Press briefing by UN Women on the humanitarian needs of women and girls in Sudan after two years of war

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I converse to you from Port Sudan, on the day we mark the second yr of the horrific conflict in Sudan.

I’m right here to precise solidarity with the ladies of Sudan who’re bearing the brunt of one of many world’s worst humanitarian emergencies, to hearken to their issues, and to reassure them that they aren’t alone.

Only a few days in the past, 400 civilians misplaced their lives within the assault in Darfur. We condemn, within the strongest phrases, this unwarranted assault on civilians which works in opposition to worldwide humanitarian legislation.

1000’s of civilians who’re trapped within the Darfur area don’t have any entry to essential lifesaving providers together with meals and healthcare. We name for humanitarian entry and the safety of humanitarian support staff who’re offering lifesaving assist to civilians within the area.

The conflict’s toll is devastating:

288 per cent enhance in demand for lifesaving assist following rape and sexual violence.
Girls’s our bodies have turn into battlegrounds on this battle, with sexual violence and rape being systematically used as a weapon of conflict.
But these numbers don’t seize the ache and worry I hear within the tales of ladies I’ve met in displacement camps and safety centres in Port Sudan.

Each lady fled her residence with nothing, escaping violence and private tragedies. I’ve heard their accounts of horror, the sexual abuse they suffered, and the fixed want to maneuver from one place to a different, with nowhere secure to go. Lack of meals, medical care, and consuming water has turn into the norm, whereas their youngsters have misplaced entry to schooling and stay now in fixed worry.

The testimonies of ladies survivors of sexual violence will stay with me eternally. How their our bodies turned battlegrounds, as there are sturdy indications of gender-based violence getting used as a weapon of conflict.

I visited, two days in the past, an internally displaced individuals website right here in Port Sudan—Saada and Salam Gathering Web site (which suggests “Happiness and Peace”). It’s a college changed into a displacement camp for individuals who escaped from Khartoum and different areas below assault prior to now two years. Eighty-eight households stay there, with solely three latrines for girls and two for males, and no entry to consuming water or healthcare. A girl instructed us how she gave beginning alone on the ground of her tent.

Sudanese girls’s organizations are on the frontline of the response. Many have been pillars of Sudanese civil society for many years, selling girls’s rights, schooling, and management in political decision-making.

We can’t abandon them now. Now could be once they want us most.

Girls demand a spot at the desk to form the peace and way forward for their nation.
They demand justice and accountability for the violations they’ve suffered.
They demand an finish to the conflict and sustainable long-term peace to return.
They demand an opportunity for his or her youngsters to dream and pursue these goals like the remainder of the kids.
They demand that we don’t hold quiet in regards to the sexual violence that they’re enduring, because the perpetrators would need them to.
They demand that we use our areas and voices to assist them inform the story of the gross human rights violations that they’re experiencing.
They demand that we highlight the underfunding of native girls’s organizations which might be serving to girls bear the brunt of this battle with little or no funding.
They demand that we act now and never wait one other day longer.