2023-07-10 19:25:38
The strengths of Sudanese combat have committed rapes against minors up to 12 years of age since the beginning of the clashes between the Sudanese Army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), according to the complaint Save the Children and national humanitarian organizations.
Save the Children warns that the sexual violence in the African country is “runaway» in the midst of the chaos of the fighting. According to the latest estimates of the Unit for the Fight against Violence against Women and Children, a Sudanese national body, on July 1st it was only able to verify 88 cases of violationmore than half in the capital, Khartoum.
However, and as it already advanced last month, the body understands that the figures it is collecting represent approximately only 2% of the total, which would mean that an approximate total of 4,400 women they would have been sexually abused in eleven weeks of violence.
According to UNHCR, some survivors arrive in neighboring countries pregnant as a result of the violations. There have also been reports of girls being kidnapped and held for days while they were sexually assaulted, and of gang rapes of girls and women. “Sexual violence continues to be a weapon of terror and the figures we are looking at are only the tip of the iceberg,” adds Save the Children’s director for the African country, Arif Noor.
Group violations
Save the Children denounces group rapes for days on young Sudanese women, turned into specific target of their aggressors because of their ethnicity and gender. Around four million women and girls in Sudan are in danger right now.
“We are encountering frequent cases of women affected by sexual violence”, he warns Sarah Abdelrazig, head of Save the Children for North Kordofan, where there are mobile care points for survivors, especially children, who present “severe cases of trauma” that require specialized care. The NGO has also reported that some children are being targeted specifically because of their ethnic origin, as well as their gender.
Even before fighting broke out on April 15, more than 3 million women and girls in Sudan were at risk of gender violence. Since then, that number has increased to about 4.2 million people. Sexual violence is often used as a weapon of war against children to terrorize them, sow fear and intimidation for political and military purposes, ethnically cleanse or humiliate an ethnic group, and punish civilians suspected of supporting opposing forces
Lasting traumas
The trauma it inflicts can have lasting physical, psychological, social and economic effects. The brutality of the physical act itself can be especially harmful to children, whose bodies are not fully developed. Girls can suffer uterine prolapses, fistulas and other injuries of their reproductive system, and face complications and death fromearly pregnancies and unsafe abortions. Both girls and boys are at risk of urinary and anal harm, and exposure to sexually transmitted diseases that, if left untreated, can cause long-term damage and even death.
“We run six mobile health clinics that provide primary care services to displaced populations. Unfortunately, in our consultations we are frequently coming across cases of women affected by sexual violence and we are doing everything we can to support them. The main hospital’s emergency unit was hit during an airstrike and now we have no good hospital to refer serious medical cases to for investigation. Specialists for trauma cases are often not available and, of course, the lack of electricity is affecting the work in the laboratories and, sometimes, even in the mobile health clinics,” reports Abdelrazig.
Embryonic conflict
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“Mothers have told Save the Children staff in IDP camps that one of the reasons for fleeing their homes is concern for their personal safety and that of their daughters. We have also heard from parents who are making the agonizing decision to marry off their daughters at an early age, in an attempt to ‘protect’ them from further risks of sexual violence, assault or exploitation. It’s a scary and terrifying situation for girls,” said Noor.
More than 3,000 people have died and 6,000 have been injured since April 15, including at least 330 children dead and 1,900 injured, according to Sudan’s Ministry of Health. However, aid workers and witnesses say there are many unaccounted for bodies. In addition, an increasing number of children are at risk of being recruited and linked to armed groups.
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