Sudan FM: Women Group Report Confirms RSF violations

Port Sudan – Sudan Events

The Sudanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs underlined that it has reviewed the report issued by the Network of the Strategic Initiative for Women of the Horn of Africa (Sayha), a regional civil society organization, the day before yesterday, on the crimes of kidnapping women and girls by the rebel terrorist militia.
It indicated in a press statement on Thursday that the network counted one hundred and four cases of kidnapping and forced disappearance of women and young girls since the militia launched its war against the Sudanese state and people last April, and said that the militia’s invasion into new areas results in an increase in the number of kidnapped and forcibly disappeared women.
The Ministry stated that the kidnapped women are used as domestic workers to serve militia members forcibly and are exposed to the risks of sexual violence, noting that some of them are not more than thirteen years old. The kidnappings also take place after threatening the families, and are sometimes accompanied by the forced deportation of the families of the kidnapped women to hide the traces of the crime.
The Foreign Ministry considered that the network’s report supports what was stated in the statement issued last August 17 by thirty-two human rights experts and United Nations special rapporteurs on issues of protecting women and children and combating sexual violence, which alerted to the brutal and widespread use of rape, sexual violence, and forced labor against women by terrorist militia.
Experts said that the militias are detaining hundreds of women and subjecting them to sexual slavery.
The Ministry pointed out that the militia is recruiting child fighters, detaining several thousand civilians in various locations in the areas where it is deployed, and using them as human shields or forced labor in inhumane detention conditions.
The Ministry stressed that these practices are similar to what is known about terrorist groups, especially the Lord’s Army (LRA), Boko Haram, and ISIS, and require that the militia be treated by the international community and international and regional organizations in the same way as those terror groups, because their terrorist practices are no less than them.
The Ministry called on human rights organizations to shed light on the atrocities committed by the terrorist militia, especially against women, children, displaced persons, and vulnerable groups.
The Ministry expressed commended the decision of the Arab Lawyers Union to form a committee to investigate the crimes of the rebel militia.