Sudanese women raped in crackdown seek justice

SUDAN Dozens of women raped by Sudanese security forces over the course of a few hours on june 3, 2019, are still seeking justice, a year after a brutal crackdown that left at least 87 people dead. In a rampage that day, members of the notorious paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and other troops tore apart a sit-in camp in the capital, Khartoum, where protesters had been demanding for weeks that the military give up power. A militarybacked prosecutor said no rapes or sexual assaults took place during the violence. But over the past year, activists have been documenting what they say was a campaign of rapes ordered by the military’s leadership to crush the pro-democracy movement. “It was an orchestrated scenario... All was by order and systematic,” said Sulima Ishaq Sharif, who at the time headed a trauma centre at Khartoum’s Ahfad University.

Her centre documented at least 64 rape victims. The Sudan Doctors Union identified at least 60 rape victims, said Dr

Howida al-Hassan, a member of the union who counselled survivors. Both experts say the real number is considerably higher, since many victims do not speak out for fear of reprisal or the stigma connected to rape, and that many more women were sexually assaulted as well as several men. Identifying and prosecuting those behind the violence is a major test of whether Sudan can shed its decadeslong military rule.

(Aljazeera)