Widespread gender-based and sexual violence in Sudan civil war sparks international concern – JURIST

Amnesty International released a report on Thursday detailing prevalent gender-based and sexual violence against women and girls in Sudan by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), indicating alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The report, titled “They Raped All of Us,” shared the story of 30 women and girls who were raped from April 15, 2023, to October 2024. Amnesty International stated that the RSF carried out sexual violence in towns and villages to humiliate, control, and punish the victims. Occurrences of sexual violence comprised of rape, gang rape, sexual exploitation, abduction and enforced disappearance, prostitution, forced marriage, and human trafficking. The report stated that the sexual violence occurred openly and during attacks on cities in Darfur and Greater Khartoum. Some survivors interviewed were as young as 15 and most reported physical and psychological trauma, stigma, and barriers to care or justice after sexual violence.
Amnesty International obtained the information from interviews, working closely with human rights investigators and service providers offering medical and psychological support and assistance to survivors and reviewing reports from the UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for Sudan, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), UNICEF and UN Women. The RSF rejected the accusations.
The number of women and girls at risk of gender-based violence, such as sexual violence, has reached over 12 million. UN Women wrote that cases of conflict-based violence are underreported but that there is evidence of its “systematic use as a weapon of war”. Women in Sudan additionally face limited access to food and clean water. The absence of adequate healthcare services has also led to an increase in maternal deaths and has hindered sexual and reproductive health.
The civil war in Sudan, which began in April 2023 and involves a struggle for power between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the RSF, is currently described by the UN as one of the largest instances of displacement and one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world. It has led to the fleeing and displacement of millions of people as well as mass killings, reports of ethnic cleansing, food shortages, limits to education, a collapse of healthcare and the economy, and the cutting back of humanitarian aid. In March, UNICEF reported 221 rapes against children, including a one-year-old, and Human Rights Watch (HRW) called for accountability for Sudan’s international crimes last month.