Statement by Radhouane Nouicer, the designated Expert on Sudan of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on the International Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict

As of 31 May 2025, UN Human Rights had documented 368 incidents of CRSV in Sudan since the outbreak of the conflict, involving at least 521 victims. More than half of these cases involved rape, including gang rape, often targeting internally displaced women and girls, and often marked by ethnic hatred. Over 70 per cent of documented incidents were attributed to the Rapid Support Forces. Yet this figure only reflects a small fraction of the real picture, compared with the hundreds of incidents that remain unreported due to stigma, fear of retaliation, and the collapse of medical and legal systems in certain areas. 

Testimonies of survivors of sexual violence highlight shocking brutality, and pervasive patterns of such horrific acts. UN Human Rights has documented accounts of rape committed in front of family members, abductions and subsequent sexual violence, trafficking for sexual exploitation, and assaults on woman activists including those documenting CRSV. Sexual violence often occurred alongside other grave violations and abuses, including killing, torture and arbitrary detention. As the conflict has continued to intensify in 2025, there have been increased reports of the use of sexual violence, including on the basis of ethnic origin, as a tool of fear, reprisal, and intimidation by both parties to the conflict and their affiliated militias and groups.

Women and girls do not start wars, yet they continue to bear the brunt of their consequences. CRSV is both a grave human rights emergency and a humanitarian crisis, with enduring harm that extends to families, children born of rape, and entire generations, while perpetrators remain largely unpunished.

I strongly condemn the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war in Sudan. The prevalence of sexual violence inflicts devastating and long-lasting harm on survivors’ physical, reproductive, and mental health, while tearing apart the social fabric of entire communities. Women, girls, men and boys need to be protected from sexual violence, and their safety and security must be ensured. Perpetrators must be held accountable, and justice mechanisms, both national and international, must be mobilized to end impunity for these heinous crimes. 

I call on all parties and the international community to act immediately, to hold perpetrators accountable regardless of their affiliation, to ensure that survivors receive medical care, and to protect future generations from such horrors. No matter how long it may take, justice must not be denied, for this generation, and the next generation. 

ENDS

For more information and media requests, please contact: 

Liz Throssell - + 41 22 917 9296 / elizabeth.throssell@un.org 

Jeremy Laurence - +41 22 917 9383 / jeremy.laurence@un.org 

Thameen Al-Kheetan: +41 22 917 4232 / thameen.alkheetan@un.org