Three quarters of women and girls in war-torn Sudan say they feel unsafe, with a senior United Nations official confirming on Friday that sexual and gender-based violence is occurring both along flight routes and inside displacement camps — exposing a crisis within a crisis as Sudan's civil war grinds past its second year.
The burden falls almost entirely on women and girls, who make up a significant share of Sudan's estimated 11 million internally displaced persons — the largest displacement figure of any country on earth. Adolescent girls and pregnant women face compounded risk: UNFPA data shows that roughly 4.3 million women of reproductive age are currently in acute need of maternal and reproductive health services, while sexual violence survivors in conflict zones like Darfur, Khartoum, and El Gezira states have little to no access to clinical care or psychosocial support.
Sudan's civil war erupted in April 2023 when the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) turned their weapons on each other, shattering a fragile post-coup political transition. The conflict has since spread from Khartoum into Darfur, Kordofan, and El Gezira, regions already marked by decades of communal violence and humanitarian neglect.
International aid agencies have repeatedly flagged the collapse of health infrastructure as a force multiplier for gender-based violence. With over 70 percent of health facilities in conflict-affected areas non-functional, survivors of sexual violence have nowhere to seek post-rape care, emergency contraception, or safe abortion services — even where Sudanese law would permit them. The humanitarian funding gap for Sudan currently stands at over 60 percent of the UN's total appeal.
A senior UNFPA official, speaking from the agency's regional operations on Friday, said women and girls across Sudan "are telling a consistent story of continued experience of danger, and risks for gender-based violence" — a pattern documented not just in active combat zones but at every stage of displacement, including during flight to supposed safety and upon arrival at camps that were meant to offer refuge. The official's framing was deliberate: nowhere in Sudan is currently safe for women.
Observers should monitor whether the African Union-led mediation efforts and parallel talks facilitated by Saudi Arabia and the United States produce any durable ceasefire arrangement — without one, humanitarian access corridors that allow protection teams into Darfur and El Gezira will remain blocked. UNFPA and partner agencies are also pushing for emergency funding to scale up safe spaces for women in camps across Chad's border, where an estimated 700,000 Sudanese refugees have crossed since the war began.
Until Sudan's guns fall silent, every day of delay is measured not in political deadlines but in the bodies and broken lives of women and girls who had no part in starting this war.
