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Amnesty Decries Widespread Rape in Darfur
Arab militias in Sudan are gang-raping and abducting girls as young as eight and women as old as 80, systematically killing, torturing, or using them as sex slaves, an Amnesty International report said yesterday. Militias known as Janjawid, which rights groups say are backed by the government, have been fighting rebels in Sudan's western Darfur region since last year, triggering one of the world's worst humanitarian crises. "When we tried to escape they shot more children," one woman identified only as A. told Amnesty researchers. "They raped women, I saw many cases of Janjawid raping women and girls. They are happy when they rape. They sing when they rape and they tell us that we are just slaves and that they can do with us how they wish." As many as 30,000 people have been killed in Darfur and more than a million displaced, their homes bombed by government planes, their crops stolen. In a report called "Rape as a Weapon of War", Amnesty outlines sexual violence against women it says is happening on a massive scale. It says Khartoum is actively violating its legal obligations to protect civilians. "Soldiers of the Sudan government army are present during attacks by the Janjawid and when rapes are committed, but the Sudan government has done nothing so far to stop them," Amnesty researcher Benedicte Goderiaux told a news conference.Posted by: Fred 2004-07-20 |
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