Report: Gezira under RSF Control – Overall Situation

These factors have made the invasion of Gezira by the RSF particularly damaging, as this invasion has exposed a large number of civilians to ongoing violence. At the same time, the placement and nature of Gezira, a non-militarized, agricultural state, has meant that civilians have been vulnerable to attacks and looting by the RSF. Information about the invasion of Gezira has been extremely limited—unlike in Khartoum, where grassroots resistance committees and emergency rooms have been able to report on ongoing abuses, rural towns in Gezira have had limited mechanisms for reporting due to the absence of grassroots organizations as well as extremely weak telecom networks. This report outlines a fraction of the human rights abuses and sexual violence that have occurred in Gezira over the past month. The sequence of accounts contained below were reported directly from victims/survivors or mainstream media reporting, with accounts triangulated by multiple posts on social media. The cases of sexual violence outlined below came from trusted women’s networks, who have struggled to maintain communication with survivors and have noted that at times they lose contact with survivors due to the ongoing violence and instability.

Crimes Against Civilians:

From the first hours of the RSF’s move into Gezira, it was evident that they were planning to besiege the region. While civilians attempted to sneak out of Gezira on foot, the RSF besieged the civilian population and intentionally obstructed civilians from leaving during that time, while simultaneously subjecting those on foot to blackmail, abuse, and physical violence, including killing, as can be seen in videos on social media. Despite the absence of combat from the SAF, the RSF initiated a violent campaign on the civilian population, which included looting, terrorizing tactics, and sexual violence. This demonstrates that civilians in the region experienced were not experiencing violence as collateral damage but rather they were the primary targets of the violence and numerous other human rights abuses. Torture and forced recruitment were often reported by those who managed to flee the region. Reporting from Wad Madani has indicated that the RSF has used the children’s courts as a recruitment location in order to enlist child soldiers. Villages and towns in Gezira have been reported in some cases to take up arms attempting to protect themselves from the RSF, further militarizing the situation and placing civilians at risk. Other villages and towns have struck deals with the RSF, some of which involve the recruitment of soldiers from the town or village in exchange for food and prevention of looting and violence at the hands of the soldiers. Several videos were released by the RSF themselves showing the harassment, terrorization, and assault of civilians, including elders and children. Many older women, children, and sick people were besieged in the villages and towns, and they had no means to leave.

The RSF’s campaign of violence in Gezira targeted state infrastructure and private property, while also launching aggressive campaigns against young men, who were seen as potential adversaries. Reports have indicated that groups of young men were shot dead on Sennar Road in Wad Madani as they attempted to leave the city. On the 9^th of January, the RSF killed Babkir Abu Khalif and injured other civilians while a large number of young men were kidnapped.

Meanwhile, the RSF looted homes, businesses, hospitals, schools, and government facilities. Following the this looting, the RSF has often destroyed the buildings themselves—this has been noted particularly for banks, as well as research institutions such as the Crops Lab, and gum arabic grain storage facilities. Private and public hospitals, health centres, and pharmacies have all been put out of service, with most of them looted. Hundreds of thousands of vehicles have been stolen.

The RSF targeted the University of Gezira, where the University of Gezira’s complexes, its property, and the property of the professors were looted. This included the systematic looting of the university’s administrative buildings, including the sites of academic affairs, student affairs, and all the relevant deanships. In addition, the university’s savings bank, its branches, the university farm, and the International Hall (Al-Razi) were robbed. On the 24th of December, citizens from Al Ekora village reported a massive looting campaign, where they lost everything: the goods in their shops, their vehicles, and their savings.

The resulting insecurity and lack of facilities had real human costs, with vulnerable populations forced to leave in the midst of all this. Gezira state was hosting hundreds of civilians from communities with special needs, including orphaned children, the elderly, and people with disabilities. Infants from Mygoma Orphanage were forced to evacuate again, leaving Wad Madani. According to media reports in Kassala, six children, most already suffering from poor health, died on the road, with many from the orphanage afflicted with Kwashiorkor disease (severe malnutrition associated with famine conditions).

All of this was accompanied by a pattern of mass violence against civilians. On December 18^th, at 2 pm, reports confirmed the killing of two medical staff at Rufa’a Town Hospital after the RSF invaded the city. One of the two who were murdered is Dr. Mohamed Yousef Al Hamary. On the 23^rd of December, witnesses confirmed that the RSF killed eight individuals from the village of Umm Dakarsi, a town in the Gezira region, when they objected to looting cars from inside the village. On Thursday, the 21^st of December, the RSF killed Abdu Moutal Fadul, an economist and professor at Gezira University, at his home in the Bannat Area. On the 26^th, Asma Awad Elsid, a woman teacher living in the Bannat Area, was killed by RSF inside her own home. According to the source, the killing happened when the RSF was looting her home. On the 21^st of December, a SIHA affiliate reported a woman’s body was found on the road in front of their home in the Bannat Neighbourhood in Wad Madani. On January 5^th, according to Rufa’a News, Lowyayi Awad Al Fadni, a 16-year-old boy, was shot dead by RSF soldiers in Rufa’a town for objecting to the soldiers entering his home. On Saturday, December 29^th, Dr. Ahmed Al-Siddiq Ahmed Al-Abbas Al-Bakhit was killed by the RSF after he was forced out of a van travelling out of Gezira. On January 1^st, three citizens were shot dead by the RSF inside the mosque in the Almedina Arab Area, located west of Wad Madani while they were performing their afternoon prayer. Seven other bodies of other civilian victims were found near the city market.

In addition to documented cases of killings, since December 15^th nine women were reported missing from the Gezira region on social media. Six of the missing women have since been found, while the whereabouts of the following three women remain unknown: Khadija Yousef Said from the Al Kamlin Locality Abbas Village, Somia Fadul from Madani AbHaraz Village, and Tarikat Al-Saiaa from Wad Madani Al Hay Al Sudani.

Civilians have also faced risks due to the ongoing activity of the SAF. While the SAF withdrew from Wad Madani and much of Gezira, effectively ceding the area to the RSF, they have undertaken bombing campaigns that have also placed civilians in danger. On January 5^th, the SAF launched aerial bombardments in Wad Madani, according to the resistance committee of Wad Mandani. They also noted that, although there are reports of injuries among civilians, it was challenging to reach the affected locations due to the dangerous security situation in the city as a result of the RSF’s occupation. On January 10^th, the SAF performed aerial bombardments in al Haj Abdallah town south of Gezira, killing ten civilians.

Sexual Violence:

The RSF’s presence in Gezira and the city of Wad Madani starting in December has exposed many to sexual violence. While reports from Gezira are still limited due to the poor network there and the spread of fear resulting from the mass atrocities being committed by the RSF in the region. These rapes were committed by the RSF, who also assaulted and robbed the targeted individuals.

In addition, we have received a number of other reports of sexual violence in Gezira over the past month. On December 19^th, the emergency room of Al Hasaheisa reported that they received six women who were sexually assaulted in Rufa’a Town by the RSF; a medical doctor in the area had also confirmed that he examined six women who had been sexually assaulted in the area. That same day, we received a report of a family from Wad Madani in the Al Zamalek Area whose home was invaded. The RSF attempted to kidnap two young women (ages 19 and 24); the father and 12-year-old-boy fought with the soldiers, and both were killed, and the two women were raped. The mother and daughter have managed to flee to a northern region of Sudan. On December 20^th, we received reports that a 19-year-old was found in the Wad Azrag Area and claimed to have been raped by the RSF; she was taken to stay in the home of a community member.

On the 21st of December, sources confirmed that the RSF robbed the home of Nahla Mohmed Osman in the Al Matar Neighbourhood of Wad Madani, while she and her mother, Haja Zeinab, were in the house. After the robbery, the RSF came back to the house and attempted to rape Nahla. Nahla used a hammer to try to fight the RSF soldiers off, at which point the RSF shot Nahla and her mother, leaving Nahla dead and Haja severely wounded. Nahla, who had been three months pregnant at the time of her death, was buried in front of her home like far too many other Sudanese people who have been murdered by the RSF and as a result of this ongoing war.

On the 22^nd of December, a medical doctor in Wad Madani said he was finding difficulties responding to the calls of women and girls who reported being raped in the Marinjan Area of Southeast Wad Madani because of the security situation and obstruction of movement by the RSF. That same day, reports that came from the Kassala Emergency Room confirmed the arrival of a woman from Khartoum who had been displaced to Wad Madani and had been raped before being further displaced to Kassala, having not received medical support. On the 24^th of December, reports were received that seven women had been raped in the Wad Madani Industrial Area; however, communication was not established with the survivors. That same day, a 22-year-old-woman reached one of Khartoum’s emergency rooms and reported being raped in Wad Madani. On the 26^th of December, we received reports that three women were raped in Al Daraga Neighbourhood in Wad Madani while they were attempting to leave; however, efforts to communicate with them to support their fleeing were not successful, and contact was lost. On December 26^th, SIHA received a report of one woman who was raped, and we were able to successfully help the survivor receive medical support.

On the 27^th of December, we documented 3 cases of sexual violence. These crimes occurred on the road to Khartoum while the women attempted to flee Wad Madani. On January 10^th, a young woman refugee reported being raped by the RSF next to the School of Agricultural Research Institute. 

Recommendations

We echo the recommendations that were shared by Sudanese civil society on December 24/2023 for international actors and friends of Sudan to:

Immediately implement a civilian protection framework which is gender-responsive and ensures unhindered access to community-led humanitarian aid for the people in Sudan whom this mass campaign of atrocities and violence has impacted. This framework should have actionable consequences if violated.

Immediately establish a cessation of hostility, monitored closely and overseen by ground forces and the establishment of civilian safe zones. This should be done while facilitating a broad-based and inclusive civilian-led conflict transformation process in which women are leading. 

Establish an international criminal tribunal (similar to the tribunal established to address the crimes of genocide in Rwanda) to address the war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the Sudan conflict. This tribunal is critical for building accountability mechanisms for future political processes and avoiding recycling violence.

Exert pressure on the RSF and their allies to stop the killing and the destruction of Sudan’s infrastructure. The SAF must be pressured to come to the table with a viable and serious political process that will enable civilians’ and women’s participation and guarantee that both RSF and SAF are not part of any ruling structures in Sudan.

Enhance support for adequate humanitarian aid for the civilians affected by the conflict by providing resources and programs to support communities of IDPs’ livelihoods and social well-being, along with mental health and psychosocial support services.

Implement the fact-finding mission by the UN Human Rights Council. This mission must be consolidated and supported by the formation of a Sudan fact-finding mission by the Security Council to examine the breaches and violations of the Security Council resolutions in Darfur and Sudan and specifically to investigate the massive sexual violence crimes committed across the country.

Stop illicit financial streams and political economies that enrich critical perpetrators of violence.