Sudan: Army accused of recruiting women, children as ICC report flags foreign support

Human rights and humanitarian groups in Sudan are intensifying their efforts to monitor the violations committed against civilians since the beginning of the war, including the forced recruitment of children and the use of civilian women within the Port Sudan army and its allied militias.

The Sudanese Human Rights Observatory published a video documenting the enlistment of civilian women into what the Port Sudan authority calls the “Popular Resistance,” a set of armed groups operating alongside the Port Sudan army in the areas under its control.

The Observatory documented the recruitment of civilian women, stating that “the Port Sudan army is pushing them into the battlefields in blatant violation of international humanitarian law and international conventions that prohibit involving civilians—especially women—in armed conflicts.”

Human rights organizations noted that “forced recruitment continues against civilian women,” and affirmed that the Port Sudan army bears direct responsibility for the loss of these innocent lives.

Activists on social media circulated another clip showing a Sudanese woman riding in the back of a transport vehicle fitted with a multi-barrel automatic weapon, firing while a Port Sudan army commander stands behind her.

The woman appears in civilian clothing. The Sudanese Observatory commented on the footage, saying that the woman “is operating within the ranks of the Popular Resistance loyal to the armed forces.”

Other human rights groups also published evidence of the recruitment of children following the closure of schools in areas under the control of Port Sudan forces and the extremist Islamist militias aligned with them, which have been fighting alongside the army since the outbreak of the war in mid-April 2023.

The Russian agency “RIA Novosti” revealed that a group of lawyers, experts, and human rights defenders prepared a secret report sent to the International Criminal Court in The Hague, documenting the crimes and violations of international and humanitarian law committed by the Port Sudan army and the allied militias fighting under its banner.

According to the report, which details the violations committed by the Port Sudan army, the Russian agency said that leaders within the Port Sudan authority and army will soon face criminal prosecution, as the secret report highlighted repeated indiscriminate bombardments that have caused severe damage to infrastructure and civilians in recent months.

The report stressed that the crimes were committed through “indiscriminate aerial bombardment, obstruction of humanitarian aid, and the systematic targeting of civilians.”

Sources stated that the confidential report sent to the ICC represents “a crucial step toward international accountability, in accordance with Article 15 of the Rome Statute, urging the Prosecutor to take action against those most responsible for such crimes against civilians.”

The experts and human rights defenders who prepared the report relied on documented UN, international, and local files, foremost among them UN investigations and the fieldwork of non-governmental organizations in Sudan, in addition to open-source intelligence used to determine the legal responsibility of external actors.

The secret report confirmed that the Port Sudan army received external support from several countries in the Middle East, as well as from non-state actors providing intelligence, military assistance, financial backing, and combat training.

The report revealed that the countries assisting the Port Sudan army are “Djibouti, Eritrea, Iran, and Turkey,” in addition to other unnamed states, affirming that these countries contributed to the operations of the Sudanese army by providing logistical corridors, military equipment, and strategic coordination.

As for the non-state actors accused by the report of aiding the Port Sudan authority and army in committing crimes against humanity in Sudan, they are “Somalia’s al-Shabaab, Hamas, the Houthis, and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard,” stating that these entities provided training, fuel, and field support inside Sudan.