RSF Arab Dominated Forces in Sudan and Sexual Slavery of Africans
RSF Arab Dominated Forces in Sudan and Sexual Slavery of Africans
Noriko Watanabe, Murad Makhmudov, and Kanako Mita
Modern Tokyo Times
The United Nations has accused the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and allied militias of committing grave atrocities against non-Arab populations in Darfur and South Kordofan throughout 2025—atrocities that have not abated in 2026.
In Darfur, the non-Arab Masalit, alongside other African ethnic communities, have been deliberately targeted. Likewise, in South Kordofan, the African Nuba people face parallel campaigns of persecution, dispossession, and terror – including sexual slavery.
Belkis Wille of Human Rights Watch laid bare the horror endured by survivors: “Survivors described being gang raped in front of their families or over prolonged periods of time, including while being held as sex slaves by RSF fighters.”
Wille further emphasized the systematic nature of the crimes: “This research highlights what we have been hearing for some time now about the magnitude of sexual violence in Sudan, with the RSF coming into homes and raping women and girls time and again.”
These crimes are not isolated excesses of war—they are weapons of terror, deployed to humiliate, destroy, and erase entire communities.
Darfur—seared into global consciousness by the Arab Muslim–led massacres of Black African groups such as the Fur, Masalit, and Zaghawa between 2003 and 2005—is once again consumed by ethnic bloodletting. Since the outbreak of the latest conflict, ethnic massacres have resumed, overwhelmingly directed at Black African civilians in both Darfur and South Kordofan. History is not merely repeating itself—it is being re-enacted with impunity.
The BBC reports: “Allegations of war crimes have persisted throughout the past two years, and in January 2025 the US determined that the RSF and allied militias had committed a genocide against the region’s non-Arab population.”
Lee Jay Walker, an analyst at Modern Tokyo Times, draws an unflinching historical parallel: “Slavery officially ended in the land of Mecca (modern-day Saudi Arabia) in the 1960s, following international pressure. However, much like how ISIS enslaved the Yazidis in Iraq, Arab Muslims in Sudan have also enslaved the Dinka and other African ethnic groups in more recent times. This indicates that the practice of Arab Muslim slavery has not been entirely eradicated and continues in certain parts of the Arab Muslim-dominated world—often accompanied by deep-rooted animosity toward Black African communities, as seen in the ongoing persecution in Darfur and South Kordofan.”
AP News underscores the broader collapse of the state: “Sudan plunged into civil war in April 2023 after simmering tensions between the army and its rival paramilitary RSF escalated to fighting in the capital Khartoum and spread across the country.”
The most harrowing testimony comes from Catherine Russell, Executive Director of UNICEF, who warns: “Children as young as one being raped by armed men should shock anyone to their core and compel immediate action… Millions of children in Sudan are at risk of rape and other forms of sexual violence, which is being used as a tactic of war…”
Drone strikes, assaults on humanitarian convoys, and the deliberate obstruction of aid further compound a crisis defined by deliberate cruelty and total impunity.
The people of Sudan—especially its most vulnerable African communities—are trapped in a relentless cycle of war, ethnic violence, and abandonment. Repeated calls for ceasefires echo into silence. Justice is deferred. Accountability remains absent.
Until decisive international action replaces hollow condemnation, Sudan’s suffering will continue to be measured not in statements—but in mass graves, shattered families, and stolen childhoods.
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