The United Nations has raised the alarm about the conditions of Sudanese women, expressing shame over its failure to stem gender violence there.

“I feel ashamed that we have not been able to protect you, and I feel ashamed for my fellow men for what they have done,” said Tom Fletcher, head of the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

Speaking at an event on Monday to mark the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women in Port Sudan, the country’s de facto capital since last year, Fletcher said the world “must do better” by the women of Sudan.

Last month, the UN’s independent international fact-finding mission for Sudan found an increase in sexual violence, including “rape, sexual exploitation and abduction for sexual purposes as well as allegations of enforced marriages and human trafficking.”

“The sheer scale of sexual violence we have documented in Sudan is staggering,” said Mohamed Chande Othman, chair of the fact-finding mission.

“The situation faced by vulnerable civilians, in particular women and girls of all ages, is deeply alarming and needs urgent address.” 

Beginning in mid-April 2023, Sudan has been entangled in a power struggle between the army forces led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), headed by Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo.

As a result of the fighting, tens of thousands of people have been killed and more than 11 million others have been displaced, including over three million who fled the country.

Displaced people who decided to stay in Gaza are facing compounding humanitarian crises and the threat of famine, even in the areas designated as safe zones, the people are not immune from violence.

A 2018 analysis of prevalence data from 2000–2018 across 161 countries and areas, conducted by the WHO on behalf of the UN Interagency working group on violence against women, found that worldwide, nearly 1 in 3, or 30 percent, of women have been subjected to physical and/or sexual violence by an intimate partner or non-partner sexual violence, or both.