Photo: BBC
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September 27, 2024 | 11:20 AM ET |
After 17 months of brutal civil war that has ravaged the country, the army has launched a major offensive in the capital, Khartoum, targeting areas held by its bitter rival, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF)
The RSF has taken over most of Khartoum since the beginning of the conflict, while the army controls the city of Omdurman.
But there are still places where people can cross between the two sides.
At one such point, the BBC stayed and met a group of women who had walked four hours to a market in military-controlled territory where food is cheaper.
The women had come from Dar es Salaam, an area held by the RSF.
Their husbands no longer leave their homes, the women say, because RSF fighters beat them, take their money or imprison them and demand money for their release.
We endure this hardship because we want to feed our children. We are hungry, we need food”, said one.
When they were asked by the BBC team if they were safer than men, and about rape, their voices fell silent.
Then, one of them spoke.
Where is the world? Why don’t you help us”, she said, crying.
“There are many women here who have been raped, but they don’t talk about it. What difference would it make anyway?”
“The RSF makes some girls lie on the street at night. If they return late from the market, RSF keeps them for five or six days”, she said.
As she spoke, her mother sat holding her head and crying. The other women had also started the oil.
You in your world, if your child was outside, would you abandon him? Wouldn’t you ask for it? But tell me, what can we do? Nothing is in our hands, nobody does it for us. Where is the world? Why don’t you help us!”
Sexual violence has become prominent in the protracted conflict, which began as a power struggle between the army and the RSF but has since attracted local armed groups and fighters from neighboring states.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, has said that rape is being used as a “weapon of war”.
A UN mission recently documented dozens of cases of rape by members of the military, but found high rates of sexual violence perpetrated by the RSF and its allied militant groups.
A woman has spoken about her tragedy.
Miriam – (name changed) – ran away from her home in Dar es Salaam to take shelter with her brother.
At the beginning of the war, she said, two armed men entered the house and tried to rape her daughters – one 17 years old and the other 10.
You told the girls to stand behind me and you told the RSF: ‘If you want to rape someone, it should be me,'” she said.
“They beat me and ordered me to undress. Before I took off my clothes, you told my girls to leave. They took the other children and left. Then, one of the men raped me.”
Fatima – (name changed) – had gone to Omdurman to give birth to the twins. One of the neighbors had told him that a 15-year-old woman was also pregnant after she and her 17-year-old sister had been raped by four RSF soldiers.
People were awakened by the screams and came out to see what was happening, Fatima said, but the gunmen told them they would be shot if they did not turn back.
The next morning they found the two girls with signs of abuse on their bodies and their brother locked in a room.
The women are starting to pack up and return home to RSF-controlled areas – they are too poor, they say, to start a new life like Miriam started by fleeing Dar es Salaam.
As long as this war continues, they have no choice but to return to its horror.
