The International Organization for Migration counts more than 14 million people forced to leave their homes in an environment where hunger, disease and sexual violence are common.

The war in Sudan has displaced more than 14 million people and sexual violence is on a “staggering” scale, according to a United Nations agency report.

Civil conflict has created the world’s biggest displacement crisis this year, the UN’s International Organization for Migration (IOM) said on Tuesday. Meanwhile, the UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for Sudan said in a new report that paramilitary forces were looting the female population.

IOM Director General Amy Pope described the situation in the war-torn African country as “catastrophic” in her statement to the press.

Explaining how women and girls are trafficked for sexual slavery, the head of the investigative mission, Mohamed Chande Othman, said: “There is no safe place in Sudan anymore.”

Sudan’s violent civil war broke out in April 2023 following a power struggle between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the military’s former paramilitary allies, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). coup.

living nightmare

Since then, about 30 percent of the country’s total population has fled their homes, Pope said.

Of these, 11 million are internally displaced, 3.1 million have fled to neighboring countries, and the numbers continue to increase.

“This is an under-reported conflict situation and we must pay more attention to it. Millions are suffering, and there is now a real possibility that the conflict will trigger regional instability from the Sahel to the Horn of Africa and the Red Sea,” the Pope warned.

More than half of those displaced are women, and more than a quarter are children under the age of five.

Stating that diseases are also spreading rapidly and 50 percent of Sudanese have difficulty finding the minimum amount of food to survive, the Pope added that famine conditions in North Darfur are already showing their effects.

“There is no other way to express this. Hunger, disease and sexual violence are at their peak. For the Sudanese people, this is a living nightmare,” he said.

war crimes

The review mission noted that both the Sudanese army, the RSF and allied militias “committed large-scale violations of human rights and international humanitarian law, many of which may constitute war crimes and/or crimes against humanity.”

The report accused both parties of sexual violence but noted that RSF was behind the “vast majority” of documented cases and was responsible for “sexual violence on a large scale,” including “gang rapes and the abduction and detention of victims of sexual slavery.” .

The report also stated that the RSF and its allies engaged in “abducting children, recruiting them and using them in hostilities” amid systematic looting and looting.

Dozens of civilians were killed in clashes last week and thousands more were displaced in the eastern Gezira Province.

On Saturday, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) described the situation as “one of the most severe crises in living memory.”

The UN also warned that approximately 25 million people – more than half of Sudan’s population – will face acute hunger by the end of the year.

The war was marked by atrocities such as mass rape and “ethnic cleansing”, which the UN said amounted to war crimes and crimes against humanity, especially in the western region of Darfur. More than 24,000 people have died since the reignited violence.

Recent flooding in Sudan’s eastern Red Sea State also caused displacement.

The pope called for the “scaling up” of the humanitarian response, saying only half of the aid to the country was being financed.

“We will not allow Sudan to be forgotten,” he said. “Its people need peace now.”