UN Says Female Refugees In Sudan Report Systematic Rape And Child Loss
JAKARTA - The woman who fled the city of Al-Fashir in Sudan reported the killing, systematic rape and disappearance of their children after the city was seized by paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the UN agency said to women on Tuesday.
The fall of Al-Fashir City on October 26 confirmed control of the RSF over the Darfur region in a 2.5-year war with Sudanese soldiers. People who fled the city reported civilians being shot on the street and attacked by drone strikes.
The woman who escaped from Al-Fashir said they had witnessed the murder, rape and disappearance of their children, a "terror that no one should have experienced," UN Regional Director for East and South Africa Anna Mutavati told reporters in Geneva via video link from Nairobi.
Sexual violence is widespread, he said.
"There is a lot of evidence to suggest that the rape was intentionally and systematically used as a weapons of war," he said.
"Women become TKPs in Sudan. There is no safe space left, there is no place for women to gather safely, seek protection, or even access the most basic psychosocial care," he added.
About 11 million women and girls face an acute food vulnerability in hunger-hit Darfur, and UN Women warns that they even face sexual violence while looking for food.
The field report from Darfur depicts women looking for leaves and wild berries to be boiled into soup.
"While doing this, they face additional risks of violence, including kidnapping and sexual violence and gender-based," said Mutavati.
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Previously, hunger was declared by global food monitors in al-Fashir and Kadugli, another trapped city in southern Sudan, this month.
Last week, UN Human Rights Chief Volker Turk said on Friday he was concerned that the city's brief executions, rape, and ethnically motivated violence would continue.
About 82,000 people have left al-Fashir and the surrounding area since October 26, according to the United Nations, while as many as 200,000 people may still be trapped inside the city, according to an estimated population ahead of the end of the 18-month siege.