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Sudanese Women Are Facing Difficult Conditions After Nearly a Year of Conflict

The suffering of women in Sudan- File Photo
The suffering of women in Sudan- File Photo
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Sudanese Women Are Facing Difficult Conditions After Nearly a Year of Conflict

The suffering of women in Sudan- File Photo
The suffering of women in Sudan- File Photo

As the world marks International Women's Day, Sudanese women continue to struggle with extremely difficult humanitarian conditions. Women have been subjected to various kinds of gross human rights violations since the war between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces broke out last year.

For millions of Sudanese women, the past year has been a living hell of sexual assault, rape, and forced displacement. Many have walked long distances on foot as they made their way to camps in neighboring countries; others waited at border crossings for months before obtaining visas.

Rehab Al-Mubarak, a member of Sudan’s Emergency Lawyers, explains the dire situation women are living under in Sudan.

"Women have paid a high price for this war. They have been subjected to forced labor. Many have been gravely harmed, and many are being gravely harmed. Some have been forced to work in domestic labor, and have been subjected to horrific forms of sexual violence and brutally raped. They have few options, and they are struggling to survive and escape from the regions in which battles are raging."

Umm Muhammad has been working for a civic organization since fighting broke out in Khartoum and engulfed her neighborhood. She says: "The war forced us to leave our homes, our lives, our memories, and all of our possessions. We went through hell when we were forced out of the capital. We witnessed the destruction of our city; we saw its markets burn. We will never forget the pain of seeing the corpses left along the road."

She also described the trauma that her daughter experienced after being shot at while they had been trying to escape the capital. “We faced real terror, as whenever we passed a military checkpoint, we would be shot at continuously to force the driver to stop moving."

Heba Khatmi, a teacher who survived the war in Khartoum, also told her story. "I fled Khartoum and sought refuge in my father's hometown of Abri, only to fall totally mute for a time. My mind refused to recall what had happened in Khartoum. Settling in the town where I found refuge was not easy. I began to think about leaving Sudan after losing hope that the war would end, as well as facing financial constraints after losing my job."

Iman Fadel, a member of the Sudanese Journalists’ Union, shared the painful stories of women journalists. "Most of them have lost their source of income after most newspapers stopped operating, and they sought refuge in camps, living under extremely difficult humanitarian conditions. Their pain was exacerbated by being targeted, and we must not forget what happened to Samaher Abdel Shafei, the journalist who was assassinated in Darfur, and Halima Idris, the journalist who was killed while covering battle at Omdurman Hospital."

The United Nations published reports last week documenting further violations against women in Darfur, including murder, forced displacement, and rape. Some of the victims are children. Condemnations of the violence compare the events unfolding today to the violence that devastated the region around twenty years ago. Over 200,000 people were killed at the time. One particularly notorious crime against humanity was the mass rape perpetrated in the village of Tabit.

Volunteers and human rights organizations accuse both belligerents in Sudan of detaining hundreds of women on trumped-up espionage charges, or merely because of their ethnic background.

The Darfur Lawyers Association announced last February that authorities in the city of Atbara (530 kilometers from Khartoum) had arrested Inaam Ahmed Khairy and Salma Hassan because they are part of the Messiria tribe and belonging an ethnic group associated with the Rapid Support Forces.

Research on education in Sudan conducted since the war erupted demonstrates the devastating impact it has had on the country’s 11 million students, half of whom are girls. Many could be forced into child marriage or flee their homes.

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As It Attacks Iran's Nuclear Program, Israel Maintains Ambiguity about Its Own

FILE - This file image made from a video aired Friday, Jan. 7, 2005, by Israeli television station Channel 10, shows what the television station claims is Israel's nuclear facility in the southern Israeli town of Dimona, the first detailed video of the site ever shown to the public. (Channel 10 via AP, File)
FILE - This file image made from a video aired Friday, Jan. 7, 2005, by Israeli television station Channel 10, shows what the television station claims is Israel's nuclear facility in the southern Israeli town of Dimona, the first detailed video of the site ever shown to the public. (Channel 10 via AP, File)
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As It Attacks Iran's Nuclear Program, Israel Maintains Ambiguity about Its Own

FILE - This file image made from a video aired Friday, Jan. 7, 2005, by Israeli television station Channel 10, shows what the television station claims is Israel's nuclear facility in the southern Israeli town of Dimona, the first detailed video of the site ever shown to the public. (Channel 10 via AP, File)
FILE - This file image made from a video aired Friday, Jan. 7, 2005, by Israeli television station Channel 10, shows what the television station claims is Israel's nuclear facility in the southern Israeli town of Dimona, the first detailed video of the site ever shown to the public. (Channel 10 via AP, File)

Israel says it is determined to destroy Iran’s nuclear program because its archenemy's furtive efforts to build an atomic weapon are a threat to its existence.

What’s not-so-secret is that for decades Israel has been believed to be the Middle East’s only nation with nuclear weapons, even though its leaders have refused to confirm or deny their existence, The Associated Press said.

Israel's ambiguity has enabled it to bolster its deterrence against Iran and other enemies, experts say, without triggering a regional nuclear arms race or inviting preemptive attacks.

Israel is one of just five countries that aren’t party to a global nuclear nonproliferation treaty. That relieves it of international pressure to disarm, or even to allow inspectors to scrutinize its facilities.

Critics in Iran and elsewhere have accused Western countries of hypocrisy for keeping strict tabs on Iran's nuclear program — which its leaders insist is only for peaceful purposes — while effectively giving Israel's suspected arsenal a free pass.

On Sunday, the US military struck three nuclear sites in Iran, inserting itself into Israel’s effort to destroy Iran’s program.

Here's a closer look at Israel's nuclear program:

A history of nuclear ambiguity Israel opened its Negev Nuclear Research Center in the remote desert city of Dimona in 1958, under the country's first leader, Prime Minister David Ben Gurion. He believed the tiny fledgling country surrounded by hostile neighbors needed nuclear deterrence as an extra measure of security. Some historians say they were meant to be used only in case of emergency, as a last resort.

After it opened, Israel kept the work at Dimona hidden for a decade, telling United States’ officials it was a textile factory, according to a 2022 article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, an academic journal.

Relying on plutonium produced at Dimona, Israel has had the ability to fire nuclear warheads since the early 1970s, according to that article, co-authored by Hans M. Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project with the Federation of American Scientists, and Matt Korda, a researcher at the same organization.

Israel's policy of ambiguity suffered a major setback in 1986, when Dimona’s activities were exposed by a former technician at the site, Mordechai Vanunu. He provided photographs and descriptions of the reactor to The Sunday Times of London.

Vanunu served 18 years in prison for treason, and is not allowed to meet with foreigners or leave the country.

ISRAEL POSSESSES DOZENS OF NUCLEAR WARHEADS, EXPERTS SAY

Experts estimate Israel has between 80 and 200 nuclear warheads, although they say the lower end of that range is more likely.

Israel also has stockpiled as much as 1,110 kilograms (2,425 pounds) of plutonium, potentially enough to make 277 nuclear weapons, according to the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a global security organization. It has six submarines believed to be capable of launching nuclear cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles believed to be capable of launching a nuclear warhead up to 6,500 kilometers (4,000 miles), the organization says.

Germany has supplied all of the submarines to Israel, which are docked in the northern city of Haifa, according to the article by Kristensen and Korda.

NUCLEAR WEAPONS IN THE MIDDLE EAST POSE RISKS

In the Middle East, where conflicts abound, governments are often unstable, and regional alliances are often shifting, nuclear proliferation is particularly dangerous, said Or Rabinowitz, a scholar at Jerusalem's Hebrew University and a visiting associate professor at Stanford University.

“When nuclear armed states are at war, the world always takes notice because we don’t like it when nuclear arsenals ... are available for decision makers,” she said.

Rabinowitz says Israel's military leaders could consider deploying a nuclear weapon if they found themselves facing an extreme threat, such as a weapon of mass destruction being used against them.

Three countries other than Israel have refused to sign the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons: India, Pakistan and South Sudan. North Korea has withdrawn. Iran has signed the treaty, but it was censured last week, shortly before Israel launched its operation, by the UN's nuclear watchdog — a day before Israel attacked — for violating its obligations.

Israel's policy of ambiguity has helped it evade greater scrutiny, said Susie Snyder at the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, a group that works to promote adherence to the UN treaty.

Its policy has also shined a light on the failure of Western countries to rein in nuclear proliferation in the Middle East, she said.

They “prefer not to be reminded of their own complicity,” she said.