GENEVA, SWITZERLAND | A coalition of human rights and civil society organizations held a side event today, “Women’s Condition and Violence in Wartime: Focus on the Sudan Crisis,” at the Club Suisse de la Presse, with participants attending in person and online. Speakers condemned violence against civilians by all parties to the conflict, including the Rapid Support Forces and the Sudanese Armed Forces, and called for credible, impartial investigations to establish responsibility, hold all perpetrators accountable, and meet critical civilian needs.
The event had been scheduled inside the United Nations in Geneva. It was cancelled at the last minute, raising serious concerns about possible political interference and the selective treatment of alleged abuses in Sudan. The organizers stressed that accountability cannot be credible if violations committed by one party are scrutinized while those committed by another are ignored. The cancellation coincided with the UN Security Council’s 24 August meeting on Sudan. Rather than postpone, the co-organizers secured a new venue within hours and added remote participation.
The panel comprised Ramon Rahangmetan, Co-founder of Circle of Sustainable Europe; Manel Msalmi, President of EADM and International Affairs Advisor to MEPs; Andy Vermaut, Vice President of EADM; Abdel-Rahim Grein and Dr. Mohamed Ali of the ICHR; and Elisabeth Saba of TYFA. Presentations covered the collapse of maternal health care, sexual violence as a weapon of war, the militarization of hospitals and schools, drone and aerial attacks on residential areas, and the reported use of chemical weapons by the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) in Omdurman in 2024.
Ramon Rahangmetan set out the EU’s approach to the crisis and argued that any effective response must confront Islamist extremism within Sudan’s power structure and the SAF’s implication in violations, including chemical weapons use. Manel Msalmi called on the UN, the EU and the ICC to investigate violence against women in Sudan and to apply the UNiTE campaign and the EU-UN Spotlight Initiative to Sudanese survivors of sexual violence, famine, displacement and chemical exposure. She stressed that accountability must apply to every armed actor in Sudan, the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces alike.
Andy Vermaut addressed General al-Burhan directly: “Leadership is not measured by the territory a force controls. It is measured by the lives that leadership protects.” He called for safe access to assistance, health care and education, warning that “history remembers the promises made in moments of danger.” Abdel-Rahim Grein presented two ICHR reports submitted to the UN on SAF chemical weapons use and its consequences for civilians, and discussed the Mecca pact. Of Omdurman in 2024, he said, “death did not arrive with the sound of an explosion; it crept in silently to suffocate lungs and choke off breath.”
He reported that more than 80 percent of health facilities in conflict zones have been destroyed or militarized. ICHR recommends a no-fly zone, an OPCW-supported fact-finding commission with ICC referral, an emergency education initiative, and targeted sanctions. He also called for a full arms embargo on all parties across the whole of Sudan. Dr. Mohamed Ali traced the assault on women’s dignity to decades of Islamist rule and argued that sexual violence in Darfur, the Nuba Mountains and the current war “is not a collection of isolated individual acts” but “a fully-fledged war crime and a crime against humanity.”
He highlighted the denial of education to girls in Darfur and Kordofan and the SAF’s indiscriminate bombardment of residential areas, markets, hospitals and schools. Elisabeth Saba traced Sudanese women from the front line of the 2019 revolution to the war of 2023 and the pattern of rape, gang rape, forced marriage and sexual slavery documented by UN investigators, including against children. She was explicit that both sides bear responsibility: the Rapid Support Forces and allied fighters have been implicated, and SAF personnel and allied forces have also been implicated. She warned that famine is driving female-headed households into survival sex, “their bodies, or hunger,” recalled the UN Fact-Finding Mission’s finding that atrocities in Darfur and Kordofan bore hallmarks of genocide, and asked whether the Council was “prepared to listen and to act.”
The co-organizers call on the UN, the EU, the ICC and the OPCW to:
• Open independent investigations into sexual violence and chemical weapons use in Sudan, with ICC referral and no immunities.
• Fund survivor-centered medical, psychological and economic support, including care for those exposed to chemical agents.
• Secure humanitarian access, protect civilians and enforce a no-fly zone.
• Restore girls’ education in Darfur, Kordofan and all affected areas, and criminalize the military use of schools and hospitals.
• Guarantee Sudanese women’s participation in peace negotiations, in line with Security Council Resolution 1325. The organizers further call on the UN Office at Geneva to ensure civil society events are not cancelled for political reasons, and stand ready to present the same evidence within UN premises.
On 24 April 2025 the United States determined that the Government of Sudan used chemical weapons in 2024; sanctions followed in June 2025 and again on 20 July 2026. UNHCR reported in April 2026 that some 14 million people have fled since April 2023, 9 million internally and 4.4 million across borders. The UN reported on 20 August 2026 more than 200,000 newly displaced in Kordofan amid drone attacks on infrastructure in El Obeid. UNHCR notes more than half of Sudan’s population faces acute food insecurity, with famine confirmed in several regions.
The International Coalition for Human Rights (ICHR), the European Association for the Defense of Minorities (EADM), The Youth Future Alliance (TYFA) and Post Versa are independent civil society organizations engaged in human rights documentation, advocacy, and the protection of women and minorities in conflict.
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