A devastating report from Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) reveals that sexual violence has become a hallmark and defining feature of the conflict in Darfur. The report describes a landscape where women’s bodies have become a primary battlefield. Children are also among the victims and survivors. In South Darfur, one in five was under 18 years of age, including 41 children younger than five years old.
KHARTOUM MARCH 31: As the fourth year of Sudan’s civil war approaches, a devastating report from Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) reveals that sexual violence has become a hallmark and defining feature of the conflict in Darfur. Based on medical data and harrowing survivor testimonies collected between 2024 and 2025, the report describes a landscape where women’s bodies have become a primary battlefield. Sexual violence is being perpetrated both in areas affected by conflict and in more everyday settings, such as on roads and in displacement camps.
Women in Darfur, Sudan, are demanding protection, care and justice as sexual violence continues across the region, both in active conflict areas and far beyond frontlines, according to a new report released today by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).
The report, “There is something I want to tell you…”: Surviving the sexual violence crisis in Darfur, provides the most comprehensive documented accounts of sexual violence in Sudan’s war, with victim and survivor testimonies and data from MSF medical programmes highlighting clear patterns of widespread and systematic abuse.
Between January 2024 and November 2025, at least 3,396 victims and survivors of sexual violence sought treatment in MSF-supported facilities across North and South Darfur, though MSF warns this represents only a fraction of the true scale, as many victims and survivors cannot safely reach care. Women and girls accounted for 97 per cent of victims and survivors treated in MSF programmes.
Victim and survivor testimonies and MSF medical data show that Rapid Support Forces (RSF) soldiers and allied militias are responsible for widespread and systematic sexual violence against women.
Following the RSF’s capture of El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, on 26 October 2025, we treated more than 140 victims and survivors who managed to reach Tawila in November. Of these victims and survivors, 94 per cent were attacked by armed men, with many reporting assaults along escape routes. The assaults were widespread, often carried out by multiple perpetrators in front of family, and deliberately targeted non-Arab communities as a means of humiliation and terror, echoing previous RSF atrocities, such as the dismantling of Zamzam camp.
Children are also among the victims and survivors. In South Darfur, one in five was under 18 years of age, including 41 children younger than five years old.
Featured Image: Cindy Gonzalez/MSF
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