Victims describe horrific attacks by militias in Sudan

More and more testimonies are coming from Sudan about the attacks made by militias on the eastern state of Gezira. Reuters news agency spoke to thirteen victims, including a woman who had just given birth.

Salwa Abdallah was still recovering from a caesarean section and caring for her one-month-old baby when she was attacked by soldiers from the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), an offshoot of Arab militias. her home. They accused her of being loyal to the government army, with whom the RSF has been at war for a year and a half.

“You are killing us, so today we will kill you and rape your daughters, they said,” she told the New Halfa news agency. She had settled there with her mother and children after days of escape.

According to Abdallah, the militia sent her and other villagers out of town with whips. They were also shot at by men on motorcycles.

Hashim Bashir, whose leg was amputated before the war, told Reuters that RSF fighters threw him out of his home in al-Nayb. “They are very cruel. If you survive the guns, they will hit you in the head. If you survive, they will hit you with a whip.”

Bashir’s cousin said she was hiding under a bed. “But they found me, beat me and tore the earrings off my ears.”

The RSF captured Gezira last December. Since then, a significant decline has occurred. The situation worsened recently after the leader of the RSF joined the government army. The militia, which is mostly made up of Arab-speaking fighters, carried out a series of revenge attacks in recent weeks. Hundreds of people were killed. In the town of al-Sireha alone, 124 people were killed on October 25, according to a local human rights group.

It was also confirmed that members of the militia have been guilty of rape. According to the UN, an 11-year-old girl succumbed to injuries she received as a result of sexual violence.

The RSF denies it and says the attacks in Gezira are against armed civilian militias.

According to the United Nations, around 135,000 Sudanese have fled Gezira. They mostly go east and north. The war in Sudan has displaced an estimated 11 million people. There is widespread hunger in the country and outbreaks of cholera and dengue. According to the UN, both the RSF and the government army are guilty of war crimes. Human rights organizations also have the RSF accused of ethnic cleansing.

Recently, Canadian Roméo Dallaire, head of the UN mission there during the Rwandan genocide, warned that Sudan is on the way to becoming a second Rwanda. About 800,000 people were killed there in three months in 1994, mainly Tutsis and moderate Hutus.

Earlier this year, journalist Elles van Gelder and cameraman Sven Torfinn went to the border between Sudan and South Sudan: