UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Sexual violence in conflicts worldwide increased by 25% last year, with the highest number of cases in the Central African Republic, Congo, Haiti, Somalia and South Sudan, according to a U.N. report released Thursday.
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ annual report said more than 4,600 people survived sexual violence in 2024, with armed groups carrying out the majority of the abuse but some by government forces. He stressed that the U.N.-verified figures don’t reflect the global scale and prevalence of these crimes.
The report’s blacklist names 63 government and non-government parties in a dozen countries suspected of committing or being responsible for rape and other forms of sexual violence in conflict, including Hamas militants, whose attack in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, sparked the war in Gaza.
Over 70% of those listed have appeared on the report’s blacklist annex for five years or more without creating steps to prevent the violence, the U.N. chief said.
For the first time, the report includes two parties that have been notified the U.N. has “credible information” that could put them on next year’s blacklist if they don't take preventive actions: Israel’s military and security forces over allegations of sexual abuse of Palestinians primarily in prisons and detention, and Russian forces and affiliated armed groups against Ukrainian prisoners of war.
Israeli U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon, who circulated a letter Tuesday from Guterres about the country’s forces being put on notice, said the allegations “are steeped in biased publications.”
“The U.N. must focus on the shocking war crimes and sexual violence of Hamas and the release of all hostages,” he said.
Russia’s U.N. mission said it had no comment on the secretary-general’s warning.
The 34-page report said “conflict-related sexual violence” refers to rape, sexual slavery, forced prostitution, forced pregnancy, forced abortion, forced sterilization, forced marriage and other forms of sexual violence. The majority of victims are women and girls.
“In 2024, proliferating and escalating conflicts were marked by widespread conflict-related sexual violence, amid record levels of displacement and increased militarization,” Guterres said. “Sexual violence continued to be used as a tactic of war, torture, terrorism and political repression, while multiple and overlapping political, security and humanitarian crises deepened.”
The U.N. says women and girls were attacked in their homes, on roads and while trying to earn a living, with victims ranging in age from 1 to 75. Reports of summary executions of victims after rape persisted in Congo and Myanmar, it said.
In an increasing number of places, the report said armed groups “used sexual violence as a tactic to gain and consolidate control over territory and lucrative natural resources.”
Women and girls perceived to be associated with rival armed groups were targeted with sexual violence in the Central African Republic, Congo and Haiti, it said.
In detention facilities, the report said sexual violence was perpetrated “including as a form of torture,” reportedly in Israel and the Palestinian territories, Libya, Myanmar, Sudan, Syria, Ukraine and Yemen.
“Most of the reported incidents against men and boys occurred in detention, consistent with previous years, and included rape, threats of rape and the electrocution and beating of genitals,” the report said.
The U.N. peacekeeping mission in the Central African Republic documented cases of rape, gang rape, forced marriage and sexual slavery affecting 215 women, 191 girls and seven men.
In mineral-rich eastern Congo, the peacekeeping mission documented nearly 800 cases last year, including rape, gang rape, sexual slavery and forced marriage, “often accompanied by extreme physical violence,” the report said. The number of cases involving the M23 rebel group, now controlling the main city Goma, rose from 43 in 2022 to 152 in 2024, it said.
In Sudan, where civil war is raging, the report said that groups providing services to victims of sexual violence recorded 221 rape cases against 147 girls and 74 boys since the beginning of 2024, “with 16% of survivors under five years of age, including four one-year-olds.”
FILE - The UN flag flies on a stormy day at the United Nations during the United Nations General Assembly on Sept. 22, 2022. (AP Photo/Ted Shaffrey, File)
Federal immigration agents deployed to Minneapolis have used aggressive crowd-control tactics that have become a dominant concern in the aftermath of the deadly shooting of a woman in her car last week.
They have pointed rifles at demonstrators and deployed chemical irritants early in confrontations. They have broken vehicle windows and pulled occupants from cars. They have scuffled with protesters and shoved them to the ground.
The government says the actions are necessary to protect officers from violent attacks. The encounters in turn have riled up protesters even more, especially as videos of the incidents are shared widely on social media.
What is unfolding in Minneapolis reflects a broader shift in how the federal government is asserting its authority during protests, relying on immigration agents and investigators to perform crowd-management roles traditionally handled by local police who often have more training in public order tactics and de-escalating large crowds.
Experts warn the approach runs counter to de-escalation standards and risks turning volatile demonstrations into deadly encounters.
The confrontations come amid a major immigration enforcement surge ordered by the Trump administration in early December, which sent more than 2,000 officers from across the Department of Homeland Security into the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. Many of the officers involved are typically tasked with arrests, deportations and criminal investigations, not managing volatile public demonstrations.
Tensions escalated after the fatal shooting of Renee Good, a 37-year-old woman killed by an immigration agent last week, an incident federal officials have defended as self-defense after they say Good weaponized her vehicle.
The killing has intensified protests and scrutiny of the federal response.
On Monday, the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota asked a federal judge to intervene, filing a lawsuit on behalf of six residents seeking an emergency injunction to limit how federal agents operate during protests, including restrictions on the use of chemical agents, the pointing of firearms at non-threatening individuals and interference with lawful video recording.
“There’s so much about what’s happening now that is not a traditional approach to immigration apprehensions,” said former Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Sarah Saldaña.
Saldaña, who left the post at the beginning of 2017 as President Donald Trump's first term began, said she can't speak to how the agency currently trains its officers. When she was director, she said officers received training on how to interact with people who might be observing an apprehension or filming officers, but agents rarely had to deal with crowds or protests.
“This is different. You would hope that the agency would be responsive given the evolution of what’s happening — brought on, mind you, by the aggressive approach that has been taken coming from the top,” she said.
Ian Adams, an assistant professor of criminal justice at the University of South Carolina, said the majority of crowd-management or protest training in policing happens at the local level — usually at larger police departments that have public order units.
“It’s highly unlikely that your typical ICE agent has a great deal of experience with public order tactics or control,” Adams said.
DHS Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a written statement that ICE officer candidates receive extensive training over eight weeks in courses that include conflict management and de-escalation. She said many of the candidates are military veterans and about 85% have previous law enforcement experience.
“All ICE candidates are subject to months of rigorous training and selection at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, where they are trained in everything from de-escalation tactics to firearms to driving training. Homeland Security Investigations candidates receive more than 100 days of specialized training," she said.
Ed Maguire, a criminology professor at Arizona State University, has written extensively about crowd-management and protest- related law enforcement training. He said while he hasn't seen the current training curriculum for ICE officers, he has reviewed recent training materials for federal officers and called it “horrifying.”
Maguire said what he's seeing in Minneapolis feels like a perfect storm for bad consequences.
“You can't even say this doesn't meet best practices. That's too high a bar. These don't seem to meet generally accepted practices,” he said.
“We’re seeing routinely substandard law enforcement practices that would just never be accepted at the local level,” he added. “Then there seems to be just an absence of standard accountability practices.”
Adams noted that police department practices have "evolved to understand that the sort of 1950s and 1960s instinct to meet every protest with force, has blowback effects that actually make the disorder worse.”
He said police departments now try to open communication with organizers, set boundaries and sometimes even show deference within reason. There's an understanding that inside of a crowd, using unnecessary force can have a domino effect that might cause escalation from protesters and from officers.
Despite training for officers responding to civil unrest dramatically shifting over the last four decades, there is no nationwide standard of best practices. For example, some departments bar officers from spraying pepper spray directly into the face of people exercising Constitutional speech. Others bar the use of tear gas or other chemical agents in residential neighborhoods.
Regardless of the specifics, experts recommend that departments have written policies they review regularly.
“Organizations and agencies aren’t always familiar with what their own policies are,” said Humberto Cardounel, senior director of training and technical assistance at the National Policing Institute.
“They go through it once in basic training then expect (officers) to know how to comport themselves two years later, five years later," he said. "We encourage them to understand and know their training, but also to simulate their training.”
Adams said part of the reason local officers are the best option for performing public order tasks is they have a compact with the community.
“I think at the heart of this is the challenge of calling what ICE is doing even policing,” he said.
"Police agencies have a relationship with their community that extends before and after any incidents. Officers know we will be here no matter what happens, and the community knows regardless of what happens today, these officers will be here tomorrow.”
Saldaña noted that both sides have increased their aggression.
“You cannot put yourself in front of an armed officer, you cannot put your hands on them certainly. That is impeding law enforcement actions,” she said.
“At this point, I’m getting concerned on both sides — the aggression from law enforcement and the increasingly aggressive behavior from protesters.”
Law enforcement officers at the scene of a reported shooting Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Adam Gray)
Federal immigration officers confront protesters outside Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Adam Gray)
People cover tear gas deployed by federal immigration officers outside Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Adam Gray)
A man is pushed to the ground as federal immigration officers confront protesters outside Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/John Locher)
A woman covers her face from tear gas as federal immigration officers confront protesters outside Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Adam Gray)
