“Some parents were killed while trying to protect their daughters from being raped,” said Sara*, a counsellor in Sudan’s eastern Aj Jazirah state and one of many health workers relaying shocking accounts of sexual violence in recent weeks. 

Since 20 October, escalating conflict in Aj Jazirah has led to the deaths of over 100 people, including health workers, and forced an estimated 340,000 to flee their homes in search of refuge. With at least six health facilities attacked, even essential services have been severely disrupted and patients are being transferred to alternative health centres, although only one in four are currently operational in Aj Jazirah.

Reports from the State Ministry of Health indicate severe human rights violations have been carried out during the attacks, with women and girls from the ages of 6 to 60 subjected to rape and sexual assault.

“You don’t see young women in some camps,” one health worker explained to UNFPA, the United Nations sexual and reproductive health agency. “Some girls who arrived in Gedaref said friends were left behind.”