LONDON—Sex attacks on displaced women collecting firewood in Sudan's war-torn Darfur region have surged to 200 a month from just a handful as security deteriorates, an international aid agency said on Wednesday.
Darfuri women are forced to walk several miles into isolated bush from their camp confines to search for fuel, and a peace deal agreed in May between the Khartoum government and a Darfur rebel group has done little to bring security for them.
The International Rescue Committee (IRC) documented more than 200 attacks on the women in the past five weeks outside the largest camp for displaced people in Darfur, where a three-year conflict has forced about 2.5 million people from their homes.
"This is a massive spike in figures," Kurt Tjossem, the IRC's deputy chief for East Africa, said in a statement. "We are used to two to four incidents of sexual assault per month in Kalma camp."
The IRC figures come as African Union troops, who in the past have given women nominal protection through "firewood patrols", prepare to pull out from the region when their peacekeeping mandate expires at the end of September.
The IRC said firewood patrols used to be a regular part of the AU's mission in Darfur, occurring three times a week at Kalma alone. But since April, patrols have been drastically scaled down due to under-funding.
Other rebel factions refused to sign the May peace deal and new factions have formed, sparking an increase in violence that aid agencies say has uprooted tens of thousands of people in the past few weeks.
"We ... have chosen to risk being raped rather than let the men risk being killed," the IRC quotes one woman as saying in a statement.
The IRC said it did not know who was responsible for the attacks.
On top of the sex attacks, another 200 women and girls say they have been attacked in other ways in the past five weeks, including being beaten, punched and kicked by assailants who lie in wait just a few miles outside Kalma camp.
"These women are demanding and deserve better protection," the IRC's gender violence adviser, Heidi Lehman, said in a statement.
The Darfur conflict erupted in February 2003, when non-Arab rebels took up arms against the government, saying the region was being marginalised. In response, the government mobilised Arab militias, known as Janjaweed, who have been accused of murder, rape and looting.
Rebel factions have also been accused of banditry and atrocities against civilians.
The African Union has agreed to hand over to a U.N. civilian protection force when its mandate runs out, but Khartoum has so far rejected the idea of U.N. peacekeepers, and it is unclear what will happen then.
Britain and the United States have introduced a U.N. Security Council resolution that would field up to 17,000 troops and 3,000 police in Darfur.
Feeds