More than 2,500 women have been raped since the start of the war in Sudan

Local agencies and media try to gather information amid the chaos, while survivors are left without medical help

The researchers confirm more than fifty cases that would represent, however, “only two percent” of the total

June 17 (EUROPA PRESS) –

Sexual violence during the war in Sudan is reaching terrifying heights amid the chaos unleashed by the fighting that broke out on April 15 between the Army and the paramilitary group the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), according to fears from local NGOs that have More than fifty sexual assaults have already been confirmed, each more brutal among the fears of state agencies that these cases “only represent two percent” of the real figure”; that is, more than 2,500 rapes.

This past Friday, the Khartoum Lawyers Association, the country’s capital, transferred the testimony of at least eleven women raped in the El Shajara neighborhood attributed to “drunken soldiers of the Sudanese Army”, which has ignored the case and attributed the incident to an isolated event. Local media outlets such as Radio Dabanga have received reports of another 16 violations this week, attributed in part to paramilitary forces.

The most accurate figures are those provided by the so-called Sudanese Unit to Combat Violence against Women, which before these new figures estimated at least 36 confirmed cases of rape in the capital alone, plus another 25 in other parts of the country.

The agency is dependent on the Sovereign Transitional Council of Sudan, the military junta represented by the Army, which is why at a press conference a week ago it identified the RSF for practically all the registered violations. However, its president, Seleima Ishag, warned that confirmed violations up to last week only represented two percent of the total number, which would be “much higher.”

“We receive reports day and night. There is not a single Khartoum woman who is safe right now, not even in her own home,” she lamented in statements collected by Radio Dabanga. Particularly vulnerable are the women who still live in the outlying areas of the city and in the impoverished neighborhoods of El Ezba and El Gemayer in neighboring Omdurman, where the population tried to escape during the first days of fighting.

The violations also respond to a campaign of terror and a settling of accounts between communities. In this regard, the Darfur Lawyers Association denounces that the Army is perpetrating a campaign of harassment specifically directed at tribes such as the Misseriya or the Rizeigat, accused of collaborating with the RSF.

The paramilitaries, on the other hand, would be focusing their sights on Ethiopian or Eritrean refugees in North Khartoum and Omdurman, according to the information that the association is considering.

It must be remembered that these estimates refer to the areas of the country where the information still manages to get out. In Western Darfur, another of the great epicenters of the conflict, cases are known in drops, especially in the capital, El Geneina.

“They are raping women everywhere,” Ishag said in statements made this week to the British newspaper ‘The Guardian’.

WITHOUT HELP OF ANY KIND

In the same interview, Seleima Ishag also warned that rape survivors in Khartoum have little access to emergency contraception and abortion medication, especially after access to Khartoum’s large medical warehouse was cut off at the start of the conflict.

There are 47,000 post-rape medical kits, an enormously precious asset in the country, especially considering that abortion was illegal in Sudan before the outbreak of the war.

Survivors have no choice, in this scenario, but to resort to social networks to share information about where to find medicines to prevent pregnancy and infections, or use herbal remedies. The UN Population Fund (UNFPA), which supplies the kits, has not been able to confirm for its part which side is preventing access to the building.

Post-rape kits are often distributed in conflict situations. They include emergency medications, such as the morning-after pill and post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP), which are used to prevent HIV infection. Abortion pills may also be given to some survivors at a later date, but they are usually not included in the package.