Sudan

A water project supported by the UN-African Union peacekeeping force (UNAMID) in eight villages of North Darfur will not only facilitate residents' access to water but also help to reduce sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) in the region, local residents and UNAMID officials said.

In a speech at Ahfad University for Women in Omdurman, Sudan, on April 9, USAID Deputy Administrator Donald Steinberg announced a new USAID global grant program to increase the substantive involvement of women in peace processes.

More than 800 people have been killed this year in a rise in violence in south Sudan before its independence in July, the United Nations said on Wednesday.

Southern Sudanese voted to separate from the north in a January referendum, promised to them as part of a 2005 peace accord which ended decades of civil war in Sudan. The war claimed some two million lives and destabilised much of the region.

In a speech at Ahfad University for Women in Omdurman, Sudan, on April 9, USAID Deputy Administrator Donald Steinberg announced a new USAID global grant program to increase the substantive involvement of women in peace processes.

One impact of two decades of war is that women now make up over 60 percent of the eight million people of South Sudan, says the Government of Southern Sudan's Ministry of Gender, Child and Social Welfare.

And while women fought alongside men during the conflict with the north, or helped the effort in other ways, after the ceasefire, many women feel they did not get the same recognition or respect as men.

Armed men wearing uniforms and mounted on camels committed seven rapes in Shagra area, targeting displaced women who had gone out of their camps to harvest crops. Seven rape victims were from Abu Shouk Camp. Another girl was raped elsewhere in Darfur, in Garsila.

A key police officer in the minister of internal affairs of the government of south Sudan denied Friday allegations of rape of female police recruits and physical abuse during a year-long police training period in Juba.

Anti-government protesters, who have taken to the streets of Khartoum and other Sudanese cities over recent weeks, run the risk of sexual assault, torture and detention, say human rights workers and demonstrators.

United Nations Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) today organized the launch of the Darfur Regional Women's Legislative Caucus, in El Fasher, North Darfur. The establishment of the Caucus is considered an essential step to support the promotion of gender equality in the region.

Sudanese security authorities have employed several forms of gender-based violence, including rape, against female activists who took part in recent anti-government campaigns, a local right group said on Sunday.