The 18-month civil war in Africa’s third-largest country has left tens of thousands dead and millions displaced amid devastating hunger and rampant disease. Sudan’s dire crisis is now one of the world’s worst, but as the world’s attention continues to focus on the Middle East conflict, the African country appears to be being forgotten.
A new 80-page report by the United Nations Independent International Fact-Finding Mission in Sudan adds to the bleak picture. The report reveals how paramilitary groups prey on women. The fact-finding mission accuses both the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the military’s former paramilitary ally, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), of rampant sexual violence.
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A UN report documents endemic sexual violence and human rights abuses in Sudan, affecting civilians between the ages of eight and 75. It details how Sudanese women and girls are abducted into sex slavery and accuses the RSF of being involved in the “vast majority” of cases. . Additionally, the mission reported credible accounts of men and boys being victims of rape and gang rape.
Sudanese refugees gather at Zamzam refugee camp on the outskirts of El Fasir town in Sudan’s Darfur region during a visit by United Nations officials on July 1, 2004. The United Nations Humanitarian Aid and Refugee Agency made the following appeal on Wednesday, February 7: 2024: 4.1 billion in international aid to beleaguered civilians in Sudan as nearly a year of war continues between the armies of rival generals and some people may starve to death. pay dollars. (AP Photo/Karel Prinsloo, File)
The situation is further exacerbated by a severe shortage of health services. The conflict has destroyed most hospitals and clinics, leaving victims without access to much-needed medical care.
“The scale of sexual violence we have recorded in Sudan is alarming,” Ottoman Mission Chairman Mohamed Chande said in a statement. The situation in Sudan is “very worrying and requires urgent action,” he added.
Human rights groups are also sounding the alarm about the abuses women are suffering. Advocates report that sexual brutality prompts women to end their lives, either in response to the brutality they have endured or to escape it altogether.
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Sudan’s brutal war erupted in April 2023 after a smoldering power struggle between the SAF and the powerful paramilitary RSF group erupted into all-out war. Most recently, more than 100 people have been killed in violent clashes in central-eastern Sudan. The United Nations said the RSF had shot civilians, sexually abused women and girls, and looted property.
South Sudanese who fled Sudan sit outside a nutrition clinic at a transit center in Renku, South Sudan, on May 16, 2023. (AP Photo/Sam Mednick, File)
“The Sudanese people are living in a nightmare of violence,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres told the Security Council earlier this week. “Suffering is increasing day by day, with approximately 25 million people currently in need of humanitarian assistance,” he said.
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Foreign aid remains insubstantial as Sudan approaches collapse. Only about half of the United Nations’ $2.7 billion humanitarian appeal to the northeast African country has been funded. But despite the country facing the world’s worst famine in 40 years, it remains forgotten in the shadow of conflict in the Middle East.
