Janjaweed and Government Troops Terrorize El-Fasher

March 21, 2007

EL-FASHER.  On March 20, 20007, a group consisting of Sudanese government troops and janjaweed militia went on a rampage of rape, robbery and beatings in the city of El-Fasher.  Witnesses reported that there were thirteen men in the raiding party: three government troops and ten janjaweed militia members.

In the late afternoon, the men entered a market in central El-Fasher and approached the tea stalls, where a 52-year-old woman and her teenage daughter were carrying loads of goods on their heads.  The men grabbed the women, forcing them to drop the items they were carrying, and dragged them into the uncompleted frame of a building under construction.  Two witnesses who reported the incident said they could hear the women screaming from inside.  The older woman pleaded with the men to leave her daughter alone, but the men raped both of them.  The men then took the women’s cellphones and goods, along with approximately 250,000 dinar, which is enough money for a week’s worth of shopping.

The victims were unable to walk after the attack.  They were forced to crawl together to the local police station.  They police, however, refused to give the women assistance and told them to leave.

Witnesses reported that the janjaweed members in the party spoke in a non-local dialect and wore clothes atypical of local janjaweed.  They referred to a cellphone as “al-kalama,” as opposed to the local word, “mahmul.”  They witnesses also said the janjaweed wore uniforms made of a camouflage khaki known as “bargette.”  These details align with recent reports that the Sudanese government is recruiting additional members for its proxy janjaweed militia from Chad and perhaps other areas outside of Sudan.

After raping the two women, the Sudanese military and janjaweed attackers proceeded to a tea stall, where they threatened the customers and forced them to leave.  They then raped the woman in charge of the stall and stole 1000 dinars.  Witnesses did not report the victim’s name, but they said she was 24 years old, and that her husband was away working in Libya.

A fourth woman was raped nearby, inside her vegetable stand.

Four additional witnesses reported that later that day, a group of men fitting the same description assaulted a vendor in El-Fasher’s main animal market.  The men dragged Abdel Rahman Abdallah Abdul-karim out of his produce store and beat him with the butts of their rifles.  Abdul-karim, age 30, is from the Mima tribe.  Witnesses said that he yelled to the men that they should kill him, because he would not give into them.  They beat him repeatedly and then looted his store, stealing more than 1,200,000 dinars.  They also took his cellphone, watch and eyeglasses, and destroyed the landline phone in the store.

The group then approached a man who was closing up his shop nearby, while he was talking on a cellphone.  The man demanded that they give him the phone, and he threw it to them and ran away.  Witnesses said that the man, age 36, is from the Fur tribe.  He did not come back on the following day to open up his shop. 

The same witnesses also reported that the group robbed another man of approximately 30,000 dinars.