Prosecutor for Crimes in Darfur denies Tabit mass rape

According to an investigation carried out by the Special Prosecutor for Crimes in Darfur, the “alleged mass rape” in Tabit, North Darfur, in late October last year, “never took place”.

Esameldin Abdelgader, the Sudanese Undersecretary of Justice, explained in his briefing of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva last week on the outcome of the inquiry, that women of 88 families in Tabit were questioned. They all denied to having been raped. Only four women said they had been sexually assaulted, but this happened in other parts of the region.

Human Rights Watch, in an elaborate report in February, stated that army troops raped at least 221 women and girls in a Tabit over 36 hours last October. It called upon the UN and the AU to take urgent steps to protect the civilians from other violations in Tabit.

‘Crime of the age’

In Khartoum, Dr Ihsan Figeiri, of the No to Women's Oppression Initiative, described the mass rape of women and girls of Tabit as “the crime of the age”, and accused the Khartoum regime of lying.

She told Radio Dabanga that the crimes against humanity committed by the Sudanese government have nothing to do with Islam, “despite their claims”. She pointed to the widespread violence women in Darfur, the Nuba Mountains, and the Blue Nile have to deal with, and called on the Sudanese women “to stand together to topple the regime”.

On Sunday, the Sudanese women will celebrate the International Women's Day under the slogan “No to rape, war, restrictions on freedoms, and the April elections, and yes to peace”. All the signatories of the Sudan Appeal, together with the No to Women's Oppression Initiative, will participate.

Dr Figeiri said that the women will announce their boycott of the upcoming polls, “that are expected to rigged as happened with those of 2010”.