Since the onset of the war in Sudan on April 15, 2023, civilians have suffered severe atrocities, including mass killings, forced displacement, looting, and the destruction of infrastructure. Women and girls have been particularly targeted, facing sexual violence, enforced disappearances, and other grave violations.
This report will specifically delve into the Strategic Initiative for Women in the Horn of Africa (SIHA) Network’s work on enforced disappearance. As a critical starting point, enforced disappearance is defined under Article 2 of the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance as: “the arrest, detention, abduction or any other form of deprivation of liberty by agents of the State or by persons or groups of persons acting with the authorization, support or acquiescence of the State, followed by a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty or by concealment of the fate or whereabouts of the disappeared person, which place such a person outside the protection of the law.”
