You are here

  • Home
  • UN backs Sudan envoy as army seeks to bolster ranks
Sudan Unrest
Sudan Unrest

UN backs Sudan envoy as army seeks to bolster ranks

UN backs Sudan envoy as army seeks to bolster ranks
United Nations chief Antonio Guterres said that he was ‘proud of the work done by Volker Perthes and reaffirms his full confidence in his Special Representative’. (AFP)
Short Url

https://arab.news/6mtb5

Updated 27 May 2023
AFP
Follow

UN backs Sudan envoy as army seeks to bolster ranks

UN backs Sudan envoy as army seeks to bolster ranks
  • UN chief ‘proud of the work done by Volker Perthes and reaffirms his full confidence in his Special Representative’
Updated 27 May 2023
AFP
Follow

NEW YORK: United Nations chief Antonio Guterres said he was “shocked” by a letter from Sudanese army chief Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, reportedly requesting the replacement of special envoy Volker Perthes amid a brutal war with paramilitaries.
Guterres “is proud of the work done by Volker Perthes and reaffirms his full confidence in his Special Representative,” a statement from UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said late Friday.
“The Secretary-General is shocked by the letter he received from General Al-Burhan,” currently at war with his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, who commands the powerful paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.
The rival forces are currently in the fifth day of a one-week cease-fire brokered by the US and Saudi Arabia, during which they have repeatedly accused each other of truce violations.
Neither the army nor the UN have released official copies of Burhan’s letter, which reportedly requested the dismissal of Perthes as Guterres’ envoy to Sudan.
It is the latest in a series of moves by Burhan, who last week officially sacked Daglo as his deputy in the ruling sovereign council, pooled hardline military supporters into his inner circle and is now seeking to reinforce army ranks.
Sudan’s defense ministry on Friday called on “army pensioners... as well as all those capable of bearing arms” to head to their nearest military command unit and “arm themselves in order to protect themselves,” their families and their neighbors.
A statement later in the day walked back the call to just army “reservists” and “pensioners.”
Perthes and the UN mission in Sudan have been the target of several protests by thousands of military and Islamist supporters who have repeatedly accused Perthes of “foreign intervention” and demanded his dismissal.
Similar protests have taken place in the eastern city of Port Sudan since the war started on April 15.
The fighting across Sudan has killed more than 1,800 people, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project.
The United Nations says more than a million people have been displaced within Sudan, in addition to 300,000 who have fled to neighboring countries.
Perthes is currently in New York, where he briefed the Security Council on the situation in Sudan earlier this week.
There is no information on when he is due back in Sudan, where authorities have not given out visas to foreign nationals since the war started.

Topics: Sudan Unrest Sudan UN Antonio Guterres

Related

Saudi Arabia and US note improved respect for Sudan ceasefire agreement – statement
Middle-East
Saudi Arabia and US note improved respect for Sudan ceasefire agreement – statement
Update Sudan’s warring parties trade blame over truce breach
Middle-East
Sudan’s warring parties trade blame over truce breach

Arab-Islamic Ministerial Committee objects to US veto during Blinken meeting

Arab-Islamic Ministerial Committee objects to US veto during Blinken meeting
Updated 09 December 2023
Arab News
Follow

Arab-Islamic Ministerial Committee objects to US veto during Blinken meeting

Arab-Islamic Ministerial Committee objects to US veto during Blinken meeting
  • Arab, Islamic foreign ministers renewed unified rejection of Israeli aggression against Palestinians in Gaza during meeting with US counterpart Anthony Blinken
Updated 09 December 2023
Arab News

RIYADH: Foreign ministers of Arab and Islamic nations voiced their objection to the US veto that blocked international calls for the UN Security Council to demand ceasefire in Gaza, Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported.

During a meeting with the US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, the Arab-Islamic Ministerial Committee reiterated calls for the US to assume its responsibilities and take the necessary measures to push Israel towards an immediate ceasefire.

The foreign ministers also renewed their unified rejection of the Israeli aggression against the Palestinians in Gaza, reiterating the necessity to end the hostilities, protect civilians and lift the siege hindering the access of humanitarian aid to the war-stricken enclave.

They voiced their rejection against attempts to displace Palestinians from Gaza, emphasizing on “creating a real political climate that leads to a two-state solution,” according to SPA statement.

Several minsters participated in the meeting, including Qatari Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, Jordan’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates Ayman Al-Safadi, Egypt’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Sameh Shoukry, Palestinian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates Riyad Al-Maliki, and Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs Hakan Fidan.

Topics: War on Gaza

Related

Saudi FM stresses Kingdom’s public and private positions identical on Gaza
Saudi Arabia
Saudi FM stresses Kingdom’s public and private positions identical on Gaza
World should make immediate Gaza ceasefire a priority – Saudi foreign minister
Saudi Arabia
World should make immediate Gaza ceasefire a priority – Saudi foreign minister

Israel strikes Gaza after failed UN ceasefire bid

Israel strikes Gaza after failed UN ceasefire bid
Updated 09 December 2023
AFP
Follow

Israel strikes Gaza after failed UN ceasefire bid

Israel strikes Gaza after failed UN ceasefire bid
  • Israeli strike on the southern city of Khan Yunis killed six people, while five others died in a separate attack in Rafah
  • Hamas and the Palestinian Authority swiftly condemned the US veto as health ministry put the latest death toll in Gaza at 17,487 people
Updated 09 December 2023
AFP

GAZA: Israel pressed its offensive against Hamas militants in Gaza on Saturday after the United States blocked an extraordinary UN bid to call for a ceasefire in the two-month war.
Hamas and the Palestinian Authority swiftly condemned the US veto as the Hamas-run health ministry put the latest death toll in Gaza at 17,487 people, mostly women and children.
An Israeli strike on the southern city of Khan Yunis killed six people, while five others died in a separate attack in Rafah, the ministry said Saturday.
Israel has vowed to eradicate Hamas over its unprecedented attack on October 7 when militants broke through Gaza’s militarised border to kill around 1,200 people and seize hostages, 138 of whom remain captive, according to Israeli figures.
Vast areas of Gaza have been reduced to rubble and the UN says about 80 percent of the population has been displaced, with dire shortages of food, fuel, water and medicine reported.
“It’s so cold, and the tent is so small. All I have are the clothes I wear, I still don’t know what the next step will be,” said Mahmud Abu Rayan, displaced from Beit Lahia in the north.
A UN Security Council resolution that would have called for an immediate cease-fire was vetoed by the United States on Friday.
US envoy Robert Wood said the resolution was “divorced from reality” and “would have not moved the needle forward on the ground.”
Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen said the cease-fire “would prevent the collapse of the Hamas terrorist organization, which is committing war crimes and crimes against humanity, and would enable it to continue ruling the Gaza Strip.”
Hamas slammed on Saturday the US rejection of the cease-fire bid as “a direct participation of the occupation in killing our people and committing more massacres and ethnic cleansing.”
Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh said it was “a disgrace and another blank cheque given to the occupying state to massacre, destroy and displace.”
The veto was swiftly condemned by humanitarian groups, with Doctors Without Borders (MSF) saying the Security Council was “complicit in the ongoing slaughter.”
Israel’s military said Friday it had struck 450 targets in Gaza over 24 hours, showing footage of strikes from naval vessels in the Mediterranean.
The Hamas health ministry reported 40 dead near Gaza City in the north, and dozens more in Jabalia and the main southern city of Khan Yunis.


Humanitarian Catastrophe
Following two months of conflict and bombardment, UN chief Antonio Guterres said Friday “the people of Gaza are looking into the abyss.”
“People are desperate, fearful and angry,” he said.
“All this takes place amid a spiralling humanitarian nightmare.”
Many of the 1.9 million Gazans who have been displaced by the war have headed south, turning Rafah near the Egyptian border into a vast camp.
With the death toll of medical workers in the conflict mounting, more than a dozen World Health Organization member states submitted a draft resolution on Friday that urged Israel to respect its obligations under international law to protect humanitarians in Gaza.
They called for Israel to “respect and protect” medical and humanitarian workers exclusively involved in carrying out medical duties, as well as hospitals and other medical facilities.
Only 14 of the 36 hospitals in the Gaza Strip were functioning in any capacity, according to United Nations’ humanitarian agency OCHA.
With the civilian toll mounting, US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters Friday that Washington believes Israel needs to do more to protect civilians in the conflict.
“We certainly all recognize more can be done to... reduce civilian casualties. And we’re going to keep working with our Israeli counterparts to that end,” he said.
The death toll also rose in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where Israeli forces shot dead six Palestinians on Friday, the territory’s health ministry said.
Israel said Friday it has lost 91 soldiers in Gaza.
It said two others were wounded in a failed bid to rescue hostages overnight, and that “numerous terrorists” were killed in the operation.
Hamas claimed a hostage was killed in the operation, and released a video purporting to show the body, which could not be independently verified.
Hamas rocket parts, launchers and other weapons as well as a one-kilometer tunnel were found at Al-Azhar University in Gaza City, the army said, as it warned residents to move west.

Topics: War on Gaza

Related

World should make immediate Gaza ceasefire a priority – Saudi foreign minister
Saudi Arabia
World should make immediate Gaza ceasefire a priority – Saudi foreign minister
US vetoes resolution calling for ceasefire in Gaza and backed by majority of Security Council
World
US vetoes resolution calling for ceasefire in Gaza and backed by majority of Security Council

Daesh attack kills seven pro-regime fighters in Syria

Daesh attack kills seven pro-regime fighters in Syria
Updated 09 December 2023
AFP
Follow

Daesh attack kills seven pro-regime fighters in Syria

Daesh attack kills seven pro-regime fighters in Syria
  • Daesh attacks have killed at least 385 members of pro-regime forces and 165 civilians, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights
Updated 09 December 2023
AFP

BEIRUT: Seven members of pro-regime forces were killed in Syria on Friday in an attack by the Daesh group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
The attackers were on motorbikes when they opened fire on a military post, “killing at least seven pro-regime fighters,” in the vicinity of Boukamal on the border with Iraq, the NGO’s director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.
This year, Daesh attacks have killed at least 385 members of pro-regime forces and 165 civilians, according to the Observatory, which has a vast network of sources in Syria.
Rahman said those killed on Friday included both Syrians and “foreigners.”
After rising to power in 2014 in parts of Syria and Iraq, the Islamic State saw its self-proclaimed “caliphate” waver after successive offensives against it in both countries, which were launched with the support of an international anti-jihadist coalition.
The defeat of IS in Syria was declared in 2019, but the coalition remained in the country to fight against jihadist cells that continue to operate there.
The conflict in Syria, sparked in 2011 by the iron-fisted repression of pro-democracy demonstrations, has left more than half a million dead.
More than twelve years of bloody conflict have divided the country into zones of influence.
President Bashar Assad’s regime has regained control of a large part of the country, with the support of its Russian and Iranian allies.
 

 

 

Topics: syria war Daesh Islamic State

Related

Israeli strike kills four pro-Hezbollah fighters in Syria: monitor
Middle-East
Israeli strike kills four pro-Hezbollah fighters in Syria: monitor
As aid runs out, Syria’s displaced fear dying of hunger
Middle-East
As aid runs out, Syria’s displaced fear dying of hunger

Palestinian president says Gaza war must end, conference needed to reach settlement

Palestinian president says Gaza war must end, conference needed to reach settlement
Updated 09 December 2023
Reuters
Follow

Palestinian president says Gaza war must end, conference needed to reach settlement

Palestinian president says Gaza war must end, conference needed to reach settlement
Updated 09 December 2023
Reuters

RAMALLAH: Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Friday called for an immediate end to the war in Gaza and an international peace conference to work out a lasting political solution leading to the establishment of a Palestinian state.
In an interview with Reuters at his office in Ramallah, Abbas, 87, said the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians in general had reached an alarming stage that requires an international conference and guarantees by world powers.
Besides Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza, he said Israeli forces have intensified their attacks everywhere in the occupied West Bank over the past year with settlers escalating violence against Palestinian towns.
He reiterated his longstanding position in favor of negotiation rather than armed resistance to end the longstanding occupation.
“I am with peaceful resistance. I am for negotiations based on an international peace conference and under international auspices that would lead to a solution that will be protected by world powers to establish a sovereign Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and East Jerusalem,” he said.
Abbas was speaking as Israel increased its strikes on Gaza. In two months of warfare, it has killed more than 17,000 people, wounded 46,000 and forced the displacement of around 1.9 million people, over half of them now sheltering in areas in central Gaza or close to the Egyptian border.
A senior US official said the idea of an international conference had been discussed among different partners but the proposal was still at a very preliminary stage.
“It’s one of many options on the table that we and others would consider with an open mind, but no decision has been made about that,” the official said on condition of anonymity.
Israel launched its campaign to annihilate the Hamas movement that rules Gaza after Hamas fighters went on a rampage through Israeli towns on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people and seizing 240 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
Abbas said that based on a binding international agreement, he would revive the weakened Palestinian Authority, implement long-awaited reforms and hold presidential and parliamentary elections, which were suspended after Hamas won in 2006 and later pushed the PA out of Gaza.
He said the PA had abided by all the peace deals signed with Israel since the 1993 Oslo Accord and the understandings that followed over the years but that Israel had reneged on its pledges to end the occupation.

DEMOCRATIC ELECTIONS
Asked whether he would risk holding elections given the possibility that Hamas could win as it did in 2006, he said: “Whoever wins wins, these will be democratic elections.”
Abbas said he had planned to hold elections in April 2021 but the European Union envoy told him before the due date that Israel was objecting to voting in East Jerusalem so he was forced to call it off.
He insisted that there would not be elections without East Jerusalem, saying the PA held three rounds of elections in the past that included East Jerusalem before Israel imposed the ban.
Israel captured Arab East Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war. It later annexed it, declaring the whole of the city as its capital, a move not recognized internationally. Palestinians want East Jerusalem as the capital of their future state.
Abbas did not give a concrete vision of a post-war plan discussed with US officials under which the PA would take over control of the strip, home for 2.3 million people. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that Israel would not accept rule over Gaza by the Palestinian Authority as it stands.
“The United States tells us that it supports a two-state solution, that Israel is not allowed to occupy Gaza, to keep security control of Gaza or to expropriate land from Gaza,” he said in reference to a plan floated by Israel to establish a security zone in Gaza after the war.
“America doesn’t force Israel to implement what it says.”
He said the PA was still present in Gaza as an institution and still pays monthly salaries and expenses estimated at $140 million for employees, pensioners and for needy families. The PA still has three ministers present in Gaza, he added.
“We need rehabilitation, we need big support to return to Gaza,” Abbas said.
“Gaza today is not the Gaza that you know. Gaza was destroyed, its hospitals, its schools, its infrastructure, its buildings, its roads and mosques were destroyed. There is nothing left. When we return we need resources, Gaza needs reconstruction.”
“The United States which fully supports Israel bears the responsibility of what is happening in the enclave,” Abbas said.
“It is the only power that is capable of ordering Israel to stop the war and fulfil its obligations, but unfortunately it doesn’t. America is an accomplice of Israel.” 

 

Topics: War on Gaza

Related

WHO members urge Israel to protect humanitarian workers
Middle-East
WHO members urge Israel to protect humanitarian workers
Hamas says US veto blocking Gaza cease-fire ‘unethical and inhumane’
Middle-East
Hamas says US veto blocking Gaza cease-fire ‘unethical and inhumane’

WHO members urge Israel to protect humanitarian workers

WHO members urge Israel to protect humanitarian workers
Updated 09 December 2023
AFP
Follow

WHO members urge Israel to protect humanitarian workers

WHO members urge Israel to protect humanitarian workers
  • The member states expressed their “grave concern about the catastrophic humanitarian situation in the occupied Palestinian territory, including east Jerusalem, especially the military operations in the Gaza Strip”
Updated 09 December 2023
AFP

GENEVA: More than a dozen member states of the World Health Organization submitted a draft resolution on Friday that urged Israel to respect its obligations under international law to protect humanitarian workers in Gaza.
War erupted in Gaza after Hamas militants attacked southern Israel on October 7, killing about 1,200 people and taking hostages, 138 of whom remain captive, according to Israeli figures.
Israel’s retaliatory air and ground assault on Gaza has killed 17,487 people, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run health ministry in the besieged Palestinian territory.
The text of the draft resolution is due to be examined on Sunday during a special session of the WHO’s Executive Board convened to discuss “the health situation in the occupied Palestinian territory.”
It was proposed by Algeria, Bolivia, China, Egypt, Indonesia, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Malaysia, Morocco, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Turkiye, United Arab Emirates and Yemen.
Palestinian representatives have WHO observer status, and were also signatories to the proposal.
The member states expressed their “grave concern about the catastrophic humanitarian situation in the occupied Palestinian territory, including east Jerusalem, especially the military operations in the Gaza Strip.”
They called for Israel to “respect and protect” medical and humanitarian workers exclusively involved in carrying out medical duties, as well as hospitals and other medical facilities.
Separately, WHO spokesman Christian Lindmeier told reporters on Friday that Gaza’s health system was on its knees and could not afford to lose another ambulance or a single hospital bed.
“The situation is getting more and more horrible by the day... beyond belief, literally,” he said.
The United Nations’ humanitarian agency OCHA said late on Thursday that only 14 of the 36 hospitals in the Gaza Strip were functioning in any capacity.
 

 

Topics: War on Gaza

Related

Hamas says US veto blocking Gaza cease-fire ‘unethical and inhumane’
Middle-East
Hamas says US veto blocking Gaza cease-fire ‘unethical and inhumane’
US vetoes resolution calling for ceasefire in Gaza and backed by majority of Security Council
World
US vetoes resolution calling for ceasefire in Gaza and backed by majority of Security Council

Latest updates

Conflict forces Palestinian team Jabal Al Mukaber to withdraw from AFC Cup
Conflict forces Palestinian team Jabal Al Mukaber to withdraw from AFC Cup
Arab-Islamic Ministerial Committee objects to US veto during Blinken meeting
Arab-Islamic Ministerial Committee objects to US veto during Blinken meeting
Saudi FM stresses Kingdom’s public and private positions identical on Gaza
Saudi FM stresses Kingdom’s public and private positions identical on Gaza
Israel strikes Gaza after failed UN ceasefire bid
Israel strikes Gaza after failed UN ceasefire bid
US, South Korea and Japan urge stronger international push to curb North Korean nuclear program
US, South Korea and Japan urge stronger international push to curb North Korean nuclear program

Search form

Print Edition
Read pdf version Subscribe now
© 2023 SAUDI RESEARCH & PUBLISHING COMPANY, All Rights Reserved And subject to Terms of Use Agreement.