Medical charity MSF reports systematic sexual violence by Sudan’s RSF paramilitaries in Darfur, with thousands of survivors seeking treatment since 2024.
NAIROBI: Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces and allied militias are using sexual violence as a “weapon of war” in Darfur to control civilians, medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said.
The organisation’s report, based on medical data and testimonies, reveals the deliberate and systematic nature of these atrocities in violation of international humanitarian law.
Between January 2024 and November 2025, at least 3,396 survivors sought treatment at MSF-supported facilities in North and South Darfur.
MSF warned this figure represents “only a fraction of the true scale” of the violence, with 97% of the survivors being women and girls.
Survivors have “frequently and clearly” identified those responsible as RSF fighters, according to the report.
Testimonies from 150 victims during the RSF’s April attack on Zamzam camp indicate they targeted specific ethnic groups, particularly the non-Arab Zaghawa community.
A 28-year-old woman described being assaulted by four men who held her down. “They were four and each raped me, while some held my arms and others my legs,” she said.
Many women described being assaulted away from frontlines while conducting daily activities on roads, in farms, markets and displacement camps.
A 40-year-old woman in Jebel Marra said, “There is no way to stop the rapes. The only way is to try to stay home, and to not go out as much.”
MSF identified 732 survivors of sexual violence in displacement camps between December 2025 and January this year alone.
Some were assaulted while fleeing or within the supposed safety of the camps themselves.
“This war is being fought on the backs and bodies of women and girls,” said Ruth Kauffman, MSF’s emergency health manager.
She described the assaults as a “defining feature” of the conflict, which enters its fourth year in April.
The Sudanese army and RSF have been locked in a brutal conflict since April 2023 that has killed tens of thousands.
The war has displaced around 11 million people and has been marked by widespread sexual violence.
Other documented atrocities occurred in El-Fasher, the army’s last stronghold in Darfur that fell in October 2025.
A UN fact-finding mission has reported “acts of genocide” in the region.