20110225
reuters

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Safiya Eshaq said she was kidnapped in Khartoum by plainclothed security men, beaten, gang raped and left in the street to limp to safety for her part in anti-government protests.

A source in Sudan's security apparatus denied its forces had anything to do with the attack alleged by Eshaq, who says she fled the capital in fear for her and her family's lives for broaching a taboo subject in the conservative Muslim society.

"Two men told me to stop on the street -- I tried to run away but they grabbed me and covered my mouth with their hands and took me away in their car," she told Reuters in a telephone interview on Thursday from Juba, the capital of south Sudan which will become an independent nation in July.

"They were asking me if I was distributing leaflets, if I was in the Communist party and if I was at the January 30 protests," she said, adding they were beating her all over her body with their boots and fists.

She said she passed out from the pain of the beating and awoke to find one of the men on top of her, raping her while the other two held her down. "They all took their turn," she said.

Eshaq, a supporter of the anti-government activist group Girifna, said the attack happened on February 13 while she was on her way to a shop.

PROTESTERS STILL DETAINED

Inspired by an uprising in neighbouring Egypt, Sudanese youth called for anti-government protests which were violently dispersed by security forces starting on January 30. The movement failed to take on mass appeal and dozens of activists remain detained without charge.