There’s an ongoing war in Sudan, and it’s ruining the lives of the women who live there.
Since April 2023 Sudan, a nation with a long history of conflict, has been tied up in a deadly internal conflict. This most recent chapter in Sudanese history began with a powerful paramilitary group that began a violent campaign to seize control of the East African nation.
In the midst of the continual violence, there have been signs of genocide in the region of Darfur, a region in Western Sudan that borders Chad. Darfur was previously subject to genocide in the early 2000s at the hands of the Janjaweed, a powerful government-backed Arab nationalist militia who targeted the Black African populations of the region. The genocide claimed 200,000 lives over the course of two years.
Where did this all begin?
Back in 2021, following a military-backed coup, Sudan fell under control of a council of military generals led by two men, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, also known as Hemedti.
Both generals disagreed over the direction the country was going in and proposed a shift toward civilian rule. Suspicions quickly grew that both men wanted to claim control for themselves, spurring on the conflict.
A thorn in the side of the process toward civilian rule was the inclusion of the 100,000 strong Rapid Support Forces (RSF) into the Sudanese military. This group has their origins in the Janjaweed, the group who led the Darfurian genocide.
The conflict between the Sudanese army loyal to al-Burhan and RSF loyal to Dagalo began in April last year, fracturing control across Sudan.
Where does the conflict stand now? And how are civilians impacted?
As it currently stands Sudan is largely divided between rival military forces, with Darfur and the capital, Khartoum, mostly falling to the RSF with the Sudanese military controlling most of the North and Eastern coastal regions.
Civilians have been heavily impacted by the conflict with both sides of the civil war being accused of committing war crimes against the Sudanese people. As of now, the conflict has claimed, by some estimates, 150,000 casualties. Over two million people have fled the country with a further 7.7 million internally displaced.
Additionally, reports of ethnic cleansing have arisen from Darfur, rehashing the genocide of 2003-2005. In this genocide, it is said that the rape of women and girls has been used as a key tool to destroy communities and the lives of Darfurian people.
Currently, the RSF have denied such acts and instead claims any bloodshed in the region is the result of ‘tribal conflict’.
How is the conflict impacting women?
As with all armed conflicts, women are being impacted disproportionately by the violence in Darfur and elsewhere in Sudan. The United Nations has reported a 100% increase in the need for gender-based violence-related services in Sudan since the conflict began.
Cases of conflict-related sexual violence have grown rapidly over the past 18 months, with Darfur, Khartoum, and Kordofan being the most intensely impacted areas. There is also the very real issue that many cases of violence and rape do not get reported by women due to fears of cultural stigma and social exclusion. Women are being particularly targeted on key asylum routes out of conflict zones, exacerbating the issue further.
Just as we reported in the Gazan genocide, women and girls face disproportionate pressures in Sudan as their social expectations to provide food, care, and domestic labour do not vanish in the middle of the conflict. The Sudanese civil war has manufactured intense food insecurity and as a result, domestic abuse has risen.
Additionally, 1.63 million women of reproductive age lack basic healthcare services despite an anticipated 54,000 expected births in the final quarter of 2024. This means that these births will largely be without pain relief, sanitary conditions, and medical supervision in case of complications.
Further pressures around education persist, 2.5 million Sudanese girls are currently unable to return to the classroom, which exacerbates already present threats to their safety like child marriage and female genital mutilation. Both are known practices in Sudan.
Darfurian women are also facing the all too real threat of genocide, something that many of them already lived through once before 20 years ago. The resurgence of genocide in Darfur is along similar lines as it was previously. Black African communities, particularly those who do not primarily speak Arabic or who are not predominantly Muslim, are being targeted.
How are women are responding to sexual violence?
Several women have taken their lives in Gezira, a state directly south of Khartoum, after being raped by RSF fighters. Rape is a tool of war in Sudan, and thousands of women from several different ethnic communities have been subjected to sexual violence.
Reports of the mass suicide in Gezira came on the back of UN reports of atrocious crimes including mass murders in the state in mid-October. The RSF has continued to deny these reports and does not accept blame for a rise in sexual violence in areas where they both control, or seek to control.
The BBC has been told by Hala al-Karib, head of the Strategic Initiative for Women in the Horn of Africa that “The RSF started a revenge campaign in areas under the control of Abu Kayka. They looted, killed civilians who were resisting and raped women and little girls”.
Several sources have claimed that women and girls have been raped in front of their families, this is a tactic that is sadly not unique to Sudan, but has been reported across numerous conflicts, for decades. The motivation is to assert power over a people and destroy their social fabric through a drive to shame and humiliate a community. The UN reported last year that sexual violence and rape in conflicts increased a staggering 50% on from 2022, spread across 21 situations of concern globally.
Many women are also taking their lives in Sudan after their husbands, fathers, or brothers have been killed in the conflict. For many women, in an acutely patriarchal society like Sudan, the protection of male family members is often their main form of security and option for leading a relatively safe life.
Testimonies from people living in conflict zones in Sudan describe women being fearful of leaving the house, women and girls being abducted and forced into sexual slavery, and a perpetual threat of rape.
What does the future hold?
Sudan’s civil war shows very little signs of coming to a conclusion any time soon. It is also a poorly reported on conflict, with the finer details of why and how Sudan has found itself embroiled in violence lost on people outside of the region. This furthers a global culture of silence around the issues that impact African women.
The United Nations has continued to report on the Sudanese conflict, but it rarely finds its way into the headlines of international news outlets. It is also a conflict that has become defined by a protracted use of sexual violence and rape as a tool of war. Sudanese women are in crisis but the world is not paying enough attention.
With no clear end in sight, the Sudanese civil war is rapidly becoming one of the most pressing issues for feminists today. We have a responsibility to, even in our limited power, speak about what is happening.
Hodan Addou, acting regional director of UN Women for Eastern and Southern Africa has called for the world to pay attention, saying “Now, more than ever, the international community must rally together to support women in Sudan, ensuring they have the resources and protection they need to survive and rebuild their lives”.
UN Women has also demanded an immediate halt to the fighting but all international efforts for a ceasefire in Sudan have fallen short.
