose contraceptives.
But even these pills are running out.
The resistance committee of a slum in northern Khartoum managed to find some for two survivors at the end of May, one of its members told AFP.
That day, three regular army soldiers entered a house. They “raped the mother and daughter,” he said on condition of anonymity.
Wartime rapes are nothing new in Sudan, says human rights lawyer Jehanne Henry.
The army and the Janjaweed — those Arab militiamen sent by dictator Omar el-Bashir to decimate ethnic minorities now integrated into the FSR — “were known for their sexual violence during the war that started in Darfur in 2003,” she confirms to AFP.
The International Criminal Court has issued two arrest warrants against Bashir, specifically for rape in Darfur.
Today, those who try to help women say they are being threatened.
Amna says one of her comrades was “interrogated by the FSR,” who suspected she had informed the army.
She did not tell them that she appreciated every detail of the rapes entrusted to her by survivors.
They could one day make it possible to “hold those responsible to account,” she would like to believe.
Zeinab doubts it. “I’ve filed a complaint, but I know it’s pointless. We’ll never get our hands on the men who did this.”
For them, in any case, “nothing will be the same again”.