Sudan - reports of women raped - content warning

[ArabellaScott]

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/sudan-politics-sexual-violence/

Horrifying reports coming out of Sudan.

'The sexual-assault reports come amid the war that broke out in April between the Sudanese army and the RSF in the capital of Khartoum. The fighting has killed more than 10,000 people and displaced more than 6 million, the United Nations estimates. It has also set off a surge of violence in Darfur, the western Sudan region where the RSF has its power base. The area has been plagued by decades of conflict, driven often by competition for land, water and other scarce resources.
Human Rights Watch has reported that several dozen women were raped during the El Geneina violence earlier this year and appear to have been targeted because of their Masalit ethnicity. The U.N. in November said that across Sudan it has received credible reports of conflict-linked sexual violence involving at least 105 victims. The International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague said in July it is investigating the hostilities in Darfur, including reports of killings, rapes and crimes against children.'

Fuck.

One of the Arab tribal leaders claimed it couldn’t have happened because his men aren’t allowed to marry Masalit women, so they wouldn’t want to rape them. That’s absolutely ridiculous.

Men who do that to women should be castrated.

Yes. A further insult that wilfully ignores the purpose of rape, especially in situations like the ones described.

'Emir Massar Aseel, an Arab tribal leader in El Geneina, dismissed the rape allegations as “empty lies.” Aseel is a leader of the Rizeigat – one of the largest Arab tribes in West Darfur and the group from which many RSF leaders hail. Arab tribal traditions prohibit sexual assault and bar Arabs from marrying Masalit, Aseel said in a phone interview, and thus his people couldn’t have committed mass rape.
“If I can’t bring myself to marry” a Masalit woman, Aseel said, “why would I go and take her by force?”'