Sudan: Inside the War That Targets Women’s Lives and Dignity.

Photo by consolersafari on pixabay.com

From the bombs that fell on city streets to the dusty roads of villages in Darfur and Kordofan, the war in Sudan has turned women’s bodies into battlegrounds. According to UN Women, there is mounting evidence that rape is being used “deliberately and systematically as a weapon of war.” In the besieged region of El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, women fleeing bombardment, hunger and displacement recount terrifying stories of gang rape, abduction, sexual slavery, even giving birth on the streets after maternity hospitals were looted and destroyed.

For thousands of women and girls across Sudan, everyday life has become a minefield: fetching water, collecting wood, lining up for scarce food, all carry the risk of sexual violence. UN Women reports that nearly 11 million women and girls in Sudan now face acute food insecurity, while many are forced to choose between hunger and dignity. Pregnant women have given birth in unsafe conditions; menstrual hygiene items have become unaffordable luxuries.

But sexual violence is only one part of the horror. UNFPA warns that more than 12 million people, mostly women and girls, are at risk of gender-based violence. Aid organizations report a staggering rise in demand for gender-based violence services. Many survivors remain unassisted due to lack of safe spaces, destroyed clinics, and ongoing fighting that blocks humanitarian access.

Investigations by Amnesty International paint a picture of systematic atrocities: between April 2023 and October 2024, RSF fighters raped or gang-raped dozens of women and girls as young as 15, committing other forms of sexual violence such as torture, sexual slavery, and forced marriage. In some cases, victims were assaulted in front of their children, or forced into prolonged captivity. These deeds amount to war crimes and yet many perpetrators act with impunity.

Meanwhile, the collapse of social services and mass displacement feed a wider humanitarian catastrophe. According to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), in many areas the war has destroyed healthcare facilities and education services. Starvation, disease, and psychological trauma spread as families are uprooted. Children, including some as young as one year old, have been reported among the victims of sexual violence.

International actors have begun to respond: the European Union strongly condemned the systematic violence, hunger as a method of war and forced displacement, calling the attacks potential war crimes and crimes against humanity, and imposing sanctions on top commanders of RSF.

But condemning atrocities is not enough. What the women and girls of Sudan need are safe corridors, unhindered humanitarian aid, access to medical and psychosocial care and, crucially accountability for perpetrators. The scale and brutality of the abuse reveal a deliberate campaign of terror aimed at subjugating entire communities, destroying their dignity, and fracturing social bonds.

It is a war not only on land or on politics, but on humanity itself, on the rights of women and girls to live with dignity and safety. As the world watches, millions suffer in silence. Ignoring their plight would be complicity.

written by Sara Maggetto