Civilians face violence and killings and health workers and medical facilities are suffering persistent attacks amid severe violence being perpetrated by both warring sides in Sudan, Doctors Without Borders has said in a new report.
The NGO, known by its French initials MSF, warned in the report issued on Monday that protection of civilians has collapsed, with entire communities “facing indiscriminate violence, killings, torture and sexual violence amid persistent attacks on health workers and medical facilities”.
Both the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and their supporters are “inflicting horrendous violence on people across the country”, the report, entitled “A war on people – The human cost of conflict and violence in Sudan”, reads.
More than 10 million people have been displaced since the war started in April 2023, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM) of the United Nations.
The war has wrought a catastrophic toll with hospitals attacked, markets bombed, and houses razed to the ground, the MSF report adds.
MSF said it treated an average of 26 people per day between August 2023 and the end of April 2024 at just one of the hospitals it supports in Omdurman, most for injuries caused by explosions, gunshots and stabbings.
It also notes that throughout the war, hospitals have been routinely looted and attacked. In June, the World Health Organization said that only 20 to 30 percent of health facilities in hard-to-reach areas remain functional, and even then at minimal levels.
The Sudanese army and the RSF have not responded to the report yet. They have previously denied any intentional harming of civilians, and have accused each other of committing crimes and destroying Sudan.
Abductions, abuse, ethnic violence
The SAF, led by Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the paramilitary RSF, headed by Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo, have refused to give up their quest to control the country, despite the devastation, regional and international mediating efforts, and condemnation of the violence being wrought on the civilian population.
The MSF findings indicate “shocking” instances of sexual and gender-based violence, especially in Darfur, where the RSF – born out of ethnic Arab militias with a history of violence – has long been accused of “ethnic cleansing”.
A survey of 135 survivors of sexual violence treated by MSF teams between July and December 2023 in refugee camps in Chad, close to the Sudanese border, found 90 percent were abused by an armed perpetrator, 50 percent were abused in their own homes, and 40 percent were raped by multiple attackers.
“These findings are consistent with testimonies from survivors still in Sudan, demonstrating how sexual violence is being perpetrated against women in their homes and along displacement routes, a characteristic feature of the conflict,” the Geneva-based organisation said.
An MSF patient said two young girls from their neighbourhood in the city of Gadarif in eastern Sudan disappeared in March 2024.
“Later my brother was abducted and when he came back home, he said that the two girls were in the same house where he was detained and that the girls had been there for two months. He said that he was hearing bad things done to them, the kind of bad things they do to girls,” the patient said.
The report also contains testimonies detailing “targeted ethnic violence” in Darfur, where RSF militias have been committing violence against Masalit and other people of non-Arab ethnicities.
MSF notes that humanitarian and medical organisations have been frequently blocked from providing support to civilians.
“The violence of the warring parties is compounded by obstructions: by blocking, interfering and choking services when people need them most, stamps and signatures can be just as deadly as bullets and bombs in Sudan,” said MSF General Director Vickie Hawkins.
