Al-Yrea – Local residents in areas of the conflict in Sudan between the Rapid Support Forces and the Sudanese army have told tragic and gruesome stories to international and local media about what they were subjected to by the Rapid Support Forces, which are made up of tribal and foreign militias, which were previously accused of committing many massacres in the Darfur region since 2003 until today, to count a few.
Rape and sexual harassment
There have been countless reports of sexual assaults, especially in Khartoum and the Darfur region (west Darfur), carried out by members of these forces, according to the victims’ accounts, in full conformity with several previous accusations of similar accusations in the Darfur region.
One these story is the story of a girl named Zainab who was on her way to Khartoum to escape the fighting, but her life was turned upside down before reaching safety: “At a checkpoint, armed men stopped her bus, dropped her off with three other women, and raped them at gunpoint. At a checkpoint of the Rapid support forces, where members of these forces separated the women from the men on the bus, and transferred the females to a nearby warehouse, according to Zainab, who asked to use a pseudonym when she spoke to AFP in another country where she took refuge. “One of them caught me, the other raped.”
UN Women Representative in Sudan Adjaratou Ndiaye confirms that the UN has received reports of “gang rapes” in Darfur.
The Sudanese official acknowledges that “there is no woman in Khartoum right now who is safe for herself, even if she is at home.”
The recent attacks have affected “all segments of the Sudanese people,” according to a lawyer who is part of a group that has been documenting sexual violence for years. “There are rapes of families in their homes, rapes of girls in the street…” of different ages.
According to activists, survivors who reveal assault are generally those who have suffered some degree of violence that has left them with no choice but to seek medical attention.
Forced displacement and occupation of citizens’ homes
Since the outbreak of the conflict in the capital, Khartoum, the Rapid Support Militias have terrorized the population by firing intensively at houses, and then resorted to systematic sabotage of power centers and stations and even electrical transformers in residential areas, occupying the main drinking water pumping stations, and cutting off supplies to the areas they occupy to push the residents to evacuate them and those who cannot evacuate their homes were forced in their occupied homes to serve the members of these militias at gunpoint, according to what many residents reported about their experiences on social networking sites
This militia did not hide its criminal operations, as its members published pictures and video clips of them inside the houses they occupied and expelled their inhabitants.
“At around three o’clock in the afternoon, the RSF knocked on the door and ordered us to evacuate the house and successively the neighbors’ houses. The clashes caused the destruction of a number of citizens’ homes as a result of indiscriminate shelling.
Looting markets, banks and diplomatic missions
The looting by these forces affected shops, offices of companies, humanitarian organizations, exhibitions, banks and the headquarters and homes of diplomatic missions in the capital, and others witnessed major acts of vandalism, deliberate arson and damage to all property and homes, even refugee camps and displaced persons, which were not spared from their attacks as well, according to documented reports from areas in West Darfur and Khartoum.
Since the beginning of the conflict, the Sudanese army pointed to the looting of the Rapid support Forces the markets of the city of Nyala, Kabkabiya and Garsila in Wadi Saleh in Darfur, in addition to the looting of citizens’ property that took place in Khartoum state, and the Sudanese army held the Rapid Support Forces responsible for breaking and looting the Omdurman National Bank, Gabra branch, Nile Bank and the Egyptian Bank Al-Morada branch, with the seizure and arrest of the guard crews of these banks, in addition to the attempt to loot the Bank of Sudan, Khartoum branch, as the Army stated that “when our forces confronted them, they set fire to the bank and escaped, according to the statement at the beginning of the battles on April 29, 2023
While the General Command of the Army revealed in a report on May 12, 2023 AD about the looting of banks and shops in the Libyan market, Nile Bank, Sitteen Street, Sudanese-French Bank in Khartoum, Al-Ma’rad Street.
And that the Rapid Support Forces militia tried to loot the strategic gold reserves of the Bank of Sudan
An employee, speaking on condition of anonymity, said all the goods at the Soba container terminal south of Khartoum had been looted.
“These are goods imported by their owners and they did not complete customs clearance procedures because of the war,” he said.
In Khartoum North’s industrial zone, witnesses confirmed that the warehouse of the Siqa wheat flour mill, the country’s largest, had been looted, adding to the bread crisis in a country where 19 million of its 45 million residents could go hungry after six months if the war continues. While these reports all accused the Rapid Support Forces some still not clear who is behind them.
Omar Nour al-Deem, a resident of North Khartoum, told AFP: “On the third day of the war, a shell fell in the market and shops caught fire. Some were completely burned, others partially, but the rest were looted and that’s what happened to my local.”
“The reason is simply that there was no police escort even though the Bahri Police Headquarters is based inside the market.”
These militias did not respect the sanctity of diplomatic missions, their buildings and property and the safety of the security of their staff, as they were accused by the Sudanese army of all encroachments on these missions, which they have repeatedly completely denied.
Attacks on hospitals, patients and doctors
In light of the collapse of services in the state, especially health, which is one of the sectors that have become military targets over the past weeks, as the Rapid Support Forces attacked a maternity hospital in the city of Omdurman.
The Ministry of Health in Khartoum state said that the Rapid Support Forces are still occupying more than 40 hospitals and health facilities in the Sudanese capital, accusing them of assaulting health staff at the Saudi Maternity Hospital, while deporting them to their homes and seizing the hospital’s car, as well as attacking a number of pharmacies on Thursday morning.
She described the Rapid Support Forces’ treatment of the health sector as “systematic infringements and deliberate sabotage of these institutions and a strange phenomenon on Sudanese morals and international laws.”
The same forces attacked Tuesday, on the hospitals of the children of Omdurman, Haj Al-Safi and parents of ophthalmology, by smashing and damaging devices and equipment and breaking storage and pharmacies, according to the statement, it explained that despite the truce that was announced for a week from the evening of Monday, May 23 until the evening of Monday, May 29 of the same month, and the agreement on the exit of the Rapid Support Forces from hospitals and health institutions used as military barracks, it “did not implement the agreement with the continued systematic destruction of medical devices, medical oxygen generators and medical gases, looting of money vaults and the seizure of ambulances.”
On the same day, she “stormed the Ahmed Qassem Specialized Hospital for Cardiology and Kidney Surgery and evacuated patients,” she said.
It also “stationed around the Omdurman Teaching Hospital and fired heavy shots in the air, which made the hospital evacuate health staff and patients in order to preserve their lives,” according to the statement.
Civil and democratic groups demand the protection of civilians
The Civil Front for Stopping the War and Restoring Democracy, which includes a number of components of the Freedom and Change and organizations opposed to military rule in the country, pointed out that the fierce confrontations that erupted on the morning of April 15 “continue increasingly and put the country’s future at stake.”
They warned in a statement that “the war continues to claim lives, expand its area and burden the people,” calling for its cessation as soon as possible, and that the priority be to protect civilians, solve the humanitarian crisis, fight hate speech that tears the social fabric and adopt peaceful means to address national issues.
