Sexual violence committed by combatants in Sudan’s civil war is increasing as the fighting spreads and intensifies.
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) recently reported that 546 such incidents involving at least 838 victims have been documented since the war began in April 2023; all but 15 of the victims were women and girls. More than 25% of the incidents involved gang rape, including an instance in which one victim was raped by at least 10 attackers.
“Women and girls are being raped and killed in their homes, and as they flee, seek food, water and medical care,” Anna Mutavati, U.N. Women regional director for East and Southern Africa, said. “The use of sexual violence has been embedded in the blueprint of Sudan’s war.”
Since the fighting began, the number of people in need of medical and psychological support due to sexual violence has quadrupled, the OHCHR reported. Victims reported sexually transmitted infections in several cases, while some victims also suffered extensive injuries, including serious damage to reproductive organs, and shoulder and vertebrae fractures. Many victims could not access adequate medical care due to the fighting and a lack of functioning health facilities.
The U.N. reported that 30 women and 29 Sudanese girls became pregnant after being raped. Among them, 10 were subjected to sexual slavery or forced into marriage with armed fighters. Both the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) are accused of sexual attacks, but the majority of sexual assaults have been committed by the RSF, observers say.
Many of the attacks on women and girls were in displacement camps. Al-Tatouma Juma, a psychosocial support officer in Tawila, North Darfur State, works for a local organization offering services to women and girls. However, the group’s capacity “is simply not enough,” she told the U.N. Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women. Tawila is home to hundreds of thousands of displaced people, including women and girls who fled El Fasher, the North Darfur capital that fell to the RSF in October 2025.
“I have come across so many stories, not easy ones,” said Juma, a former El Fasher resident. “I witnessed the suffering of women and girls during the war. I know well the abuses they endured while caught in the crossfire.”
At least two women and one girl died following rapes committed during the RSF’s siege on El Fasher.
“Sexual violence appears to have been used to inflict terror among the community, and was often accompanied by forms of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment, such as flogging,” the U.N. reported.
After the fall of El Fasher, fighters targeted women and girls from ethnic Zaghawa communities due to perceived links to the SAF. Many ethnic Masalit victims from West Darfur also said attackers asked about their tribe before raping them. Sexual violence was also commonly committed during attacks on private homes. The U.N. documented sexual assaults in which family members trying to intercede were shot and killed, and that some attacks were committed in front of victims’ family members.
Mariam, a mother of two teenage girls, told the U.N. International Children’s Emergency Fund about her daughters being abducted from their home. She said she searched for them in vain for weeks and became sick with grief.
“Months later, one of my neighbors … told me that my daughters were fine, but armed men were raping them,” said Mariam, a pseudonym. “Not one person, not two people, and the girls are suffering greatly. My little daughter tried to commit suicide by cutting her wrists … they beat my older daughter so badly that she vomited blood. They wouldn’t feed them, and they would force them to work 24 hours a day, cleaning, ironing, and more.”
Since the war began, sexual attacks have resulted in the deaths of at least six girls, five women and two men, according to the U.N. The youngest deceased victim was 9. OHCHR Commissioner Volker Türk has characterized the use of sexual violence as a “weapon of war.”
“This is a war crime and, if committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack, a crime against humanity,” Türk said.