“They Were Hunted Like Animals”: Survivors Give New Details of Systematic Sexual Violence by RSF Against Women Fleeing El Fasher
By: Juba Global News Network
Published: December 8, 2025
EL FASHER – DARFUR – Over the last three days, doctors and survivors who’ve made it to the relative safety of al-Dabba in Northern State have started to share the most detailed accounts so far of what really seems like a coordinated campaign of sexual violence by Rapid Support Forces (RSF) fighters against women and girls escaping the besieged city of El Fasher in North Darfur.
On December 7, 2025, the Sudan Doctors Network (SDN)—an independent medical group—released a grim statement. They documented at least 19 confirmed cases of rape and gang rape that occurred between December 2 and 5, all along the El Fasher–al-Dabba escape corridor. Among those attacked: two pregnant women (one eight months along), and girls as young as 13. Medical staff are worried these numbers barely scratch the surface, since so many survivors are still too traumatized to speak out—or they didn’t survive the journey due to wounds, dehydration, or miscarriage.
A Corridor of Terror
The 380-kilometre stretch from El Fasher to al-Dabba is now basically the last viable escape route for the tens of thousands trying to get out, ever since the RSF locked down the city with their final offensive back in late October. Both satellite images and what people have told us point to RSF forces setting up at least seven mobile checkpoints between the Zamzam displacement camp and the village of Um Sidr, about 120 km northeast of El Fasher.
SDN clinicians collecting testimonies in al-Dabba and Kabkabiya keep hearing the same things:
- Women and girls traveling without any male relatives got separated from the main groups, almost as a rule.
- RSF fighters hurled racial insults, calling non-Arab (mostly Masalit, Zaghawa, and Fur) women “wives of the janjaweed’s enemies” or “supporters of the SAF.”
- Victims were dragged to wadis or deserted buildings, raped by one or more attackers—and, in several instances, beaten with rifles or stabbed when they tried to fight back.
- Survivors were often stripped of all cash, phones, even their shoes, before being let go or just abandoned.
A 28-year-old teacher from Zamzam camp, who asked to stay anonymous, told SDN doctors: “They stopped our donkey cart at dusk. Nine fighters. They said, ‘You are Nuba, you’re with the army.’ They took my sister and me behind some rocks. I was eight months pregnant. They raped both of us. When I screamed, one smashed my stomach with his gun. I started bleeding right away. My baby hasn’t moved since then.” She lost the baby two days later, hiding in the desert.
Medical Confirmation and Forensic Evidence
At al-Dabba General Hospital—the only hospital still admitting El Fasher evacuees—gynecologists have documented:
- Severe vaginal and anal tears needing surgical repair in 11 patients
- Multiple cases of pelvic fractures
- Evidence of strangulation and bite wounds
- Two positive pregnancy tests in minors, just 13 and 15 years old
Dr. Niemat Abdullah Koko, who heads the hospital’s emergency obstetric unit, told Juba Global News Network: “We’re treating these cases as war crimes. The pattern is exactly what we saw in Geneina in 2023, and then again in Nyala last year. This isn’t just random violence—it’s being used as a weapon, to terrorize, humiliate, and drive out whole communities.”
The hospital has run out of both post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) kits for HIV and emergency contraception. Only three out of the 19 documented survivors got PEP during the critical 72-hour window.
RSF Denial and Counter-Accusations
Late Sunday, the RSF Political and Media Office posted a statement on its official Telegram, flatly denying the allegations and calling them “fabricated propaganda orchestrated by remnants of the old regime and Zionist-influenced media.” They insisted RSF fighters had actually “rescued” hundreds of women from SAF airstrikes and blamed “Janjaweed militias disguised in RSF uniforms” for the assaults. However, monitors on the ground say those checkpoints were manned by fighters in standard RSF camouflage, using the usual white Toyota technicals clearly marked with RSF insignia.
Historical Pattern, New Intensity
Sexual violence has been a tactic of both RSF and its forerunner, the Janjaweed militias, dating all the way back to the Darfur genocide of 2003–2004. UN Security Council resolutions and ICC reports have cited mass rape as a weapon of war time and again. What’s different now, according to human-rights advocates, is how systematically it’s being used to target women trying to escape from RSF-controlled or contested areas. An upcoming Amnesty International report (a draft of which this reporter has seen) calls this “punitive rape”—meant to scare civilians from fleeing and to show total control over seized territory.
International Response – Still Muted
On Sunday, the UN Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, Alice Wairimu Nderitu, put out a statement voicing “grave alarm” and calling for the UN Fact-Finding Mission on Sudan to get “immediate, unfettered access.” That mission, set up by the Human Rights Council in October 2023, has been kept out—neither the RSF nor the Port Sudan authorities are letting them in. The African Union, European Union, and the US Embassy in Khartoum all issued statements denouncing “all forms of sexual violence in conflict,” but stopped short of pointing fingers at any group.
A Silent Exodus Continues
Yet, despite everything, the exodus from El Fasher goes on. Local volunteers in al-Dabba say more than 4,000 new arrivals reached the town between December 5 and 7, many arriving on foot and in desperate condition. Community leaders are now warning women to travel only in large, armed groups or even try to disguise themselves as elderly to avoid being noticed.
For the survivors now trying to recover in crowded clinics and schoolrooms across Northern State, justice feels far away. A 16-year-old girl, after surgery in al-Dabba, whispered to a nurse: “I just wanted to live. That was my only crime.”
Juba Global News Network will keep reporting survivor testimony and medical evidence as it emerges. All names and details that could identify victims have been changed or left out, for their protection.
