Sudan’s Ongoing Conflict: Women and Girls Face Widespread Sexual Violence as Rape Becomes a Tool of War

By News SA Correspondent:

 

“They took us to an open area. […] The first man raped me twice, the second once, the third four times, and the fourth once. Apart from the rapes, they beat us with sticks and pointed guns at my head. Another girl who was 15…was raped by three men. We were raped throughout the night.”  – Woman, unknown age, October 2025, Tawila.

This is one of the tales of harrowing sexual violence experienced by women and young girls in the war-torn country contained in a new report released this week by Doctors Without Borders (MSF). The report, released during a media conference held in Nairobi, Kenya, exposes the rampant sexual violence in Sudan’s ongoing conflict. Titled ‘There is something I want to tell you’ – Surviving the sexual violence crisis in Darfur’, the report includes medical data and testimonies from South Darfur and North Darfur. It is the most comprehensive account of the sexual violence crisis facing women in Sudan’s war to date.

According to the report, between January 2024 and November 2025, at least 3,396 survivors of sexual violence sought treatment in MSF-supported facilities across North and South Darfur. Women and girls accounted for 97% of survivors treated in MSF programmes. Survivor testimonies and MSF medical data show that RSF soldiers and allied militias are responsible for widespread and systematic sexual violence against women.  

In new cases, in just one month, between December 2025 and January 2026, MSF identified a further 732 victims and survivors in displacement camps around Tawila, where women reported attacks both during their journeys and within the camps. Overcrowded shelters, lack of basic security, and unsafe conditions – including distant water points, insecure bathing areas and limited latrines – further increase their vulnerability.  According to MSF, victims and survivors described attacks not only during fighting, but in everyday settings – on roads used to flee violence, in fields where families grow food, and in markets and displacement camps – showing how sexual violence extends far beyond the frontlines.

In South Darfur, hundreds of kilometres from active ground fighting, 34 per cent of victims and survivors were assaulted while farming or travelling to farmland, and 22 per cent while collecting firewood, water or food, highlighting how violence occurs during everyday activities. Children are also among the victims and survivors. In South Darfur, one in five was under 18 years of age, including 41 children younger than five years old.

However, being based only on MSF programmes in just two of Sudan’s 18 states, the report barely scratches the surface of conveying the true scale of sexual violence facing women in Sudan today.

 

MSF hopes that by sharing the experiences and testimonies of women who spoke with its teams, it can help to show the reality of a war fought on the backs and bodies of women and girls. “Rape is used as a weapon of war, but women are also being attacked hundreds of kilometres from frontlines. Survivors described attacks not only during fighting, but in everyday settings — on roads used to flee violence, in fields where families grow food, and in markets and displacement camps,” MSF says in a statement accompanying the report’s summary this week.

The report contains calls and demands that survivors, activists, medical workers and community leaders have made when seeking treatment or in focus group discussions with MSF. Some lived to tell the sad stories of being told to “follow us” on the road as they fled the war zone, only to be subjected to gang rape and multiple rapes for each of the women and young girls. Below are testimonies by some of the survivors after the fall of El Fasher in October 2025:

“They took us to an open area. […] The first man raped me twice, the second once, the third four times, and the fourth once. Apart from the rapes, they beat us with sticks and pointed guns at my head. Another girl who was 15…was raped by three men. We were raped throughout the night.”  – Woman, unknown age, October 2025, Tawila

“Two of the women in our group were raped by the RSF militia in front of us. It was 4-5 men doing it together. One girl was 22 years old, and she died there. We were a group of ten in total. This also happened between El Fasher and Gorney.”- Woman, 27 years, November 2025, Tawila

“All along the way, the RSF militia was asking women to follow them, and they were insisting when women refused, also threatening them by saying that they would kill them. This happened everywhere, in the bushes, two militia there, three militia after a while, they were everywhere asking women to follow them. This was happening in the daylight, in the morning”. Woman, 26 years, November 2025, Tawila

 

Showing ethnic dimensions

“RSF militia stopped us. They talked to us with very rude words, calling us “falangayad (black slaves)” and shouting, “Why didn’t you go out before? We told everyone to go out! You didn’t go out; that means that you are not a civilian. You are supposed to be killed.” They were asking, “What are you doing here? All civilians left the city. Why are you still in Al Fasher? You can’t be civilians!” – Woman, 26 years, November 2025, Tawila

Recounting an escape from El Fasher: “The RSF in uniform came from the back and stole our phones and money. They told us: ‘falangayat, who let you out of EF? […] Some called us ‘wives of falangayat” – Woman, 28 years, October 2025, Um Baru

Here is a link to the FULL REPORT– @NewsSA_Online

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