Darfur: About 500 women in Darfur have been treated for rape in recent months and most said their attackers were militiamen or soldiers, according to an aid agency report yesterday.
But the number of rape victims is probably higher, as many are afraid to report the crime for fear of stigmatisation and mistreatment, said the study prepared by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).
UN aid chief Jan Egeland said he fully supported the report, which he said included some of the first documented medical evidence of the widespread abuses against women in the arid region in western Sudan.
The government cannot continue to allow impunity for these crimes and the guilty must be brought to justice, he said. "The problem is acute - it's wide ranging. Sudan never had this kind of systematic rape before," said Mr Egeland.
"Now Sudan has the same problem that we see in many other African and other conflicts and the Sudanese government has to face up to this," he said.
The government in the predominantly Muslim country has accused media and aid groups of exaggerating the extent of rape during a more than two-year-old rebellion in Darfur.
The MSF study said more than 80 per cent of the victims reported that their attackers were militiamen or soldiers. It did not specify whether the militiamen included rebel factions.
Darfur rebels say Arab militias that the government armed to help put down their uprising have conducted a campaign of village-burning and rape. The government denies links with the militia, known as Janjaweed. - (Reuters)