Reports

Sexual Violence against Women and Girls in Sudan’s Capital

The 88-page report, ““Khartoum is Not Safe for Women”: Sexual Violence against Women and Girls in Sudan’s Capital,” documents widespread sexual violence, as well as forced and child marriage during the conflict, in Khartoum and its sister cities. Service providers treating and supporting victims also heard reports from women and girls of being held by the RSF in conditions that could amount to sexual slavery. The research also highlights the devastating health and mental health consequences for survivors and the destructive impact of warring parties’ attacks on health care and the Sudanese Armed Forces’ (SAF) willful blocking of aid.

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  • May 9, 2024

    Ethnic Cleansing and Crimes Against Humanity in El Geneina, West Darfur, Sudan

    The 218-page report, “‘The Massalit Will Not Come Home’: Ethnic Cleansing and Crimes Against Humanity in El Geneina, West Darfur, Sudan,” documents that the Rapid Support Forces, an independent military force in armed conflict with the Sudan military, and their allied mainly Arab militias, including the Third-Front Tamazuj, an armed group, targeted the predominantly Massalit neighborhoods of El Geneina in relentless waves of attacks from April to June. Abuses escalated again in early November. The attackers committed other serious abuses such as torture, rape, and looting. More than half a million refugees from West Darfur have fled to Chad since April 2023. As of late October 2023, 75 percent were from El Geneina.

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  • November 17, 2019

    Sudan’s Violent Crackdown on Protesters in Khartoum

    This report documents Sudanese security forces’ attack on the protesters’ sit-in camp in Khartoum on June 3, 2019 and in following days in other neighborhoods of the capital, Khartoum, and neighboring Bahri and Omdurman. Human Rights Watch also documented attacks on protesters leading up to the June 3 crackdown and a subsequent attack on protesters on June 30 in Omdurman.

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  • May 22, 2017

    Lack of Access to Reproductive Healthcare in Sudan’s Rebel-Held Southern Kordofan

    This report documents how women and girls cannot get contraception and have little access to health care if they face complications during pregnancy and childbirth. The parties to the six-year-long conflict, the Sudanese government and the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army-North (SPLA/M-North), have both obstructed impartial humanitarian aid.

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  • March 23, 2016

    Repression and Abuse of Women Human Rights Defenders, Activists, and Protesters in Sudan

    This report documents efforts by Sudanese authorities to silence women who are involved in protests, rights campaigns, and other public action, and who provide social services and legal aid, as well as journalists.

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  • September 9, 2015

    Rapid Support Forces Attacks against Civilians in Darfur, Sudan

    The 88-page report documents Rapid Support Forces atrocities against civilians during two counterinsurgency campaigns in Darfur. The abuses appear to be widespread and systematic attacks on civilian populations that may constitute crimes against humanity. 

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  • February 11, 2015

    Sudanese Army Attacks against Civilians in Tabit

    The 48-page report documents Sudanese army attacks in which at least 221 women and girls were raped in Tabit over 36 hours beginning on October 30, 2014. The mass rapes would amount to crimes against humanity if found to be part of a widespread or systematic attack on the civilian population.

  • September 9, 2014

    Israel’s Coercion of Eritrean and Sudanese Asylum Seekers to Leave Israel

    This 83-page report documents how Israel’s convoluted legal rules thwart Eritrean and Sudanese asylum seekers’ attempts to secure protection under Israeli and international law.

  • April 21, 2014

    Killings and Arrests by Sudan’s Security Forces during the September Protests

    This 32-page report describes unlawful killings, arbitrary detentions, ill-treatment and torture of detainees, and other serious abuses committed by government security forces.
  • February 11, 2014

    Trafficking and Torture of Eritreans in Sudan and Egypt

    This 79-page report documents how, since 2010, Egyptian traffickers have tortured Eritreans for ransom in the Sinai Peninsula, including through rape, burning, and mutilation.

  • December 11, 2012

    Indiscriminate Bombing and Abuses in Sudan’s Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile States

    This 39-page report is based on five research missions to the hard-to-access rebel-held areas in the two states and to refugee camps in South Sudan.

  • September 15, 2011

    Closing Gaps in the Selection of ICC Cases

    This 50-page report assesses the Office of the Prosecutor’s choice of cases in its first five investigations. Investigations in Central African Republic, Sudan’s Darfur region, Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, and northern Uganda have yielded 10 cases and three trials, making an important contribution to tackling impunity for some of the world’s worst crimes.
  • June 5, 2011

    The Sudanese Government’s Ongoing Attacks on Civilians and Human Rights

    This report documents the intensification of the eight-year conflict over the past six months. Since December 2010, a surge in government-led attacks on populated areas and a campaign of aerial bombing have killed and injured scores of civilians, destroyed property, and displaced more than 70,000 people, largely from ethnic Zaghawa and Fur communities linked to rebel groups.

  • June 30, 2010

    Rights Violations in the April 2010 Sudan Elections

    This 32-page report documents numerous rights violations across Sudan by both northern and southern authorities in the period leading up to, during, and following the April elections.
  • March 28, 2010

    LRA Atrocities in Northeastern Congo

    This 67-page report is the first detailed documentation of the Makombo massacre and other atrocities by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in Congo in 2009 and early 2010.
  • October 6, 2009

    Ending Human Rights Abuses and Repression across Sudan

    This 25-page report documents human rights violations and repression in Khartoum and northern states, ongoing violence in Darfur, and the fighting that threatens civilians in Southern Sudan. It is based on field research in eastern Chad and Southern Sudan in July and August.