Warning: This report contains details of sexual assaults. Reader discretion is advised.
Armed forces in Sudan’s ongoing civil war are perpetrating systematic sexual violence against young children, with one-year-olds the youngest survivors of rape, according to a new report from UNICEF, the United Nations’ (UN) children’s agency.
The UNICEF report, released Tuesday, said that at least 221 cases of child rape had been recorded since the beginning of 2024, along with an additional 77 reported cases of sexual assault against children.
Four one-year-olds were among those who survived sexual assaults, while another 12 survivors were children under the age of 5, according to the report. Of the rape survivors, 66% are girls and 33% are boys.
The data, compiled by gender-based violence service providers in Sudan, only represent a “small fraction” of the total child rape cases, UNICEF said, noting that survivors, their families and even frontline workers are often unwilling or unable to report the crimes due to challenges around accessing services, cultural stigmas and the fear of retribution from armed groups.
The report, which detailed firsthand accounts of sexual violence against children from December 2024 and January 2025, found that children were sexually abused during invasions of cities, while fleeing danger, while being held against their will or in detention – and sometimes in exchange for food or other essential supplies.
Sudan has been gripped by war for nearly two years, as forces loyal to two rival generals fight for control of the country.
The generals – Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, leader of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), and Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, also known as Hemedti, who heads the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) – have viciously competed for territory in a country still reeling from the massacre of tens of thousands of people in the early 2000s and the displacement of millions more.
Since April 2023, more than 28,700 people have been killed according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data initiative, and more than 11 million have been forced to flee their homes.
UNICEF received firsthand reports of “armed men storming homes and demanding at gunpoint that families surrender their girls, often while violently attacking the family members or raping the girls in front of their loved ones,” according to the report.
Frontline workers have seen an increase of violence against internally displaced people living in shelters or who are sheltering at informal sites, UNICEF said, noting that the risk of sexual violence is high within these communities, especially against children.
One rape survivor, a woman who asked to be called Omnia, told UNICEF that she was detained by armed men for 19 days. She said that she became suicidal after hearing young girls being raped every night.
“After nine at night, someone opens the door, carrying a whip, selects one of the girls, and takes her to another room. I could hear the little girl crying and screaming. They were raping her… She is still just a young child. They only release these girls at dawn, and they return almost unconscious,” Omnia said.
Catherine Russell, UNICEF’s executive director said the testimonies should “shock anyone to their core and compel immediate action,” adding that “widespread sexual violence in Sudan has instilled terror in people, especially children.”
The report noted that violence is not limited to only one part of Sudan and that cases of child rape were reported in nine states across the country.
The SAF controls the eastern and northern parts of the country, according to the British government, while the RSF controls western, southern and central Sudan – including the Darfur region.