UNICEF cited “data compiled by gender-based violence service providers in Sudan” that showed 221 rape cases against children have been documented since the beginning of 2024. Of those, 147 were girls, meaning 33 percent of rape victims were boys. Sixteen of the survivors were under five years of age and four of them were only one year old.
“These figures represent only a small fraction of total cases. Survivors and their families are often unwilling or unable to come forward due to challenges accessing services and frontline workers, fear of the stigma they could face, the fear of rejection from their family or community, the fear of retribution from armed groups or fear of confidentiality breaches,” the report noted.
UNICEF said the fear of sexual violence is “pushing women and girls to leave their homes and families and flee to other cities where they often end up in informal displacement sites or communities with scarce resources.” Those displacement sites are, in turn, rife with sexual assault against both adults and children.
“Children as young as one being raped by armed men should shock anyone to their core and compel immediate action,” said UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell.
“Millions of children in Sudan are at risk of rape and other forms of sexual violence, which is being used as a tactic of war. This is an abhorrent violation of international law and could constitute a war crime. It must stop,” Russell said.
“The parties to the conflict, and those with influence on them, must make every effort to put an end to these grave violations against children. These scars of war are immeasurable and long-lasting,” she warned.
UNICEF called on the government of Sudan and “all parties” to respect their obligations under human rights law and stop using sexual violence as a “tactic of war,” which would imply that both sides to the brutal Sudanese civil war are guilty of offenses.
Another UNICEF press release denounced sexual violence in Sudan as a “war crime.”
UNICEF’s full report on sexual violence in Sudan noted that the war has displaced 11 million people and “tens of thousands have reportedly been killed,” not only by violence but by outbreaks of famine and disease.
The report argued that fully 25 percent of the Sudanese population should now be considered at risk of “gender-based violence,” which includes, but is not limited to, sexual assault and rape.
Some of the victims who spoke with U.N. investigators said they were forced to exchange sexual favors for food, supplies, or protection from mortal danger. Others said they were trafficked beyond Sudan’s borders for sexual exploitation.
The report was somewhat elusive about which groups of “armed men” perpetrated each of the documented assaults, possibly because the victims were afraid to identify their assailants. The report never directly mentions either of the warring parties by name: the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) under the command of Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the nominal head of Sudan’s junta government, and the Rapid Support Forces under the control of Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo.
Burhan and Dagalo were originally partners in overthrowing the elected government of Sudan in 2021, but a power struggle between them erupted into a vicious civil war in April 2023. Both sides have been accused of abusing civilians.
“Other UN investigations have blamed the majority of rapes on the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), saying RSF fighters had a pattern of using sexual violence to terrorise civilians and suppress opposition to their advances,” the BBC noted on Tuesday.
“According to evidence presented by international human rights groups, victims in the RSF’s stronghold of Darfur were often targeted because they were black African rather than Arab, apparently with the aim of driving them out of Sudan,” the BBC reported.
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