Armed men are raping and sexually assaulting children as young as one during Sudan's civil war, says the UN children's agency, Unicef. So traumatised are the survivors that some say they have attempted to end their lives. Mass sexual violence has been widely documented as a weapon of war in the country's nearly two-year conflict.

The U.N. children’s agency says children in conflict-ravaged Sudan as young as a year old have been raped since the beginning of 2024 and that sexual violence is being used as a tactic of war.

Armed forces in Sudan’s civil war are perpetrating systematic sexual violence against young children, with one-year-olds the youngest survivors of rape, according to a new report from UNICEF, the United Nations’ (UN) children’s agency.