Hommam Al Nassim 
The Horn of Africa Women’s Network (scream) has accused the parties to the conflict in Sudan of committing violations against women, including sexual slavery, forced abduction and enslavement.
The network said the violations took place in South Kordofan and the Nuba Mountains region, accusing the Rapid Support Forces of repeating those events.
Hala al-Karib, regional director of the “Sayha” network, revealed the phenomenon of girls being abducted from farmers’ communities and forcibly married by the Rapid Support Forces, and then hiding them from their families.
Al-Karib considered that abduction and sexual assault have been part of rapid support strategies for nearly 20 years, noting that Sudanese women are paying a heavy price as a result of the complicity of both parties to the conflict and their disregard for the importance of protecting women.
The human rights network reported in a report dated March 22, 2024, that the Rapid Support Forces attacked the locality of Habila in South Kordofan at the end of last December, killing a number of citizens, children, and women, and burning the villages of Faio and Zalatia completely.
The report added that these events caused the displacement of approximately 8,949 people, and the number of missing people reached 52.
The report indicated that on the ninth of February 2024, the Rapid Support Forces attacked villages in the areas of movement and Zalataya, killing seven young men and kidnapping thirteen girls between the ages of 17 to 30.
The report pointed to the overall collapse of the health sector, the denial of women and girls access to reproductive and public health services, and the increasing suffering of women who have been subjected to crimes of sexual violence.
South Kordofan and the Nuba Mountains have been plagued by communications and internet outages since the first week of February, making it more difficult to document violations.
The report stressed that silence in the face of these violations and insistence on not demanding accountability for perpetrators will necessarily lead to the continuation of cycles of violence and further rupture of the social fabric.
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