Paramilitary forces in Sudan have systematically subjected women and girls to sexual slavery and gang rape as part of their ongoing war strategy, Amnesty International said in a damning new report released on Thursday.
The report, titled “They Raped All of Us”, accuses the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) of using sexual violence as a tool to dominate, terrorise, and forcibly displace civilians in areas under their control. The RSF has been locked in a brutal conflict with the Sudanese army since 15 April 2023, a war that the United Nations now ranks among the worst humanitarian crises globally.
Although the army managed to reclaim the capital, Khartoum, in March, much of the country remains effectively split, with the RSF retaining control over large swathes of territory.
“Sexual violence is being deployed by the RSF to humiliate communities, assert dominance, and drive people from their homes,” Amnesty stated. The organisation’s senior director for regional human rights impact, Deprose Muchena, condemned the abuse as “shameful and cowardly,” adding that any nation providing weapons or support to the RSF must bear responsibility for their actions.
The 30-page report draws on the harrowing accounts of around 30 survivors, some of them children, as well as their family members. It focuses on abuses committed between the outbreak of the conflict and October 2024 across four Sudanese states, including Khartoum and the Darfur region.
Both the RSF and Sudan’s regular army face US sanctions and are under international scrutiny for alleged war crimes.
Since the outbreak of the conflict, the RSF has been repeatedly accused of looting, forcibly occupying civilian homes, and engaging in widespread sexual violence. Tens of thousands have been killed in the war, while an estimated 12 million people have been displaced, according to the United Nations.
Among the most disturbing testimonies is that of a 34-year-old mother of five, who said she was abducted from her home by seven men in RSF uniforms in May 2023. She was taken to a house where three other women were already being held.
“I was detained in that house for 30 days where they kept raping me almost every day,” she recalled. “They released me when I became very sick. They also kept raping the other women. I know because I heard them cry every day.”
Another woman, aged 27, was separated from her husband at a checkpoint and detained inside a shop where she endured repeated sexual assaults for four days. “They raped my wife for more than four consecutive days,” her husband said. “I could hear her scream, but I was helpless. They detained me in another shop.”
The report reveals that many victims were targeted because they were suspected of supporting the army. Women working as medics were also raped as punishment for being unable to save wounded RSF fighters.
These findings echo a UN fact-finding mission’s report from October, which accused the RSF of being responsible for the vast majority of sexual violence cases in the war. The UN documented instances of rape, gang-rape, sexual exploitation, abduction, forced marriage, and even trafficking for sexual purposes across borders.
The RSF has denied the allegations, dismissing them as propaganda.
