Hanaan was 18 when she was raped by members of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary group accused of widespread abuses during nearly three years of fighting against Sudan’s army. Walking with a friend to a makeshift shelter in a displacement camp in South Darfur, four men on motorbikes stopped them. “Two took each girl, and they raped us,” she told Doctors Without Borders (MSF). “I feel uncomfortable in my body, heavy. I don’t feel pain, apart from in my back – because they beat me, they beat me with their guns on my back.”
MSF’s new report, There is Something I Want to Tell You…, documents the pervasive use of sexual violence across Sudan and calls it a defining feature of the conflict. Between January 2024 and November 2025, 3,396 survivors of sexual violence sought treatment in MSF-supported facilities across North and South Darfur. The data come from programmes in two of Sudan’s 18 states and represent only a fraction of the likely scale. Women and girls made up 97 percent of those treated. MSF found the RSF and allied militias were primarily responsible for systematic abuse.
“Sexual violence is a defining feature of this conflict – not confined to front lines, but pervasive across communities,” said Ruth Kauffman, MSF emergency health manager. “This war is being fought on the backs and bodies of women and girls. Displacement, collapsing community support systems, lack of access to healthcare and deep-rooted gender inequalities are allowing these abuses to continue across Sudan.”
MSF treated more than 140 survivors who fled to Tawila after the RSF captured el-Fasher, North Darfur’s capital, on October 26, 2025; 94 percent reported being attacked by armed men, many while escaping. The report says assaults were used deliberately to humiliate and terrorize non-Arab communities, echoing earlier RSF atrocities such as the dismantling of Zamzam camp. Survivors described attacks in fields, markets and displacement camps, not only on front lines.
Children were among the survivors: in South Darfur, one in five survivors was under 18, including 41 children younger than five. MSF urged the United Nations, donors and humanitarian actors to urgently scale up health and protection services across Darfur and all of Sudan. The organisation also called on all parties to the conflict to stop sexual violence and ensure perpetrators are held accountable.