Gang Rape, Sexual Slavery as Rapid Support Forces Attack Refuge Area
- Rapid Support Forces fighters and allied militias have raped scores of women and girls, including in the context of sexual slavery, in Sudan's South Kordofan state since September 2023.
- Conflict-related sexual violence is a serious violation of international humanitarian law, or the laws of war, and a war crime. Sexual violence may constitute crimes against humanity when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack on a civilian population.
- United Nations and African Union member states should urgently act to assist survivors, protect other women and girls, and ensure justice for these heinous crimes.
(Nairobi, December 16, 2024) - Rapid Support Forces (RSF) fighters and allied militias have raped scores of women and girls, including in the context of sexual slavery, in Sudan's South Kordofan state since September 2023, Human Rights Watch said today. These acts of sexual violence, which constitute war crimes and may constitute crimes against humanity, underscore the urgent need for meaningful international action to protect civilians and deliver justice.
A 35-year-old ethnic Nuba woman said six RSF fighters in beige uniforms stormed into her family compound, with one man saying, "You Nuba, today is your day." The men then gang raped her. "My husband and my son tried to defend me, so one of the RSF fighters shot and killed them. Then they kept raping me, all six of them," she said.
"Survivors described being gang raped, in front of their families or over prolonged periods of time, including while being held as sex slaves by RSF fighters," said Belkis Wille, associate crisis and conflict director at Human Rights Watch. "United Nations and African Union member states should urgently act to assist survivors, protect other women and girls, and ensure justice for these heinous crimes."
In October 2024, Human Rights Watch interviewed 93 people in person and remotely, including 70 in informal settlements for displaced people in the Nuba Mountains region of South Kordofan state, currently under the control of the armed group, the Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N). The RSF, which is fighting against the national military, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), for control of the country, has also engaged in hostilities with the SPLM-N. Researchers interviewed seven survivors of rape, including one who said she was held with 50 other women and raped repeatedly over three months. Human Rights Watch also interviewed 12 people who said their relatives or friends were raped, in many cases in incidents they personally witnessed.
In total, the survivors and other witnesses provided information about 79 girls and women, between the ages of 7 and 50, who reported being raped. Most incidents documented were gang rapes that occurred since December 31, 2023, in and around the town of Habila, and at an RSF base, also involving victims from the town of Fayu, approximately 17 kilometers south of Habila, in South Kordofan.
Survivors and witnesses said the attackers were all uniformed RSF members, or allied militia members, and some survivors said they knew some of the men by name from the community. In the cases documented by Human Rights Watch, RSF fighters raped 14 women and girls in their own homes or neighbors' homes, often in front of family members. In five such cases, the attackers raped the women and girls after killing or threatening family members.
In a separate report published on December 10, Human Rights Watch documented large-scale killings, abductions, and injuries of civilians, as well as widespread looting and burning, in and around Habila and Fayu. Those abuses and the sexual violence are evidence of the RSF's widespread attacks on civilians in South Kordofan.
An 18-year-old woman said that in February, RSF fighters took her and 17 other women and girls from Fayu to a military base where they were detained with a group of 33 women and girls already there. Under the total control of their RSF captors, the women and girls were held in conditions of enslavement, at times even chained together. On a daily basis for three months, the fighters raped and beat the women and girls, including the 18-year-old survivor, crimes that also constitute sexual slavery.
None of the women interviewed saw any way to hold their attackers accountable. One said, "There is nothing anyone can do for justice. I just have to report to God."
On November 25, Human Rights Watch shared a summary of its findings and related questions with Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, the RSF commander, but has not received a response.
These findings echo those of a recent report from the UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for the Sudan, which concludes the RSF is committing sexual violence on a large scale, including multiple incidents of sexual slavery. Human Rights Watch documented the rape of dozens of women and girls by the RSF in Darfur in 2023, as well as widespread conflict-related sexual violence by the RSF and, in fewer cases, by the SAF in Khartoum and neighboring cities since fighting broke out between the SAF and the RSF in April 2023.
Conflict-related sexual violence is a serious violation of international humanitarian law, or the laws of war, and a war crime. Sexual violence may constitute crimes against humanity when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack on a civilian population, Human Rights Watch said. Where people are held in conditions of enslavement--when their captors exercise control akin to the right of ownership over them--and subject to sexual violence, this constitutes sexual slavery.
The UN and AU should urgently deploy a mission to protect civilians in Sudan, mandated and resourced to address sexual violence, including prevention, documentation, and provision of comprehensive services to all survivors. UN member states should also bolster support for the UN fact-finding mission, as the secretary-general recommended, to help pave the way toward meaningful accountability.
"This research highlights what we have been hearing for some time now about the magnitude of sexual violence in Sudan, with the RSF coming into homes and raping women and girls time and again," Wille said. "Yet so far, Sudanese victims have barely had access to services, let alone redress or meaningful efforts to stop these horrific crimes."
For more details on Human Rights Watch's new evidence of sexual violence, please see below.
For more details on Human Rights Watch's evidence of killings, abductions, and looting in and around Habila, please visit:
The names of interviewees have been left out or changed to protect their identity.
Other pockets of South Kordofan are under the control of the SAF, while the RSF controls the town of Dibeibat and its surroundings. Parts of the state are not under the control of any particular force. The RSF has allied with predominantly Arab militias and has brutalized certain ethnic groups including the Massalit and the Nuba, by killing, injuring, torturing, detaining, and raping civilians from these communities, destroying their homes, and looting their possessions.
Human Rights Watch in 2017 documented the obstruction of humanitarian assistance during the conflict in the Nuba Mountains by both the SAF and the SPLM-N, including preventing women and girls from accessing reproductive health care, including emergency obstetric care. Human Rights Watch previously found that men and boys have also been subjected to sexual violence, including in detention.
International Criminal Court (ICC) judges have issued a number of arrest warrants in cases arising out of the court's investigation into crimes committed in Darfur during the 2000s. These include warrants against former Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, who remains an ICC fugitive. Only one case has been brought to trial, that of a former Janjaweed militia leader, Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-Al-Rahman (Ali Kosheib). Closing statements in the case were made to the ICC between December 11-13, 2024.
Sexual Slavery
Hania, 18, said the RSF attacked Fayu one night in February, when it was under the control of the SPLM-N. She was three months pregnant. RSF fighters entered Hania's home and grabbed her along with a 17-year-old girl who was her neighbor. One fighter said, "We have lost many of our children, we need to replace them." Others cheered, shouting, "Free wedding," and shot live rounds into the air. The fighters drove away with Hania, her neighbor, and 16 other girls she knew, aged 11 and above, in about 10 vehicles. Another Fayu resident said she saw RSF fighters taking groups of women and girls, including Hania, away that morning.
The fighters drove to a large RSF military base in Dibeibat, about 85 kilometers north of Fayu. Hania estimated that 100 or more fighters were there, already holding 33 other women and girls from Habila, between the ages of 13 and 28. Over the next three months, she said, the fighters "[came] in groups of three every morning to take some girls to rape them and bring them back. Then again in the evenings, another group of three would come, take other girls, and rape them."
The fighters only gave the women and girls a bit of sorghum flour and water as sustenance, which frequently made them vomit. Hania said the group tried to escape twice. After the second time--about a month and a half into her captivity--fighters chained the captives together in kneeling positions:
They made a pen-like setup with wires and tree branches, like the one they keep animals in. We were tied up with chains, 10 girls on one chain. If we needed to go to the toilet, they set us free for only one minute, not enough time to do anything, you just got this minute, you needed to run going and coming back.
Hania still experiences physical impacts from the experience: "I suffer from pain down my back. My legs become very stiff, if I am sitting, I cannot stretch them. If I sleep with my legs stretched, I can't move them without the help of my hands."
When Hania once resisted a fighter trying to rape her, "he started beating me with a whip with a metal tip," she said. "Two other men came and helped him beat me." Hania bled heavily and ended up in the hospital for 20 days, after which a fighter, who she said was a commander, brought her back to the base and chained her up again.
Fawzia, Hania's friend, also 18, became pregnant in captivity. An RSF fighter eventually took pity on the two pregnant women and helped them escape three months after they were abducted and one and a half months after they had been chained up. Hania said she and Fawzia eventually found their families and sought medical care. Doctors said Hania was malnourished, but her baby did not experience health problems at birth. She is not aware of what happened to the women and girls who remained at the base in Dibeibat.
Hania and two of Fawzia's family members confirmed to researchers that Fawzia had been abducted, became pregnant, and escaped. Fawzia herself was in hiding and unreachable when Human Rights Watch met her family members because, her uncle said, a relative had threatened to kill her as punishment for "staying with the RSF and getting pregnant."
Hania said she heard fighters in Dibeibat say that other groups of women and girls were held at two other known RSF bases in the region. Another woman from the Fayu area, Jamila, 22, said RSF fighters who detained her on a farm for 15 days near Fayu in January threatened to take her to Dibeibat on multiple occasions.
Rape in the Homes of Civilians
On the morning of December 31, 2023, after hostilities that led to the RSF taking control of the town of Habila from the SAF, RSF fighters and affiliated Arab gunmen moved between the compounds of primarily Nuba families. They killed many civilians, raped women and girls, and looted families' possessions, including tractors, carts, money, jewelry, and furniture.
Ten uniformed RSF fighters entered the compound of Dana, 35, and her daughter Leila, 21, and killed eight men from the family including Dana's husband, Leila's husband, and at least six other relatives. Dana and Leila said the fighters then entered their home where the women and children were, and raped them both, as well as five other women: another daughter of Dana, a neighbor, and three relatives, including a girl of 16.
"As they raped us, they said to each other, 'These Nuba are our slaves, we can do anything we want,"' Dana said. Dana said two men raped her. Leila said one man raped her.
Intisar, 27, said once the fighting was over and the RSF was in control of Habila, a group of armed RSF fighters, all but one in beige uniform, came to their street. The man in civilian clothes entered Intisar's compound, where he trained his gun on her and raped her in front of her mother and her father-in-law.
Nesrin, 35, said she was with her husband and five children in their family compound when six uniformed RSF fighters entered. "You Nuba, today is your day," she recalled one man saying. Then, the men forced her to the ground and started gang raping her:
My husband and son tried to defend me, so one of the RSF fighters shot and killed them. Then they kept raping me, all six of them. They were saying to me, 'You Nuba, we will rape you and your husbands.'
Nesrin said she saw the men also gang rape her neighbors' daughters, aged 13 and 15. Human Rights Watch previously found that Sudanese men and boys have also been subjected to sexual violence, including in detention.
On January 2, Selma, 30, said she saw four RSF fighters in beige uniform storm her next-door neighbor's compound. Through the fence between the homes, Selma saw the men put guns to the heads of two sisters, both about 30 years old. Two men raped each of them and then told them to leave or else they would be killed, and then left. Selma said one of the women was bleeding badly and that neither could get up or walk.
On January 5, six uniformed RSF fighters entered the compound of Hasina, 35, and her husband. They shot and killed Hasina's husband when he told them repeatedly not to steal the family's cattle. Then the fighters stole the couple's cattle and cart and all their money. Without the means to leave, Hasina remained home with her six children. Hasina said the fighters came back three days later:
One said, 'We want you. What do you think about that?' I said, 'I don't want you.' He replied, 'If you want us or don't want us, it doesn't matter. You'll give it to us.' ... All three raped me, then they left. That same evening, three more came back and raped me again and told me to stay in my house.
Hasina said groups of fighters came to her house and gang raped her on a near daily basis for the next month, until the SPLM-N took control of Habila, after which she fled.
Sara, 36, from Fayu, said in February, on the day RSF fighters took Hania and Fawzia, four Fayu residents wearing beige uniforms who took up arms with the RSF--three of whom she knew--barged into her home. Her 15-year-old daughter hid under the bed. One fighter told her husband, "You Nuba, we will pluck your eyes out," as three of the men grabbed Sara's 16-year-old niece and shoved her into a bedroom, while the fourth blocked the door.
After some time, the fighters came out of the room and asked Sara's husband where his own daughter was. When he said he did not know, one of the men shot and killed him. After they left, Sara rushed into the room where her niece was, and found her lying on the ground, bleeding. The niece said two of the men raped her but the third did not, after seeing her bleeding. She said the man told her, "If I didn't fear God, I would slaughter you." Sara and her daughter fled, leaving her niece with a relative. She later heard from relatives that her niece was pregnant.
Zahra, 32, is from Dilling, a town under SAF control where the RSF has carried out regular incursions since late 2023. Zahra said in September 2023, during one such incursion, she saw groups of RSF fighters enter the town on motorbikes and attack the town's SAF base. During the attack, she saw two fighters enter her next-door neighbor's compound and rape her neighbor's daughter, a 10-year-old girl.
Rape After Civilians Fled Their Homes
In January, a few weeks before she was taken captive, Hania fled Fayu when the RSF first took control of the area. She and other civilians sheltered for weeks in the bush, outside the town. One day, Hania saw a group of approximately 12 Arab gunmen, whom she had previously seen operating alongside the RSF, approach a group of women she knew who were sheltering nearby. The men attacked and raped two girls, the younger one aged 12, and four women, the eldest aged 50, multiple times over three hours. Finally, three men in beige uniforms came with motorbikes and carts and took away both girls and a woman, 19, none of whom Hania saw again.
Jamila, whom RSF fighters detained on a farm near Fayu, said she escaped after 15 days and fled to Qardud, a nearby village. The RSF carried out multiple incursions into the area at the end of January, and Jamila said uniformed RSF fighters came to Qardud and on three occasions over 15 days gang raped a 15-year-old girl and three women between the ages of 18 and 26, who had fled there from Habila and Fayu. After the third attack, Jamila, the other women, and the girl together fled to SPLM-N controlled territory, where they parted ways.
Hiba, 22, fled her home of Kadugli, also plagued by fighting, in late 2023. As her family was passing through the outskirts of a nearby town, uniformed RSF members approached them and forced them to kneel on the ground, then ordered the family to follow them. Hiba's family refused, so the fighters started shooting, killing her father, mother, and husband. Hiba said that after that:
They said, 'Where are you going? We are going to use you and then dump you.' I was lying on the floor and all five of them raped me, one after another. My children were right next to me, watching and crying. They told my children to be quiet and then they raped my sister as well.
Impact on the Survivors
All of the survivors interviewed said that they find it difficult to fall asleep and are haunted by flashbacks. They all also said they experience daily physical pain, particularly in their backs, which they had not had before the attacks.
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Hiba said, "Every time I try to sleep, I see how my parents and husband were killed, and I remember all the things they did to me. It is torturing me."
Hania said:
My head is full of bad thoughts ... I became absent minded. I cannot function normally, sometimes I think I lost my mind. I cannot finish even simple tasks ... After all the killing, the bloodshed, and what I witnessed, I don't think I will be well. Every day I get very depressed and start crying.
Services for Survivors
None of the survivors were able to seek medical support immediately after they were raped because they were forced to flee the area or continued to be held in conditions of enslavement. Once they arrived in towns where they felt safer, six of the seven survivors interviewed sought medical care.
The six women said doctors told them all they were "fine" after examining them. In almost all cases, the women said doctors gave them some kind of medication before discharging them, though they were unsure of what kind. None were treated at a hospital able to test for HIV. In two cases, doctors took urine and blood samples, but did not explain clearly what they were testing for, the women said.
None of the survivors interviewed had access to any form of psychosocial support. Hiba said the doctor who examined her after the attack could not offer psychosocial support and told her to be grateful she was still alive and to "focus on raising your children."
Researchers spoke to four healthcare workers, including medical workers, working in facilities providing care to victims of sexual violence who said they were able to test for syphilis and gonorrhoea, which have high rates in the population, as well as pregnancy and chlamydia. Only one hospital in the Nuba Mountains is able to test for HIV, they said. When asked whether survivors could access abortion services, healthcare workers interviewed said access was not available.
Access to abortion care is a human right, and under international human rights law, states should provide effective access to abortion care in cases of sexual violence including rape, and remove barriers that prevent women exercising their right to access abortion under the law.
Donors should increase resources to ensure that sexual violence survivors from Sudan receive meaningful care, whether still in Sudan or in neighboring countries, including emergency post-rape care. Post-rape case management should address the full range of physical health needs: post exposure prophylaxis to prevent HIV and other sexually transmitted infections, treatment for wounds or injuries and sexually transmitted infections, emergency contraception, access to abortion, and other gynecological care as well as immediate and longer-term emotional or mental health support. Donors should help survivors who may want to seek redress against those responsible.
Additional Recommendations
The ICC prosecutor is investigating alleged crimes committed since April 2023 in Darfur, but its jurisdiction in Sudan, which is not an ICC member, is limited to that region under a 2005 UN Security Council referral.
In September 2024, the UN fact-finding mission recommended that the UN Security Council vote to expand the jurisdiction of the ICC "to cover the entire country." The mission also recommended that UN member states consider other pathways to justice "in tandem and complementarity" with the ICC, such as establishing a special tribunal for Sudan to prosecute international crimes and encouraging judicial officials in other countries to investigate and prosecute those allegedly responsible, including through exercising universal jurisdiction. The mission also called for Sudan's cooperation with the ICC.
States should urgently support the ICC's ongoing investigation in Darfur and work toward the implementation of the fact-finding mission's recommendations on accountability to check a cycle of impunity across Sudan that has fueled continuous rights violations, Human Rights Watch said.
The UN secretary-general and Security Council members should press warring parties to end the ongoing willful obstruction of humanitarian supplies and personnel, including by immediately lifting ongoing bureaucratic restrictions. They should also condemn the RSF's looting of aid and medical supplies.
