Women and girls in war-ravaged Sudan face gang rapes, sexual slavery and killings, particularly at the hands of the paramilitary forces, UN experts warned Wednesday.The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have been battling Sudan’s army since April 15 2023, in a war that has killed tens of thousands, displaced more than 13 million people and triggered what the United Nations calls one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters.Amid the carnage, women and girls are particularly vulnerable and face escalating risks of gang rape, sexual slavery, trafficking and forced marriage, warned a group of nine independent United Nations experts.“We are deeply troubled by the harrowing reports of sexual violence, abductions, and killings targeting women and children, including in displacement camps, which reflect a systematic and brutal campaign against those least protected in Sudanese society,” they said in a statement.“Sexual violence continues to be used systematically as a weapon of war in Sudan.”The experts, including the special rapporteurs on violence against women and girls, on torture and on contemporary forms of slavery, noted that so far this year at least 330 cases of conflict-related sexual violence had been documents.The real number is surely far higher, they said, warning that a number of traumatised victims were known to have committed suicide.“Survivors are increasingly and openly contemplating suicide as a means of escaping the ongoing horrors of the conflict,” the statement said.The experts, who are mandated by the UN Human Rights Council but who do not speak on behalf of the United Nations, said such “harrowing accounts underscore the scale of the mental health crisis among women and girls”.They also reflect the “lack of access to attention and support and impunity that perpetrators enjoy, particularly in areas where support systems have completely collapsed”, they said.The experts also pointed to reports of surging enforced disappearances of women and girls in areas controlled by the RSF, “with many believed to have been abducted for sexual slavery and exploitation”.“Victims are taken from displacement settings, markets, and shelters, amid a collapse of protection systems,” the statement said.“The horrific scale of violence that women and girls continue to experience is an alarming testament to the erosion of protections for women and girls during times of conflict and normalisation of such violence,” the experts said.“The international community must urgently step in to stem the tide.”
