The UN mission says that girls and women aged 8 to 75 were sexually abused by Sudan’s RSF and its partners

A U.N. mission said Tuesday that during the more than 18-month conflict, Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and allies had perpetrated “staggering” levels of sexual assault, raping people as forces approach and kidnapping some women as sex slaves.

According to the U.N. fact-finding mission’s assessment, the majority of sexual abuse has been perpetrated by the RSF and affiliated Arab militia in an effort to intimidate and punish individuals for alleged ties to adversaries, and victims have varied in age from eight to seventy-five years.

In a statement released alongside an 80-page report based on interviews with victims, relatives, and witnesses, mission head Mohamed Chande Othman stated, “The sheer scale of sexual violence we have documented in Sudan is staggering.”

The findings supported rights organizations’ and Reuters’s research of the pervasive sexual abuse during the conflict.

A request for comment was not immediately answered by the RSF, which is engaged in combat with the army of Sudan. In the past, it has pledged to look into claims and prosecute those responsible.

The so-called Janjaweed militias, which assisted the military in quelling an uprising in Sudan’s western Darfur area twenty years ago, are the ancestors of the paramilitary RSF.

The RSF has taken over a significant portion of Sudan in the ongoing conflict, notably West Darfur, where it is said to have recruited Arab militias to carry out ethnic massacres against the Masalit people.

According to the U.N. mission, sexual assaults in some areas of West Darfur state frequently featured racial epithets directed at non-Arabs, suggesting ethnic targeting.

IMPREGNATION BY FORCEMENT

“We will make you, the Masalit girls, give birth to Arab children,” the article stated, citing a woman from El Geneina, West Darfur, who claimed that her rapist threatened her with a pistol.

In another instance, it stated that a West Darfur lady had been pregnant by her primary kidnapper following numerous rapes while being held hostage by RSF guards for more than eight months.

Four further cases included removing women from the street, beating and raping them, and then either releasing them or leaving them unconscious on the street. According to victims, the majority of perpetrators donned scarves to hide their faces or RSF uniforms.

The Sudanese army has been implicated in fewer incidences of sexual assault, according to the study, and further research is required. Additionally, it claimed to have reliable information that young soldiers had been enlisted by both sides of the conflict.

Major violations, including arbitrary arrests and torture, were discovered by the mission last month in both the army and RSF.

With thousands of people slain, over 11 million displaced, widespread famine, and international forces involved, Sudan’s war has produced one of the biggest humanitarian catastrophes in history, while being sidelined by the crises in Gaza and Ukraine.