A UN report says sexual violence is increasingly being used as a weapon of war in Sudan, with the UAE-backed paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and allied militias blamed for most verified cases.
Sudan has been devastated by civil war since 2023, after fighting broke out between the army and the paramilitary RSF.
The UN Human Rights Office said it had verified 546 incidents of conflict-related sexual violence since the war began, including gang rape and sexual slavery.
The verified cases involved at least 838 victims, including 539 women, 284 girls, eight men and seven boys.
The report said the figures represent “only the tip of the iceberg,” warning that persistent under-reporting has hidden the full scale of sexual violence in Sudan.
Most verified cases were attributed to the RSF and allied militias, although the Sudanese army and its allies were also accused of abuses.
UN human rights chief Volker Türk said sexual violence was being used as a “weapon of war.”
“This is a war crime and, if committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack, a crime against humanity,” he said.
Both the RSF and the army have previously denied accusations of sexual violence.
The war has created the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, with more than 11 million people displaced and 28 million facing acute hunger, according to aid agencies.
The report comes as fears grow over a possible RSF assault on el-Obeid, a strategic city in Sudan’s oil-rich Kordofan region.
The UK, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands and Norway have called for an immediate halt to violence in the city.
UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper warned that el-Obeid was on the “precipice of atrocity,” accusing the RSF of using drones to target civilian infrastructure, attack supply routes and cut off access to basic services for more than half a million people.
Around 200,000 displaced people are sheltering in el-Obeid after fleeing violence elsewhere.
The city is strategically important because it sits between RSF-controlled areas in the west and army-controlled areas in the east.
Analysts say control of the wider Kordofan region could affect control of Sudan’s oil supply and large parts of the country.
European governments warned that the international community must act to prevent another massacre like the one seen in el-Fasher, where the RSF was accused of atrocities after seizing the city.
According to a UN report released in February, more than 6,000 people were killed in three days when the RSF captured el-Fasher.
