Sexual violence and hunger threaten Sudan’s displaced

The worsening humanitarian crisis in Sudan has left countless women and girls subjected to sexual violence and rape, and tens of thousands of children at risk of starvation, UN aid teams said Tuesday.

From Sudan, the spokesman for the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF)James Elder, described meeting a senior medical worker at a hospital outside Khartoum who had “direct contact with hundreds, Hundreds of women and girls, some as young as eight, have been raped. Many have been held captive for weeks.”

The doctor at Omdurman’s Al Nao hospital also spoke of “the distressing number of babies born (after rape) who are now being abandoned,” according to the UNICEF spokesperson, during an update to journalists in Geneva via video link from the war-torn country.

Various consternations

He said “countless atrocities” committed against children have gone unreported, often as result of very limited access.

He also warned that if measures are not taken, Tens of thousands of Sudanese children could die in the coming months“And that is by no means the worst case scenario (…) if there is a measles outbreak, if there is diarrhoea or if there are respiratory infections, then the terrifying outlook for Sudan’s children worsens dramatically.”

“Under current living conditions, with heavy rains and floods, these diseases will spread like wildfire.”

Echoing that grim update, International Organization for Migration (IOM), agreed that the floods had added to the daily challenges faced by millions of people whose lives have been uprooted by a battle for control of the country by rival militaries starting in April 2022, stemming from the ouster of long-serving President Omar al-Bashir in 2019.

Famine is already a reality

Earlier this month, global food security experts from the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) Famine Review Committee (FRC) reported famine conditions in parts of North Darfur, including Zamzam camp near the town of Al Fasher.

The camp is home to half a million displaced people who are facing extreme food shortages, which have fuelled malnutrition and death. Another 13 areas are on the brink of famine.

According to IOM, almost all of Sudan’s internally displaced people – 97% – are in localities with acute levels of food insecurity or worse.

Surprising displacement

Worryingly, IOM’s latest data shows that displacement continues to skyrocket, with more than 10.7 million people seeking safety within the country and many displaced twice or more. Fighting in Sennar state alone displaced more than 700,000 people last month, of whom 63% were from other states, the majority from Khartoum.

Mohamed Refaat, IOM’s head of mission in Port Sudan, told reporters in Geneva that more than one in three internally displaced people in Sudan are from Khartoum. “Almost the entire capital of the country has been displaced, so imagine the scale of the displacement,” he said.

Furthermore, “the level of devastation caused by the escalation of violence in the town of El Fasher is profound and heartbreaking,” the authors of the IPC report note, amid “persistent, intense and widespread clashes.” [que] “have forced many residents to seek refuge in internally displaced persons camps, where they face a stark reality: basic services are scarce or non-existent, exacerbating the hardships of displacement.”

Citing continued obstacles to aid access that have prevented UN humanitarian workers and their partners from reaching some of Sudan’s most vulnerable civilians, the IOM official said: A large number of civilians remain “trapped” in a “very hostile war environment” and without access to health care services.

Many have had to walk long distances in an attempt to obtain food amid sky-high prices. “There is a shortage of everything,” Refaat said, noting that the “militias” have also taken control of several towns, restricting the movement of non-combatants.