Darfur Union in the UK: Horrific Rape Crimes continue in Sudan – This Time, 6 Young Women were Raped by GoS Soldiers in Darfur; Bashir Has to Go; the Outcry and Involvement of the Sudanese have to be the Same to Guarantee Unity
A group young women in North Darfur, south Elfashir, were on their way to collect some firewood fuel outside Zamzam IDP camp, in Um Hashaba to be specific (Tuesday, 5th Feb. 2019). Their journey was intercepted by Rapid Speed Force militia men. The 6 young women were brutally raped.
A report from Women for Darfur Organisation stated that the victims were beaten first, chained, then raped. The victims family found them at that state, then took them to the Saudi Hospital in North Darfur Capital, Elfashir for medical treatment.
Below is a list of the victims:-
1. Omaima Khatir
2. Aisha Bushara Abdel Allah
3. Um Bashair Abaker Abdel Allah
4. Hawa Mohammed Younis
5. Haria Yagoub Bushara
6. Rasha Doud
Another person was injured as a result of this attack is Haydar Suliman Fadul. Details of whether he was accompanying the 6 women is yet to be confirmed.
The crime can not by any mean be viewed as an isolated incident given the track record of GoS in the area, and also given the documented use of rape as a weapon against the civilians of the region and Sudan in general. One can stop at the Tabit mass rape committed the Sudanese regular troop (see HRW, ref. 1) were 200 women were raped by GoS soldiers. Another example is the horrific mass rape of Taweela High School students in North Darfur suffered at the hands of Bashir Janjaweed troops (ref. 2).
Systematic rape was used as a deterrent against the women and young girls belonging to some of the African tribes in Darfur as stated on the ICC Case Information Sheet (The prosecutor vs. Omar Al Bashir, ref. 3).
Children and teenagers are the most vulnerable groups in the society in the region and under the current government.
They are always at the forefront of the struggle. They suffer harassment, and are often subjected to all form of assault,m cinch as killing, torture, and the use of rape by the perpetrators.
Darfur Union in the UK stands with the young victims of Sudan in Darfur and across the country as they take this monumental task of growing up in such danger. Darfur Union in the UK plea to the UNESCO to raise the aforementioned crimes and systemic GoS rape policy at their next meeting. Also direct plea to the Children and women protection organisations in and out Sudan to follow up the case of the aforementioned victims, and to provide support and medical attention/ counselling to them and her family.
On the same note, it is important to mentioned that the latest uprising in Sudan against the GoS is a total revolt of the current system by the people of Sudan, and to keep it inclusive, there must be a similar scale of support and campaigning by the wider Sudanese people in the country and in the diaspora when it comes to crimes committed the marginalised area in Sudan.
The cause of the popular uprising was not only limited to the economic dire state in the country, it was a results of multiple parameters coming together to cause their burst of reaction – one has to mention that the demonstrations across the Sudan have been civil whilst the government of Sudan choosing to use excess force to stop the people from exercising their democratic rights of organising peaceful demonstrations. Back to the parameters that lead to the current state in the country. First waging of wars across the country and at the same time use the policy of divide and rule to make sure that the rest of the population in other part of the Sudan feeling distant from the war on other areas in the country. The starting point was the ethnic cleansing in South Sudan (then an integral part of the republic of Sudan) – religion and race were used by GoS to fuel the war. The war spread to Darfur where genocide, crimes against the humanity and war crimes were the tools to “tame” the people of Sudan in the region. Race was used in this case as one of the tools to fuel the war. This has lead integration criminal court to indict Omar Bashir for the aforementioned crimes (on 4th March 2009), the only sitting president to be indicted by the ICC (ref. 3). The same scenario followed in Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile State.
Other parameters that lead to the demos is poverty, the failing health system in the country, education, corruption and above all the harassment and oppression practiced regularly by the government and its followers on the people of Sudan.
All of the above has lead some of the people of Sudan to flee out of the country seeking safe refuge across the world by taking dangerous routes to reached safe shores away from dire security state.
For these reasons, Darfur Union in the UK, will held in an event on Saturday, 2nd March 2019, to commemorate the 10th anniversary of Bashir Indictment by ICC; to keep the issue of Sudan in Darfur alive as this date represent means of preliminary victory of missing justice for the victims of Genocide, War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity. Bashir government has no place in Sudan and if he stay alive the hope is to see him on trial at The Hague among his cronies to get the same fate as Radovan Karadzic, aka the Butcher of Bosnia (ref. 4), so that justice can be prevailed.
Osama Mahmoud
Head of Comms.
Press Office – Darfur Union in the UK
Website: https://darfurunionuk.wordpress.com
Email: [email protected]
Twitter handle: @darfurunionuk
Ref 1: https://www.hrw.org/news/2015/02/11/sudan-mass-rape-army-darfur
Ref. 2:
http://genocidewatch.net/2016/04/04/darfur-continuing-mass-rape-of-girls/
Ref 3:
https://www.icc-cpi.int/darfur/albashir/Documents/AlBashirEng.pdf
Ref. 4:
A copy of this report will be sent to:-
1) Head of Office, UNESCO Office in Khartoum
2) HRW – UK Office
3) Amnesty International
4) The Sudans department, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, UK
5) United Nation, UNAMID Central Press Office, Khartoum
6) The Sudans Desk, US State Department
7) Sister Organisations in the Sudan and Abroad
8) Al-Khatim Adlan Centre for Enlightenment & Human Develop