SIHA demands an end to RSF siege of Tuti Island in Sudan capital

The Strategic Initiative for Women in the Horn of Africa (SIHA) Network urges the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) to immediately end the blockade of Tuti Island in the centre of Khartoum. The paramilitaries have tightened the siege following protests against the gang-rape of a girl on the island last month.

The Kampala-based women network said in an Urgent Call on its X account yesterday that the RSF “has been committing systematic sexual violence since the Sudan war began on April 15, 2023. This includes abduction, sexual slavery, and retaliatory attacks.”

The recent gang-rape of a girl on Tuti Island led to people protesting, and the militia responded with violence, putting the island in Khartoum under an even stricter siege than before.

“Residents are facing restricted movement and limited access to essential resources, which flagrantly violates international law and human rights principles.” The women network therefore calls on “African governments and the international community to address these atrocities”.

In a more elaborate report on its Arabic Facebook page yesterday, SIHA states that since April 15 last year, when the war between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the RSF broke out, many sexual violence crimes emerged, most of which have been related to the RSF in areas under their control. “These systematic crimes can be linked to the history of this militia and its behaviour in the Darfur region since 2003,” the network states.

SIHA documented 244 cases of sexual violence since the outbreak of the war, though the number must be much higher. In June last year, the Combating Violence Against Women Unit of the Sudanese Ministry of Social Affairs stated that the rapes recorded by the unit likely represented only two per cent of the total number of cases.

The network points to patterns of sexual abuse by the RSF, saying that “the basic composition of this militia includes a group of looters. Their primary goal and motives for storming villages and cities are to plunder public and private property and expel residents from their homes and lands in order to occupy them. The spoils mentality, which is a primary driver for this militia, drives them to kidnap women and girls.” Cases of girls being sold have been documented as well.

The RSF also kidnap their victims in exchange for a ransom, “or they keep them to use them in work related to sexual slavery and doing household chores for militia members”.

A third pattern is seen in areas controlled by the RSF. “After they storm a specific geographical area and loot everything that can be looted, and occupy homes and civilian objects, their presence becomes a reality and part of the lives of the residents. They target specific homes and rape girls and women for the purpose of revenge or humiliation, or as a means to impose authority.”

Tuti

SIHA considers the rape of a girl on Tuti Island in the second week of April as a repetition of these patterns. “They stormed the victim’s house and gang-raped her inside her home and in front of her family members after threatening her and putting a knife to her neck.”

They also opened fire on worshipers inside a mosque, who had gathered to denounce over the gang- rape. One person was killed, and seven others were injured.

“Since the outbreak of the war, Tuti Island has become completely closed and besieged, as the militia imposes strict and complex restrictions on residents that limit their freedom of movement and prevent them from leaving the island unless they obtain a reasoned permit from the militia leaders.

“As the siege lasted, the suffering of the residents of Tuti Island multiplied and took different forms, including depriving people of receiving humanitarian aid and health services, and forcing them to deal in all aspects of daily life and buy their basic needs from the members of the Rapid Support Militia,” practices that have also been reported from other parts of Khartoum state.

These practices, “closely linked to slavery”, are not a result of the current war. SIHA says. “The Janjaweed militias have practiced them comfortably for decades, enslaving entire communities in the villages and cities of Darfur under the Al Bashir regime and political Islam,” the report states.

“Many Sudanese militias have committed the same crimes in South Kordofan and southern Sudan” before the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in 2005 by the Sudanese government and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) under the leadership of the late John Garang.

“What the people of Tuti Island have suffered for an entire year represents a blatant violation of international human rights laws and regulations,” This is what made the SIHA Network sound the alarm.”