Rhino: Agencies – Sudanese women have spoken to Britain’s Guardian newspaper about widespread practices in war-torn Omdurman, Sudan, where women struggling to survive say they are forced to have sex with soldiers in exchange for food.

More than two dozen women who were unable to flee the fighting in Omdurman said that sexual contact with men from the Sudanese army was the only way they could get food or goods they could sell to raise money to feed their families.

They added that most of the assaults took place in the factory area where most of the city’s food is available. One victim said she had no choice but to have sex with soldiers to get food for her elderly parents and 18-year-old daughter.

‘My parents are old and sick, and I never let my daughter go out to look for food,’ she said. ‘I went to the soldiers, it was the only way to get food, they were everywhere in the factory area.

The woman said she was forced to have sex with soldiers in a meat processing factory in May last year, and then again in a warehouse storing fava beans.

The 37-year-old woman, who looked pale and thin in the interviews, said that before the war broke out she worked as a maid for families living in wealthy areas of Omdurman, but was too poor to flee the city and take her family to a safer part of the country when the conflict began.

Some of the women who spoke to The Guardian said that soldiers also demanded sex in exchange for access to abandoned homes, where items could still be looted to sell in local markets. One woman said that after having sex with soldiers, she was allowed to take food, kitchen equipment and perfume from empty homes. She spoke of being ashamed of the abuse she was forced to endure and having to steal in order to survive.