I used to be in Khartoum when the battle began. Armed squaddies of Arabs got here to our space they usually sought after to loot groundnuts, however my mom resisted opening the door. Instantly, one soldier shot her. I screamed however 3 of the warriors surrounded me. They grabbed me and I used to be taken in the back of a construction the place ten squaddies raped me. No person got here to rescue me as a result of my mother used to be already shot lifeless and neighbours ran away. After two days, when my mother used to be buried, I joined others to come back to South Sudan.
This lady’s tale used to be shared with us close to the Aweil border crossing between South Sudan and Sudan, and it mirrors what we heard from many others. Within the sweltering warmth of July 2024 – and with dust underfoot and rainwater pooling alongside the street – South Sudanese contributors of our world staff requested folks to percentage tales about reviews of girls and women making the perilous adventure between the 2 nations. The accounts they shared had been harrowing, pressing, and transparent.
We spoke with just about 700 returnees and compelled migrants – men and women, boys and girls – lots of whom shared identical reviews of being terrorised by way of squaddies and armed militias on either side of the Sudan civil warfare. The warfare has been tearing the rustic aside since 2023 and has ended in the deaths of greater than 150,000 folks.
The battle for energy between Sudan’s military and a strong paramilitary team, the Fast Beef up Forces (RSF) has ended in a famine and claims of a genocide within the western Darfur area. The RSF used to be shaped in 2013 and has its origins within the infamous Janjaweed armed forces that fought rebels in Darfur, the place they had been accused of genocide and ethnic cleaning in opposition to the area’s non-Arab inhabitants. New stories about massacres and atrocities proceed to emerge.
Because the disaster deepens, our analysis has published that sexual and gender-based violence is a big driving force of migration to South Sudan. Over part of our individuals stated it used to be the principle explanation why they sought sanctuary around the border, with adolescent women, elderly 13 to 17, being a long way much more likely to state that sexual violence used to be the explanation they needed to migrate.
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The analysis, which used to be just lately printed in Warfare and Well being , exposed a couple of harrowing accounts of gang rapes and homicide, some on kids as younger as 12.
What is occurring in South Sudan and Sudan?
The outbreak of warfare in Sudan in 2023 additional exacerbated South Sudan’s fragilities and vulnerabilities, jeopardised peace efforts and worsened the present humanitarian disaster. The Sudan battle brought on a large inflow, this time with over 1.2 million refugees and returnees crossing into South Sudan – striking immense force on already overstretched sources and products and services.
As of 2024, over 9.3 million folks in South Sudan – greater than 70% of the inhabitants – required humanitarian help, with 7.8 million going through acute meals lack of confidence. Over 2.3 million kids had been prone to malnutrition, with some areas nearing famine prerequisites.
Even ahead of 2023, South Sudan used to be some of the highest-ranking nations for sexual and gender-based violence globally, having the second-highest charges in Sub-Saharan Africa.
The border between Sudan and South Sudan has lengthy been a hall of cyclical displacement, formed by way of many years of warfare, famine, and political instability. On the other hand, the dimensions and complexity of the present disaster has intensified vulnerabilities, in particular for girls and women. The results have manifested in rape, sexual abuse, trafficking, and compelled prostitution – on either side of the border.
Fleeing sexual violence and terror
We centered our find out about on that border and the individuals who had been fleeing via it. We used “sensemaking” method (in response to the primary that storytelling is an intuitive approach to put across complicated knowledge and is helping folks make sense in their reviews) to record what came about to girls on their trips and the hazards they confronted within the South Sudanese settlements. We had followed a identical means when inspecting accounts of sexual exploitation by way of UN peacekeepers in Haiti and DRC.
The fieldwork staff – 3 feminine and 3 male researchers from the not-for-profit STEWARDWOMEN – labored at the border of Aweil North for 2 weeks to assemble those tales. STEWARDWOMEN is a women-led South Sudanese organisation which goals to handle violence in opposition to ladies, together with sexual violence.
Two ladies fleeing the violence in Sudan pull a suitcase via a refugee transit centre in Renk, South Sudan, in Would possibly 2023.
EPA/AMEL PAIN
Our staff accrued 695 tales from 671 folks. The overwhelming majority had been South Sudanese returning to a rustic that they had as soon as fled (98%), and maximum had been ladies of child-bearing age (88%). Over part of the tales had been first-person accounts of their very own migration, whilst others had been shared by way of males about their feminine family.
The purpose used to be to verify folks felt protected and empowered to talk overtly. Josephine Chandiru Drama, a South Sudanese human rights legal professional and previous director of STEWARDWOMEN, stated:
Through inviting girls and women to percentage their migration reviews in their very own phrases, the knowledge creditors honoured their company and voice. This means fostered consider, decreased retraumatisation, and yielded richer, extra unique narratives that replicate the lived realities of displacement.
‘They took the girls by force’
Whilst violence is forcing households to escape Sudan, the danger isn’t shared similarly. Our findings display how adolescent women are disproportionately on the biggest chance.
Women face acute risk that households continuously can’t simply save you. Armed teams raid properties and camps, abducting women or seizing them on roads and at checkpoints. Women are singled out and subjected to sexual harassment and rape.
Oldsters would possibly attempt to go back and forth in teams, exchange routes, or disguise their daughters, but if males with weapons prevent a bus or input a village at night time, their coverage choices are restricted. Those dangers accentuate as poverty deepens and protected shipping is scarce. Those prerequisites depart women visual, remoted, and in peril. One lady informed us how they had been attacked:
… the rise up automotive got here in opposition to us. They took the ladies by way of drive they usually raped us, the lads may just now not do anything else to give protection to us. What hurts is raping you in open even if the lads are seeing us … what the Arabs did to girls and women used to be horrible and it isn’t handiest me going via it.
Some other lady shared a desperately irritating tale in regards to the rape and homicide of her daughter. She stated:
My 12-year-old daughter used to be raped by way of a gaggle of squaddies and died straight away. It is a very unhappy tale to inform however I’ve to speak about it in order that the sector can know what came about to girls and women in Sudan … The warriors then raped all of the 5 women … Sadly, my raped little daughter died at the roadside … It used to be this type of painful second …
Our information showed this terrifying fact. Once we regarded on the responses by way of age, a statistically important trend emerged: adolescent women, elderly 13 to 17, had been a long way much more likely than older ladies to state that sexual violence used to be the explanation they needed to migrate.
We requested individuals to put the enjoy they shared on a spectrum: used to be sexual violence the cause of migrating, or did it occur on account of migrating? For adolescent women, the solutions clustered overwhelmingly at one finish: sexual violence used to be the cause, now not a end result of the adventure.
It’s imaginable that amongst older ladies sexual violence has turn out to be rather normalised after surviving earlier conflicts within the area, compounded by way of the truth that more youthful, single women are in particular focused for abduction and compelled marriage. One lady defined what came about to her sister:
As we travelled to search for protection in our motherland of South Sudan … all of the girls and women had been ordered out of the auto… and had been raped by way of a gaggle of 5 squaddies. As an blameless younger lady, my 15-year-old sister attempted to withstand […] and he or she used to be overwhelmed badly, raped by way of all of the 5 squaddies after which killed … We had been ordered to depart, and my sister used to be not more.
‘I came here … to change my life’
One younger lady – slightly out of her teenagers – reported feeling ashamed and embarrassed, as she informed us about how they had been attacked whilst fleeing to South Sudan.
… we had been attacked by way of the armed forces and I used to be some of the 8 women to be kidnapped. I used to be raped by way of 4 again and again for 2 days … The rape made me miscarry a three-month outdated child and I shrunk syphilis.
Whilst violence isn’t sudden in warfare, after we analysed the tales, a stark trend emerged: general 53% of individuals in particular known sexual and gender-based violence as a big explanation why to escape, and throughout each and every age team it used to be the principle driving force. For lots of, it wasn’t merely a end result of warfare – it used to be the general straw within the determination to depart Sudan.
A Sudanese user rests whilst on their approach to the Tawila Camps amid the continued battle in North Darfur, Sudan, in April 2025.
EPA/MARWAN MOHAMED
The tales introduced this knowledge to existence. A mom recounted the dying of her little one alongside the migration course, an immediate results of the violence they had been escaping. One guy described how his spouse and daughter had been kidnapped alongside the course, leaving him to handle 4 different kids and questioning whether or not they had been nonetheless alive. He stated:
It pains me so much as a result of I don’t know whether or not they’re alive. Knowledge circulates that lots of the girls and women who had been kidnapped had been mob raped and lots of died. Possibly my spouse and her daughter are sufferers.
Those tales, like the ones of numerous different ladies and their households, illustrate obviously that sexual violence used to be now not an insignificant background noise to warfare – it used to be certainly the snapping point that despatched them at the street. As one lady informed us, the sexual violence she feared precipitated her circle of relatives emigrate to South Sudan:
My husband used to be taken by way of the Fast Beef up Forces and I used to be stabbed after I refused to be raped by way of the ones males, I even nonetheless have the scar. I got here right here [to South Sudan] to modify my existence.
Within the Aweil North brief agreement, Kiir Adem, the staff discovered stunning prerequisites. Designed as a non permanent refuge, previous to resettlement by way of the World Group for Migration (IOM), many of us have been there for 3 months or longer. Some have been registered as refugees or returnees, others had now not. All had been suffering to live on with out ok meals or refuge, and with out a get right of entry to to desperately wanted healthcare.
Chandiru Drama stated: “Due to rampant looting and robbery along the journey, countless individuals reached their destination stripped of essentials – no food, no clothing, no supplies.”
The truth after crossing
After crossing the border to relative protection in South Sudan, returnees and refugees had been met with a brand new set of struggles: loss of infrastructure, restricted get right of entry to to hospital therapy, and few humanitarian provisions.
Not like in higher established reception centres alongside the border, Kiir Adem had little in the way in which of toughen. The closest well being centre used to be over two hours away by way of automotive, an continuously not possible adventure for exhausted, injured girls and women who have been robbed of any cash or provides that they had carried. One lady informed us:
It took me six days to achieve South Sudan border. On the border, I reported the rape case however no remedy used to be given to me. The IOM officers referred me to well being amenities in Gok Marchar which is ready 50km but it surely used to be very a long way that I couldn’t go back and forth and I didn’t have cash for shipping.
It is vital for survivors of rape to obtain prophylactic therapies and different emergency sexual and reproductive healthcare once imaginable post-assault. Some individuals detailed devastating bodily accidents as a result of sexual violence, and nonetheless others had been pregnant when raped or become pregnant on account of rape. In those instances, the loss of hospital therapy would possibly lead to dire results.
Sudanese folks flee to the Tawila Camps amid the continued battle in North Darfur, Sudan, in April 2025.
EPA/MARWAN MOHAMED
Returnees had been left, in lots of instances, to piece in combination their very own makeshift shelters and to forage for meals within the forests. The world used to be susceptible to flooding, with researchers having to buckle down and do water to get to folks. One lady stated:
I travelled to South Sudan in April 2024 with two kids. I’m now stranded with my kids as a result of my husband ran away when the Arabs had been rampantly sexually assaulting ladies … I by no means know whether or not he’s alive or now not. There have been two women who had been additionally kidnapped throughout the migration to South Sudan. I’m now within the returnees camp snoozing in grass thatched huts, numerous rain, no tents, no meals.
When requested how continuously they fight to make ends meet, over 80% of girls and women answered, “all the time or most of the time”. Casual settlements, like the only the place we accrued information, had been evolved alongside the duration of the Sudan-South Sudan border.
The porousness of the border, common motion around the border in occasions of relative peace, and the difficulties having access to formal crossing issues make it near-impossible to successfully channel displaced peoples via formal crossing issues and into relatively well-serviced settlements. Stepped forward products and services, together with transports to legit settlements and for hospital therapy, are urgently wanted within the border area to satisfy the top wishes of returnees anywhere they’re positioned.
Pressing reaction wanted
There should now be a shift in humanitarian reaction – from reactive carrier provision to proactive, survivor-centred coverage methods. As an example, NGOs must build up actions alongside identified migration routes and alongside the border and humanitarian help investment should be larger by way of donor governments. The UN peacekeeping project may just additionally build up coverage of civilian actions in South Sudanese border areas, in partnership with South Sudanese civil society organisations.
Sexual violence isn’t merely collateral harm of the warfare in Sudan. For lots of women and their households, it’s the number one catalyst for flight. The pervasive risk of abduction and rape is a key driving force of migration, shaping who flees, after they flee, and compelling girls and women to take the impossible dangers for a possibility of protection in South Sudan.
Since our information assortment in the summertime of 2024, the placement in Sudan has now not progressed and the protection context in South Sudan has worsened. At the southern aspect of the border, larger battle between ethnically-based armed teams and an uptick in political tensions between President Salva Kiir and primary Vice-President Riek Machar, together with the home arrest and next treason trial in opposition to Machar, have stoked fears of a imaginable go back to warfare in South Sudan.
Mixed with larger financial pressures and spillover results from the warfare in Sudan, South Sudan’s political and safety standing is increasingly more precarious. The danger of South Sudan returning to warfare will increase the urgency with which returnees should be resettled and their rapid wishes met. The hazards of larger battle and violence will disproportionately have an effect on those that are already displaced and prone. Legally skilled NGO staff may just assist right here by way of advancing felony investigations which in flip may just tell carrier provision.
World legislation has additionally been very gradual to react. It used to be handiest in October this yr that judges on the World Prison Courtroom complicated the primary conviction for warfare crimes and crimes in opposition to humanity dedicated in Darfur in 2003 and 2004. Sufferers and survivors of the present warfare must now not have to attend greater than twenty years for trials.
The world group must paintings with ladies’s organisations, Sudanese and South Sudanese legal professionals and human rights defenders to advance justice now, in no matter approach is imaginable.
This may come with survivor-centred investigations and proof amassing, group justice tasks, and protected areas for survivors to start out their therapeutic.
Ladies-led civil society organisations are nicely positioned to toughen the rapid wishes of girls and women, however they want toughen. Investment cuts have hit those organisations laborious world wide, with many prone to shutting down.
Chandiru Drama added: “If civil society organisations are to continue performing their lifesaving work, they must be funded at scale. This is not just a funding issue – it’s a justice issue … Because in the face of unimaginable violence, these groups are not just service providers – they are lifelines.”
The girls and women we met had been transparent: sexual violence pressured their determination to run. If they’re to forestall working, an pressing reaction is wanted: resettlement, humanitarian toughen, and justice should be prioritised.
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