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Sudan’s military sacks commander after tribal clashes

Sudan’s military sacks commander after tribal clashes
Land dispute reignited fighting in the Blue Nile, pitting the Hausa tribe, with origins across West Africa, against the Berta people. (File/AFP)
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Updated 24 October 2022
AP

Sudan’s military sacks commander after tribal clashes

Sudan’s military sacks commander after tribal clashes
  • Fighting in Blue Nile reignited earlier this month over a land dispute
  • The violence comes ahead of the first anniversary of Sudan’s military coup
Updated 24 October 2022
AP

CAIRO: Sudan’s ruling military sacked a commander in the southern Blue Nile province after two days of fierce tribal clashes there last week killed at least 220 people, the army announced Monday. The unrest added to the woes of a country mired in civil conflict and political chaos.
Fighting in Blue Nile, which borders Ethiopia and South Sudan, reignited earlier this month over a land dispute, pitting the Hausa tribe, with origins across West Africa, against the Berta people. The tensions escalated Wednesday and Thursday in the town of Wad el-Mahi on the border with Ethiopia.
The violence comes ahead of the first anniversary of Sudan’s military coup that upended the nation’s short-lived transition to democracy. It has also drawn criticism of the powerful-military, with a Sudanese pro-democracy group accusing the ruling generals of not protecting ethnic groups in the province.
Sudan’s military spokesman, Col. Nabil Abdalla, said that Maj. Gen. Rabei Abdalla Adam was named as the commander for the Blue Nile, replacing Maj. Gen. Ramzi Babaker who was removed from his post over the weekend.
The appointment was a part of the military’s efforts to “address the regrettable security events,” the spokesman said. The military also established a fact-finding mission to investigate the clashes, Abdalla said.
Fath Arrahman Bakheit, the head of the Health Ministry in Blue Nile, said Sunday that the death toll, including scores of women and children, became clearer late Saturday, after the first humanitarian and medical convoy managed to reach Wad el-Mahi. Local authorities announced a nighttime curfew in the town, and deployed enforcements to the area to prevent further unrest.
In Damazin, the provincial capital of Blue Nile, protesters angered over the clashes on Sunday stormed the headquarters of the local government and a military facility, local media reported.

Topics: Sudan

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Albanian PM brands Braverman’s comments on migrants ‘disgraceful’

Albanian PM brands Braverman’s comments on migrants ‘disgraceful’
Updated 23 March 2023
Arab News

Albanian PM brands Braverman’s comments on migrants ‘disgraceful’

Albanian PM brands Braverman’s comments on migrants ‘disgraceful’
  • Edi Rama is in London for talks with UK counterpart Rishi Sunak
  • Braverman referred to Albanian migrants as ‘criminals’ in speech last year
Updated 23 March 2023
Arab News

LONDON: Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama has criticized UK Home Secretary Suella Braverman for her comments on migrants from his country.

Rama, who is in the UK to hold talks with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, called Braverman’s references to “Albanian criminals” illegally crossing the English Channel last year “disgraceful.”

He told the BBC: “Unfortunately, we have seen ourselves and our community being singled out in this country for purposes of politics. It has been a very, very disgraceful moment for British politics.

“What has been (said) by members of the Cabinet, starting with the home secretary, (is) the singling out of our community, which is not something you do in our civilization, and is something that does not represent Britain at all,” he added. “We will always refuse to have this mix between some criminals and the Albanians as such because giving to the crime an ethnic seal is itself a crime.”

Rama said that he was satisfied, however, with Sunak and his approach to the situation.

“We have set up a clear path toward tackling together whatever has to be excluded from our relations and from our world of law and justice, but at the same time making sure that some rotten apples do not define the Albanian community here and our relations,” he said.

Between May and September 2022, UK government figures show that Albanians made up 42 percent of the volume of people crossing the English Channel illegally in small boats. The number of Albanians claiming asylum in the UK in the 12 months until June 2022 was 7,627 — about double the number of the previous 12-month period.

Braverman provoked ire in October last year after she referred to the small boat arrivals as an “invasion,” suggesting many were abusing the law to claim asylum, and adding that the opposition Labour Party would facilitate the boat arrivals if in power.

“Many of (the Albanian asylum-seekers) claim to be trafficked as modern slaves … the truth is that many of them are not modern slaves and their claims of being trafficked are lies,” she told the Conservative Party conference.

Meanwhile, the home secretary told MPs in the House of Commons: “If Labour were in charge they would be allowing all the Albanian criminals to come to this country. They would be allowing all the small boats to come to the UK; they would open our borders and totally undermine the trust of the British people in controlling our sovereignty.”

Topics: Albania Edi Rama Suella Braverman migrants

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Nigerian politician found guilty in UK organ harvesting plot

Nigerian politician found guilty in UK organ harvesting plot
Updated 23 March 2023
AP

Nigerian politician found guilty in UK organ harvesting plot

Nigerian politician found guilty in UK organ harvesting plot
  • Ekweremadu and his wife were accused of arranging the travel of a 21-year-old man to the UK with a view to exploiting him for a kidney donation
Updated 23 March 2023
AP

LONDON: A senior Nigerian politician and his wife were found guilty Thursday of conspiring to transport a street trader to the UK as part of an organ-harvesting plot.
Ike Ekweremadu, who was deputy president of the Nigerian Senate and a lawyer, and his wife, Beatrice, were accused of arranging the travel of a 21-year-old man to the UK with a view to exploiting him for a kidney donation.
Prosecutors said the politician and his wife were behind the recruitment of the man at a Lagos street market, and that they arranged for the victim to provide a kidney to their 25-year-old daughter, Sonia, in an 80,000-pound (nearly $100,000) transplant operation at a London hospital.
The victim, who was transported to London in February 2022, believed he was being taken to the capital for work, and that under the agreement he would be paid thousands of pounds, prosecutors said.
Kidney donations are lawful in the UK, but it’s a criminal offense to reward someone with money or other material advantage for doing so.
The verdict is the first to convict suspects of an organ-harvesting conspiracy under the UK’s modern slavery laws.
As part of the ruse, the victim was described as Sonia’s cousin in his UK visa application, and the Ekweremadus pretended to doctors that the young man was related to Sonia.
But a doctor at the Royal Free Hospital became suspicious about the circumstances surrounding the proposed operation, and decided it couldn’t go ahead. The Ekweremadus then tried to find more potential donors in Turkiye, prosecutors said.
The case came to light when the victim reported to British police that he had been trafficked from Nigeria and that someone was trying to transplant his kidney.
Chief Crown Prosecutor Joanne Jakymec described the case as “horrific.”
“The convicted defendants showed utter disregard for the victim’s welfare, health and well-being and used their considerable influence to a high degree of control throughout, with the victim having limited understanding of what was really going on here,” she said in a statement.
Dr. Obinna Obeta, described by prosecutors as a medical “middleman” in the plot, was also found guilty Thursday at London’s Central Criminal Court. Sonia Ekweremadu, who has a serious kidney condition, was cleared by the jury.
The defendants were ordered to remain in custody, and their sentencing was scheduled for May 5.

Topics: Nigeria United Kingdom (UK)

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Ukraine children held by Russia reunited with parents

Ukraine children held by Russia reunited with parents
Updated 23 March 2023
AFP

Ukraine children held by Russia reunited with parents

Ukraine children held by Russia reunited with parents
  • The reunion was organised by Save Ukraine, an NGO that fights what it says are illegal deportations of Ukrainian children to Russian-controlled territory
  • Russia denies the allegations, saying instead it has saved Ukrainian children from the horrors of the war
Updated 23 March 2023
AFP

KYIV: Moments after the bus returning him and more than a dozen other children from Russian-held territory arrived in Kyiv, a ten-year-old boy jumped straight into his father’s arms.
Denys Zaporozhchenko held his son and kissed his forehead, before also hugging his two daughters who were among the 17 children separated from their parents for months.
The reunion was organized by Save Ukraine, an NGO that fights what it says are illegal deportations of Ukrainian children to Russian-controlled territory.
More than 16,000 Ukrainian children have been deported to Russia since the February 24, 2022 invasion, according to Kyiv, with many allegedly placed in institutions and foster homes.
Russia denies the allegations, saying instead it has saved Ukrainian children from the horrors of the war.
But the International Criminal Court (ICC) last week issued an arrest warrant against President Vladimir Putin for unlawfully deporting Ukrainian children.
Zaporozhchenko last saw his children in October in Kherson, the only regional capital that Russian forces captured following the invasion, when they left for a so-called Russian summer camp.
He expected tough fighting in his home city as Ukrainian forces were pushing closer to recapturing it, which they ultimately did in November.
Sending his kids to Crimea — a scenic and touristy peninsula annexed by Moscow in 2014 — seemed the lesser evil.
Russian officials “promised to send them to these camps for a week or two,” he told AFP.
“By the time we realized we shouldn’t have done it (let them go), it was too late,” he said.
Families were sometimes pressured into sending their kids on the so-called holidays, said Myroslava Kharchenko, a lawyer working with Save Ukraine.
“(Russian officials) told parents that they have one hour to think, and that if Ukrainians get there before, they will bring American mercenaries who will beat and rape the children.”
After “blackmail, manipulation and intimidation, they take the children away,” Kharchenko added.
Parents have previously had to embark on the fraught journey themselves to find their children on their own, Kharchenko said.
But for the first time, Save Ukraine group organized a group collection for the separated children by assuming power of attorney for those parents unable to make the journey.
They chartered a bus that went through Poland and Belarus and then to Russia, before picking up the children in annexed Crimea.
Some of children interviewed by AFP described a level of political indoctrination.
“If we didn’t sing the (Russian) national anthem, they made us write an explanatory note. Over the New Year, we were shown Putin’s speech,” 15-year-old Taisia said.
Zaporozhchenko’s 11-year-old daughter, Yana, said “everything was like in normal camps” but camp officials “made us sing and dance when inspectors came” from Moscow.
Forty-three-year-old Inesa Vertosh said her son had become “more serious” after the long separation.
“He looks at me and says ‘Mom, I don’t want to tell you about it, you wouldn’t sleep at night’.”
All children will be given psychological support, said Kharchenko.
Her organization was “doing everything so that children and their parents do not return to dangerous territories,” she added.

Topics: Russia-Ukraine Conflict Save Ukraine children

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Inflation, flood destruction hike date prices in Pakistan as Ramadan begins

Inflation, flood destruction hike date prices in Pakistan as Ramadan begins
Updated 23 March 2023
Khurshid Ahmed

Inflation, flood destruction hike date prices in Pakistan as Ramadan begins

Inflation, flood destruction hike date prices in Pakistan as Ramadan begins
  • Pakistan’s inflation jumped to 50-year high of 31.5% in February
  • Over 80% of the fruit’s crops were destroyed by last year’s floods
Updated 23 March 2023
Khurshid Ahmed

KARACHI: As Ramadan began on Thursday, Pakistanis bore the brunt of soaring inflation as business activities in the country’s biggest date market picked up pace, with prices of some varieties surging by 50 percent compared to last year.

Hidden behind skyscrapers in Karachi’s historic Lyari area, the century-old market comes to life during the holy fasting month, when dates are consumed before the fast starts in the morning and to break it when the sun sets.

But date prices are significantly higher this year as the inflation rate in Pakistan jumped to a 50-year high, or 31.5 percent, last month.

“Everything has become expensive, and date prices have also increased,” businessman Muhammad Ishaq told Arab News, as he was shopping at the market.

“What I bought for Rs350 ($1.24) last year is now being sold for Rs500 ($1.77) per kilogram.”

Sales of the fruit have declined compared to 2022 because of the price surge, sellers said, blaming the hike also on import restrictions and the destruction of local crops when devastating floods hit Pakistan from June to October.

“Due to high rates, the buying trend has decreased,” Muhammad Sabir, chairman of the Khajoor Market Association, told Arab News.

“Now premium quality dates per maund (40 kg) is being sold for Rs20,000-Rs22,000 (about $70-$77).”

As Pakistan has been struggling with depleting foreign reserves, the government slapped import restrictions on certain goods last May, including on dry and fresh fruits.

While the measures were lifted a few months later, sellers said they had contributed to the date price surge as imports from some of the main source markets did not materialize on time.

“Government had no dollars, due to which imports from Iraq were not made in time,” Hanif Baloch, who imports and sells dates, told Arab News.

Pakistan is a major producer of the fruit, with annual production estimated at around 500,000 metric tons. But more than 80 percent of date crops in the South Asian country were destroyed in the floods that submerged a third of the country. “Local date crops were ruined in floods that affected Balochistan and Sindh,” Baloch said.

“The Pakistani variety of Aseel and Mazafati dates have not been coming to the market.”

Pakistan cultivates most of its dates in Balochistan and Sindh provinces, which were the most affected by last year’s deluge. “The date crop was the first to suffer and in parts of Sindh’s growing belt it was entirely wiped out as it was the fruiting season,” Mahmood Nawaz Shah, senior vice president of Sindh Abadgar Board, told Arab News.

“The lack of post-harvest storage and drying facilities also compounded the situation and added to the crop loss.”

Topics: Ramadan 2023 Pakistan

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Philippine president calls for solidarity as Ramadan begins

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Updated 23 March 2023
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Philippine president calls for solidarity as Ramadan begins

Philippine president calls for solidarity as Ramadan begins
  • Muslims make up 5 percent of the country’s population
  • Marcos calls on all Filipinos to promote peace, unity
Updated 23 March 2023
Ellie Aben

MANILA: Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. urged Filipinos to stand in solidarity with the country’s Muslim community as they marked the beginning of the holy month of Ramadan.

Muslims make up about 5 percent of the almost 110 million predominantly Catholic population. The minority Muslim communities mostly live on the island of Mindanao and the Sulu Archipelago in the country’s south, as well as in the central-western province of Palawan.

Philippine Muslims, like about 2 billion of the world’s population professing Islam, entered the holy month on Thursday, during which they will fast from sunrise to sunset each day.

“In the name of Allah, the most gracious, the most merciful, I join the Filipino Muslim community here and around the world as they welcome and observe the holy month of Ramadan,” Marcos said in a statement.

“The rituals and services during Ramadan remind us of our shared moral obligation — regardless of faith — to compassionately take care of each other, uphold our human dignity and stand in solidarity.”

Fasting and charity are among the five main obligations of Islam and during Ramadan there is a strong focus on helping others, especially throughout the month’s final 10 days, when Muslims believe God revealed the text of the Qur’an, the holy book of Islam, to the Prophet Muhammad.

“This season of fasting, prayer and almsgiving is an opportune time to embody the values of discipline, reverence and humility,” Marcos said.

“The spiritual belief that the gate of heaven is open during this sacred month calls upon our brothers and sisters to purify their souls against the perils of worldly pleasures as well as seek for forgiveness and peace.”

In his Ramadan message, Marcos also called on all Filipinos to promote peace and unity.

“As a nation enriched with cultural diversity, let us allow our hearts to embrace the profound truth that respect conquers division, understanding obliterates prejudice and love prevails over all,” he said.

Ramadan is the ninth of the Islamic calendar, which is a lunar calendar. This year’s Ramadan will end on either April 21 or April 22 April, as there are either 29 or 30 days in a lunar month.

Topics: Ramadan 2023 Philippines

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