The war in Sudan has exposed more than 12 million people to “pervasive” sexual violence that is being used to “terrify” the entire population, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
As the war nears the two-year mark, UNICEF executive director Catherine Russell told a UN Security Council meeting on Thursday that the number of women and girls – and increasingly, men and boys – at risk of rape and sexual assault had increased by 80 percent over the last year.
Referencing data analysed by UNICEF, Russell said that 221 cases of rape against children were reported in 2024 in nine states, with 16 of these cases involving children under the age of five and four involving babies under the age of one.
“The data only gives us a glimpse into what we know is a far larger, more devastating crisis,” said Russell. “Survivors and their families are often unwilling or unable to come forward due to challenges in accessing services, fear of social stigma, or the risk of retribution.”
Much of the meeting focused on the suffering of the 16 million children needing humanitarian assistance this year as a result of the continuing war between the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF).
Advertisement
The fighting erupted in April 2023 and has since killed tens of thousands, uprooted more than 12 million people and created the world’s biggest humanitarian crisis.
Russell cited more than 900 “grave violations” against children reported between June and December 2024, with victims killed or maimed in 80 percent of cases – mainly in the states of Khartoum, Al Jazirah and Darfur.
The meeting took place as the SAF accused the RSF of targeting civilians in the besieged North Darfur state capital of el-Fasher, killing five children under the age of six and wounding four women on Wednesday.
Fighting in el-Fasher has intensified in recent months, as the RSF tries to consolidate its hold on Darfur after army victories in central Sudan. The city is the only one of five state capitals in the vast Darfur region that is not under paramilitary control.
‘Hollow’
Christopher Lockyear, the secretary-general of Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres, or MSF), accused the warring sides of not only failing to protect citizens but also “actively compounding their suffering”.
“The war in Sudan is a war on people, a reality that grows more evident by the day,” Lockyear said.
Lockyear also criticised the UN Security Council’s repeated calls for a ceasefire as “hollow”.
“This council’s failure to translate its own demands into action feels like abandonment to violence and deprivation,” he said.
“Whilst statements are being made in this chamber, civilians remain unseen, unprotected, bombed, besieged, raped, displaced, deprived of food, of medical care, of dignity,” he added
Advertisement
The ongoing violence led MSF last month to suspend all activities in the famine-stricken Zamzam refugee camp, located near el-Fasher.
Sudan’s UN Ambassador, Al-Harith Idriss Al-Harith Mohamed, told the Security Council that the Sudanese government has a national plan for the protection of civilians and claimed Lockyear did not raise any issues with him in a previous private meeting.
Reporting from the UN in New York, Al Jazeera’s Gabriel Elizondo said diplomats in the Security Council frequently harked back to the Jeddah Declaration, an agreement committing to protect civilians that was signed by warring parties in 2023 under the mediation of the United States and Saudi Arabia.
“The Jeddah Declaration … is repeated by diplomats, particularly in the Security Council, over and over again as something that needs to be returned to,” he said. “Lockyear said that the international community needs to move beyond that and a new compact is needed for Sudan.”