Roaming militias regularly attack those outside camps

Craig Timberg, Washington Post

Sunday, September 17, 2006

(09-17) 04:00 PDT Graida, Sudan -- The tall, light-skinned man reeking of sweat and cigarettes often gallops his horse right into the nightmares of Darelsalam Ahmed Eisa, 18. Each time, she said, he throws her to the ground, pushes up her skirt and forces himself inside her while muttering: "Abdah. Abdah. Abdah."

Slave woman. Slave woman. Slave woman.

He was in her dreams just Thursday night, she recalled, as real and horrifying in his green camouflage uniform as he was the day he raped her two months ago. But when Eisa awoke Friday morning, there was no time for terror, no time for tears. She covered herself in an orange and blue cloth, grabbed the family's ax and departed for the perilous Darfur countryside, out of the relative safety of a sprawling camp for people displaced by the violence in this region of western Sudan.

In the wilderness, Eisa can find grass for the donkeys and firewood for cooking. But it is also where government-backed militias known as the Janjaweed roam, terrorizing villagers. Violence and disease in Darfur have killed as many as 450,000 people since 2003, and an estimated 2 million have been forced to flee their homes.

The government and a rebel group reached a cease-fire agreement in May, but since then, rapes in and around camps for people displaced by the fighting have surged, aid groups and residents say. The International Rescue Committee has recorded more than 200 sexual assaults among residents of a single camp near Nyala, a town in South Darfur state, during a five-week period in July and August.

More and more often, women in Darfur face the starkest of choices: Risk being raped by leaving the camps in search of firewood and grass, or starve. If they invite their brothers or husbands along to protect them, the Janjaweed will still rape the women, they say, and kill the men.

...

After walking for about two hours, they had nearly reached the better grass when dozens of Janjaweed militiamen on horses and camels suddenly appeared, surrounding the young women.

Aziza tried to run but was caught within seconds and struck in the face. Eisa froze. Quickly and roughly, the men separated the two sisters and their friend, with a man taking each one to a secluded spot.

The tall, light-skinned man was riding a reddish-brown horse, Eisa said. He was clean-shaven and armed with a machine gun. "I will take you," the man told Eisa. "My wife needs a slave."

He then ordered Eisa to lie on her back, but she refused. She knew that if he raped her and the community learned of the attack, she would probably never be able to remarry.

Her defiance enraged the man. He aimed the gun at Eisa and shouted: "I will shoot you! I will shoot you!"

At that moment, a second Janjaweed man stepped in. "Don't waste a bullet on a woman!" he said. "Just throw her."

The tall man hurled Eisa to the dirt and crawled atop her.

A few minutes later, the rapes were over but not the ordeal. The Janjaweed tied the young women together at their wrists and beat them with their fists and the butts of their guns.

Then, the militiamen ordered the women to lead them to a place where they could find some animals to steal. If they found enough, the men said, they might free them.

Terrified, Eisa helped lead their captors to a place where people water their animals. But before they arrived, they came upon two men relaxing with their animals. One mounted his horse and rode off in a panic as the Janjaweed approached, leaving 40 cows behind for them to steal. The second man, having only a donkey, was unable to escape.

The Janjaweed shot him dead, Eisa said, and took his donkey.

And the reporting on this abomination?

 CNN?  Fox?  Reuters?  Amnesty International? Jessie Jackson?  Anyone?

SFGate.com via The Washington Post