Darfur Bar Ass report on June 3 Khartoum rape cases damns Sudan junta

A Truth and Fact-finding Committee set up by the Darfur Bar Association (DBA) to look into rape cases during the violent dismantling of the sit-in in front of the army command in Khartoum on June 3, which left more than 100 people dead and hundreds more wounded, has reported that it has “ample evidence” that the ruling Transitional Military Council (TMC) is responsible for the abuses and massacre.

The Committee said in a report on Tuesday that eight young women who were raped are receiving psychological treatment. One rape victim in Omdurman committed suicide as a result of the grievous trauma.

The DBA said in its report that a university student who was raped has been forced to search for another home in Khartoum with her mother and her brother due to the social stigma.

‘TMC responsible’

The committee established by the DBA said it “gathered ample evidence of the responsibility of the Transitional Military Council (TMC) which has already been confirmed by junta spokesman Lt Gen Shamseldin Kabbashi in authenticated statements”.

The decision to disband the sit-in was taken at a meeting in which all members of the TMC, the Attorney-General, police chiefs and security directors participated.

The committee confirmed at the end of its report that the commission of inquiry formed by the Attorney General to investigate the events of the sit-in was invalid in form and subject. The DBA pointed that the committee was formed in a manner that does not meet the conditions of professionalism, independence, and impartiality.

The he committee also heard in its investigation the testimony of a few militiamen who fled from the eighth detachment of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF)  and concluded that 1,047 of the detachment has been brought from South Darfur to be sent to the war in Yemen after Ramadan.

The association noted in this regard that elements of the detachment mentioned were used in the rally at the Green Square organised and led by Abdelhay Yousef and others.

Russian instructors

The DBA also noted that the elements of this detachment were trained by Russian instructors for a period of two weeks in the area of El Salha in southern Omdurman and that the elements moved to the sit-in on the morning of the sit-in wearing police uniforms and equipped with sticks, whips, and shields and were not armed.

The committee added in its report that, however, no information or reference to this group, its role and responsibility has been mentioned in the report of the Attorney General’s Committee, despite the arrest of its members since June 9, 2019, according to the testimony of those who escaped and were in detention during the investigation as stated by Salaheldin Abdelkhalig in press statements published and documented in the media and local newspapers issued on June 14.

The Attorney General’s Committee did not indicate to the number of protestors who were present in the sit-in nor did it indicate to the number of soldiers who participated in the dismantling of the sit-in, as there were more than 3,000 soldiers, in addition to those in the entrances and exits leading to the sit-in centre more than the number mentioned, to find out the number of protestors who were present in the sit-in area and the number of soldiers who began to break the sit-in, and to determine the area of sit-in in front of the command and the area annexed thereto, which was called Colombia sit-in.

The DBA committee started its work by collecting evidence and hearing witnesses who were present at the sit-in, hearing in this regard more than two hundred people directly affected by the violations committed,. Committee members visited the home of more than twenty victims, listened to more than 300 families of the victims, reaching a total of more than 5,000 people who have a direct or indirect relationship with the events of the sit-in, and visited the sit-in more than once.

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