'My husband found five men on me. They killed him': Women describe horrific attacks as report finds thousands have been gang-raped and forced into sexual slavery in South Sudan

Thousands of women from South Sudan have told of horrific violence, sexual abuse and rape they have suffered during the country's brutal civil war. 

One woman recounted how she was gang-raped by five soldiers and when her husband tried to stop them, he was stabbed to death. 

Another woman recalled being blindfolded and stripped, then raped by three men as her baby lay nearby before fleeing naked.

The horrifying stories were reported by Al Jazeera^[1], which spoke to survivors and human rights groups about the atrocities.

One woman recalled: 'My husband was following a short distance behind us.

'When he came and found these men on me, he told them to stop. They grabbed him immediately and killed him with a knife.' 

The woman said five women, who she identified as government soldiers, were responsible for raping her and four other women. 

South Sudan gained independence from the rest of the country in 2011, but has been in a state of near-constant turmoil since.

Civil war broke out in 2013 when President Salva Kiir Mayardit fired his cabinet and accused Vice-President Riek Machar of trying to instigate a failed coup.

A peace pact was signed by both sides in 2015, but the country descended into chaos again the following year.

Human rights groups, including Amnesty International^[2], say troops from both sides have been responsible for the violence.

Some of the violence has been perpetrated along ethic lines, as President Mayardit belongs to the majority Dinka group, while Machar identifies with the second-largest Nuer group. Other times the atrocities are indiscriminate.

Previous reports by Amnesty detailed how women and men have faced 'shocking' levels of sexual violence, including rape, gang rape, sexual slavery, sexual mutilation, torture, castration, or forced nudity.

One woman, named only as Sara, told of how her 60-year-old mother was raped by three soldiers while out harvesting food for the family.

The attack was so severe that she suffered a dislocated hip, and was still recovering two months later when Amnesty spoke with her.

Sofia, a 29-year-old mother-of-three, told the human rights group how she was kidnapped from her village by soldiers who then kept her as a sex slave for a month along with five other women.

'At night, the rebels chose who to sleep with. I told them that I am a mother and a widow, and that my husband was shot dead, but they didn’t care,' she said.

Amnesty has accused both government forces and rebels of campaigns of rape and violence carried out as a part of a pre-meditated strategy.

But a spokesman for the government told Al Jazeera this was not true. 

Soldiers caught committing rape or sexual abuse are punished, he told the news site, though he rebutted the survivors' claims, saying they could be making it up.

References

1. ^{^} Al Jazeera (www.aljazeera.com)
2. ^{^} Amnesty International (www.amnesty.org)