Children as young as 1 raped during Sudan's civil war, U.N. says
Children as young as 1 are being raped and sexually assaulted by armed forces in Sudan, according to a new report by UNICEF.
Children as young as 1 are being raped and sexually assaulted by armed forces in Sudan, where a bitter civil war has been raging for almost two years, according to a new report by the United Nations children’s agency.
The first comprehensive account illustrating how mass sexual violence is being wielded as a weapon of war against children inside the northeast African nation found that more than 200 children had been raped since the start of last year, although the authors stressed that this was only a small fraction of the total number of cases.
“Children as young as one being raped by armed men should shock anyone to their core and compel immediate action,” UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell said in a statement Monday.
Calling it “an abhorrent violation of international law and could constitute a war crime,” she added that “it must stop.”
Four 1-year-olds were among those who survived the assaults and another 16 survivors were children under the age of 5, the report said. Of the reported 221 cases of child rape, 66% of the victims were girls, while 33% were boys, it added.
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