Women in Sudan’s Al-Obeid face drone attacks and rape when fetching water, UN says
GENEVA: Women and girls in Sudan’s Al-Obeid face a dire choice between the threat of drone attacks during the day and sexual violence at night when they go out to fetch water in the besieged city, UN Women said on Friday.
Access to food and health care is severely limited in Al-Obeid, the capital of North Kordofan, where the UN’s human rights chief warned this month that a human rights catastrophe was unfolding amid intensifying fighting between Sudan’s army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
The war, now in its fourth year, has sparked one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises — with rampant reports of sexual violence and other abuses.
“These women and girls have been harassed. They’ve been raped, and they’ve been subjected to other forms of sexual violence, all while trying to access water, one of life’s most fundamental necessities in human rights,” Anna Mutavati, UN Women Regional Director for East and Southern Africa, told reporters in Geneva via video link from Nairobi.
