Sudan's deepening humanitarian crisis caused by nearly 16 months of war has left countless women and girls subject to sexual violence and rape and tens of thousands of children at risk of death from hunger, UN aid teams said on Tuesday.

Speaking from Sudan, UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) spokesperson James Elder described meeting a senior medical worker at a hospital outside Khartoum who had 'direct contact with hundreds, hundreds of women and girls, some as young as eight years old, who have been raped. Many have been held captive for weeks on end.'