Rights group reports mass rapes in Darfur

NAIROBI -- Sudanese Arab militiamen rape women and girls as young as 8 in the violent campaign intended to hurt, humiliate, and drive out black Africans from the troubled region of Darfur, a human rights organization said yesterday.

The Sudanese Janjaweed Arab militiamen sometimes torture and break women's limbs to prevent them from escaping during rape, abductions, and sexual slavery, Amnesty International said in its report, ''Sudan, Rape as a weapon of war in Darfur."

Thousands have been killed, and more than a million black Africans have fled their homes in the face of attacks by the government-backed Arab militiamen known as Janjaweed, or ''horsemen" in the local dialect.

The Janjaweed ''are happy when they rape. They sing when they rape, and they tell that we are just slaves and that they can do with us how they wish," a 37-year-old victim, identified only as A., says in the report.

Sudan on Saturday ordered that committees of women judges, police officers, and legal consultants investigate rape accusations and help victims through criminal cases in the Iraq-sized Darfur region.

The Arab militiamen routinely kill black African men in the western region and target women and girls for sexual violence, Amnesty International said, citing hundreds of interviews human rights workers conducted in camps sheltering people who fled the atrocities in Darfur.

''In many cases the Janjaweed have raped women in public, in the open air, in front of their husbands, relatives or the wider community," the group said.

Women in Darfur who have undergone female genital mutilation are at an even greater risk of injury and face higher risks of infection by HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, the rights group said.

Darfur's troubles stem from long-standing tensions between nomadic Arab tribes and their African farming neighbors over dwindling water and agricultural land. Those tensions exploded into violence in February 2003 when two African rebel groups took up arms over what they regard as unjust treatment by the government in their struggle with Arab countrymen.

The United Nations estimates up to 30,000 people have been killed in Darfur, but some analysts put the figure much higher. The death toll could surge to more than 350,000 if aid doesn't reach more than 2 million people soon, the US Agency for International Development has warned.

Meanwhile, a Sudanese court has sentenced 10 Arab militiamen to amputation and six years in jail in the first conviction of Janjaweed fighters for looting and killing in the Darfur region, Reuters reported.