"We were so afraid of being moved there. I have been beaten twice for refusing to leave," Zenab Abdulla Rahaman, 26, said as she sat staring numbly at the floor inside the clinic run by the International Medical Corps, an American aid group.
Rahaman said that she was beaten by police during the two previous raids and that early Wednesday she was sleeping in the camp mosque with nearly a hundred other people when she was dragged away by a police officer and raped in a nearby field. A nurse at the clinic taped bandages over cuts around her thighs.
A worker for the International Medical Corps checks on 2-month-old Sabri Hamad Mahmoud, held by his mother, Khadija Dahiwa Tagal, at the clinic in the new al-Jeer Sureaf camp.
(Jahi Chikwendiu -- The Washington Post)
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_____Crisis in Sudan_____
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Q&A: Darfur A brief explanation of the issues and current humanitarian situation in Western Sudan.
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Photos: Sudan's Rebels
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Sudan, Rebels Reach Accord On Darfur (The Washington Post, Nov 10, 2004)
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Sudanese Rape Victims Find Justice Blind to Plight (The Washington Post, Nov 8, 2004)
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Darfur Increasingly Unstable, U.N. Envoy Warns (The Washington Post, Nov 5, 2004)
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Sudanese Troops Attack and Destroy Camp in Darfur (The Washington Post, Nov 4, 2004)
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3,200 Peacekeepers Pledged on Mission to Darfur (The Washington Post, Oct 21, 2004)
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A stream of other patients arrived to seek treatment for spinal injuries, cuts and bruises from beatings. Several mothers said their children had become lost in the violence and confusion. One woman, Khadija Dahiwa Tagal, said two of her six children had run away to hide and had not returned.
Witnesses said the police arrived about midnight but caused little trouble until dawn, when they started moving aggressively through the camp. Some residents said the police were accompanied by Janjaweed militiamen, but it was not clear what role, if any, the fighters played in the events.
On Wednesday morning, aid workers entered the camp in U.N. trucks and kept vigil all day, saying they were there to ensure that more residents would not be attacked. One nurse said she would sleep in the clinic overnight.
All day, groups of police roamed the fields and gathered inside the mosque. They also kept guard over the water supply in case residents tried to rebuild their shelters. Some gestured angrily with their sticks at stragglers who tried to salvage belongings from their crushed shelters.
The residents of al-Jeer Sureaf are among about 1.5 million Africans who live in squalid tent cities across Darfur after being driven from their farms by the fighting, which broke out in February 2003 when African tribes rebelled against the Arab-led government.
In retaliation, the United Nations has said, the government has bombed villages and armed the Janjaweed militias, while tens of thousands of people have died from hunger, disease and violence; the Bush administration has described the crisis as genocide.
Staff writer Glenn Kessler in Washington contributed to this report.
