More than 200 women and schoolgirls were raped by Sudanese soldiers in northern Darfur on Friday, a local leader said, prompting an investigation.
Eighty of the victims are reportedly schoolgirls, and 105 are unmarried girls. The remaining victims are married women.
The people of Tabit — located about 65 kilometers south of El Fasher — were reportedly unable to take the wounded to neighboring towns for treatment.
The reports caused the U.N.-African Union peacekeeping mission to say it was "deeply concerned" and would investigate.
Here's part of UNAMID's statement:
The African Union-United Nations Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) is deeply concerned about the media reports of an alleged mass rape of 200 women and girls in Tabit, located 45 kilometers south-west of El Fasher, in North Darfur, and it is investigating the veracity of this information.
In doing so, UNAMID sent a verification patrol on 4 November to Tabit. However, the patrol was denied access at the outskirts of the town by Sudanese military at a checkpoint. Attempts to negotiate access to Tabit were unfruitful. The Mission leadership is calling on authorities of the Government of Sudan to grant UNAMID's unhindered access to all Darfur.
As part of the investigation, UNAMID's Human Rights officers have met with the Chief Prosecutor of North Darfur who stated that not a single complaint about any rape incident was received from Tabit.
A village elder said a commander and his soldiers, who are based at a garrison half a kilometer away from Tabit, had turned up on Friday morning, looking for a soldier who had gone missing on Thursday evening. They reportedly gave the villagers until sunset to find him.
We were caught by surprise when soldiers surrounded Tabit at 8 p.m. They beat the people with rifle butts and chased all of the men outside the village. Then they started to rape about 200 women and girls, which lasted from Friday evening until 4 a.m. on Saturday.They also prevented us from transferring the wounded to El Fasher city, the Unamid base, or to Shangil Tobaya.
The commander of the soldiers — who reportedly belonged to a military garrison south of El Fasher — admitted his men raped the women, and also accepted they had beaten and humiliated the men of the village, the elder later told Radio Dabanga.
He said the commander had returned to the town on Monday, accompanied by a lieutenant and two armed vehicles. He told Radio Dabanga: "The commander acknowledged that his forces 'committed a mistake' against Tabit. He explained that the soldier who went missing was found in Tawila locality."
The commander reportedly offered an apology, which the villagers refused to accept. The elder said that a number of families have now been able to move to a camp for displaced people.