The one -year -old children among those raped during the Sudan Civil War says UN

Armed men violate and sexually assault children as young as one during the Sudan civil war, says the UN Children’s Agency, UNICEF.

Mass sexual violence has been widely documented as a war weapon in the country’s almost two -year conflict.

But the UNICEF report is the first detailed account about the impact of rape on young children in Sudan.

One third of the victims were boys, who usually face “unique challenges” in reporting such crimes and in search of the help they need.

UNICEF says that although 221 cases of rape against children have been officially reported since the beginning of 2024, the real number is likely to be much higher.

Sudan is a social conservative country in which huge social stigma prevents survivors and their families from talking about rape, as well as fear of remuneration from armed groups.

The UNICEF report offers a terrible window in the abuse of children in the country’s civil war.

Perhaps his most shocking revelation is that 16 of the victims were under five, including four infants.

UNICEF does not say who is responsible, but other UN investigations blamed most rapes on quick paramilitary support (RSF), saying that RSF fighters have a model of sexual violence to terrorize civilians and suppress opposition to their progress.

RSF, who fights this war against its former allies, the Sudanese armed forces, denied any crime.

“The pure scale of the sexual violence I have documented in Sudan is amazing,” said Mohamed Chande Othman, the president of the mission to find the UN facts when his previous report was published in October.

According to the evidence presented by the international human rights groups, the victims of the Darfur fortress from the RSF were often targeted because they were black Africans, rather than Arabic, apparently with the purpose of chasing Sudan.

UN Humanitarian response to Sudan is already underfunded. Recent American aid discounts will reduce programs to help victims even more.

Details rooted in the UNICEF report emphasizes the terrible situation.

“After nine at night, someone opens the door, wearing a whip, selects one of the girls and takes it in another room. I could hear the little girl crying and screaming. A rape,” she recalls (not her real name), a female survivor who was held by men armed in other rooms.

“Every time they raped it, this girl will return covered with blood. She is still a little child. They only release these girls at dawn and return almost unconscious. Each of them cries and speaks incoherently. In the 19 days I spent there, I arrived in a point where I wanted to end my life.”

As a nation fractured in war, Sudan is one of the most challenging places on Earth for access to first -rate services and workers.

The large number of people who were relocated to war has made women and children more vulnerable to attack-three-year-old school girls are out of school, says the UN.

Trump government discounts conclude vital help

The devastating result of these crimes is aggravated by the fact that the victims have few places to use medical help, because many medical facilities have been destroyed, robbed or occupied by the parties in the war.

Recent US aid discounts can endanger even the limited services available to protect children.

UNICEF has provided safe spaces for children through a network of local activists who have set up what are known as emergency response rooms to cope with crises in their communities.

The activists relied quite a lot on the American aid, and most of them had to close, according to a Sudanese coordination committee.

More broadly, the UN organization dedicated to protecting women’s rights says that local organizations led by women are vital in providing the support of survivors of sexual violence. But I receive less than 2% of the total financing of the Sudan Humanitarian Fund.

The BBC learned that at least one of these local groups, known as “it leads”, was forced to close when US funding was stopped.

It was not a large expense, measured in tens of thousands of dollars, but allowed the case workers to reach about 35 survivors a month, said Sulaima Elkhalifa, a Sudan defender of human rights that runs a government to combat violence against women and helped organize private initiative.

Those who were violated by armed men “do not have the luxury of being depressed,” she told the BBC.

War requirements – finding food, the need to run away – leaves no space to cope with trauma, she added.

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