Saudi FM urges UN to ‘pool efforts’ to help war-stricken Sudan

Update Saudi FM urges UN to ‘pool efforts’ to help war-stricken Sudan
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Saudi Arabia Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan at the 78th United Nations General Assembly, Tuesday, Sept. 19, 2023. (AP Photo)
Update Saudi FM urges UN to ‘pool efforts’ to help war-stricken Sudan
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People displaced by conflict seek refuge at a mosque in Sudan’s northern border town of Wadi Halfa, near Egypt, Sept. 12, 2023. (AFP)
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Updated 21 September 2023
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Saudi FM urges UN to ‘pool efforts’ to help war-stricken Sudan

Saudi FM urges UN to ‘pool efforts’ to help war-stricken Sudan
  • KSrelief chief praises local NGOs, warns they need greater access to reach civilians
  • Egyptian FM: Sudan’s neighbors alone cannot shoulder refugee burden

NEW YORK: It is “critical” that the world “pool our efforts towards an effective response that alleviates the situation in Sudan,” Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan said at a high-level ministerial meeting at the UN General Assembly in New York on Wednesday. 

The meeting, convened at the behest of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Qatar, the African Union, the EU and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, outlined the deteriorating situation in Sudan, approaching its sixth month of conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.

Sudan is now home to the highest number of internally displaced people in the world, attendees were told.

Rosemary DiCarlo, UN undersecretary-general for political and peace-building affairs, said while the fighting is spreading along tribal and geographic lines, neither party is close to victory, with “over 5,000 men, women and children killed.”

She added: “At least 7.1 million people, including an estimated 3.3 million children, (have been) uprooted from their homes. More than 6 million Sudanese are one step away from famine. These numbers will keep growing as long as the guns keep talking.” 

DiCarlo urged the two sides to cease operations before the violence spilled out into other states in the region, to “return” to the Jeddah Declaration signed by the SAF, the RSF, Saudi Arabia and the US, which call for respecting their obligations under international humanitarian and human rights law to meet the needs of Sudanese civilians. 

Prince Faisal called for an immediate end to the fighting, and told the meeting that over 1 million people had already fled Sudan to neighboring countries.

“The Kingdom’s humanitarian response has included three important elements,” he said. “In the beginning of the conflict, we worked through our Ministry of Defense for the urgent evacuation of foreign nationals to the port city of Jeddah. This large-scale initiative reflected our commitment to tackle all aspects of the crisis with a high degree of coordination with our partners. 

“We followed this by offering $100 million in direct humanitarian support, and (by) launching a public donation campaign.

“The third element aims to address humanitarian access, and we’ve been working with the World Food Programme and the UN to make sure that we can facilitate access through the port of Jeddah into Sudan.”

He added: “Our consultation today … should explore ways to streamline people’s access to basic services such as water, food, fuel, healthcare and electricity.

“We are also eager to discuss with our international partners ways to safeguard humanitarian corridors, protect relief workers, and restore humanitarian services in Sudan.”

He said: “We call on our partners and international donors to redouble efforts to alleviate the suffering of the Sudanese people.

“We also stress the importance of abiding by the Jeddah Declaration … The Kingdom will stand with the people of Sudan in the hardships they face.”

Martin Griffiths, undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator at the UN, warned that the scale of the “humanitarian crisis” in Sudan has reached “epic proportions,” echoing DiCarlo’s prediction that failure to address it could see it “deteriorate to engulf the entire country and then the region.”

Griffiths added that for context, in some cases it is taking aid convoys two to six weeks to reach Darfur from Port Sudan due to the difficulties on the ground, highlighting the need for greater international assistance.

Dr. Abdullah Al-Rabeeah, supervisor general of the Saudi aid agency KSrelief, said: “Based on (historical ties with Saudi Arabia), we know Sudan has very good and capable and credible local NGOs, and in order for those NGOs to work … I think that we have to build capacity, we have also to empower them. 

“We should respect the Jeddah Declaration … and also we should put pressure on both parties of the conflict to improve access to those NGOs.”

He concluded with a message to the two warring sides: “Stop the fighting. We need (a) ceasefire, we need peace, and we need humanitarian corridors and access which allow us to reach those who are in need.”

Egypt’s Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said his country would continue to help the Sudanese people find the “dignity” they deserve. 

“Egypt is connected to Sudan by historical and geographical relations, and Egypt pays special attention to the stability and security of Sudan, being part and parcel of Egypt’s security,” he added.

“Egypt has spared no effort since the war broke out in Sudan to try to end the conflict and maintain the oneness of Sudan, and communicate with all Sudanese parties as well as all international players, particularly neighboring countries of Sudan that are most affected by the conflict.”

He said through diplomatic channels, a plan had been established with Sudan’s neighbors “to deal with military and humanitarian aspects of the crisis, especially treating injured civilians, supporting the educational institutions — as well as other institutions — that present aid to those that fled the war zone to neighboring countries, and to provide warehouses with supplies to the Sudanese people inside and outside of Sudan.”

Shoukry added: “Egypt has opened its doors to the Sudanese refugees to come to Egypt — as of now, Egypt has received 310,000 Sudanese refugees.”

But he warned that Sudan’s neighbors could not continue to shoulder the burden alone, saying: “Sharing responsibility and sharing the cost is the best way to deal with the crisis, to lighten the pressure on neighboring countries, especially in the absence of a feasible solution to the conflict.”

Lolwah Rashid Al-Khater, Qatar’s minister of state for international cooperation, echoed the sentiments that more needs to done.

“Since the beginning of the pledge, in June of this year in cooperation with Saudi Arabia, the Republic of Egypt and the Republic of Germany to support the humanitarian response in Sudan … (Qatar pledged) $50 million to support the humanitarian aid in Sudan,” she said.

“Since that time, the situation has got more complicated. Despite your generous support, the humanitarian crisis in Sudan needs more support and more funding to close the financing gap.”


Children of Iran Nobel Peace Prize winner fear they won’t see her again

Children of Iran Nobel Peace Prize winner fear they won’t see her again
Updated 09 December 2023
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Children of Iran Nobel Peace Prize winner fear they won’t see her again

Children of Iran Nobel Peace Prize winner fear they won’t see her again
  • Her twin 17-year-old children are due to accept the award at Oslo’s City Hall and give the Nobel Peace Prize lecture on her behalf
  • In a letter smuggled out of prison and published by Swedish broadcaster SVT this week, Mohammadi said she would continue to fight for human rights even if it led to her death

OSLO: The teenage children of jailed Iranian Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi fear they will never meet their mother again, but said they were proud of her struggle for women’s rights as they prepared to accept the award on her behalf on Sunday.
Mohammadi, 51, who is serving multiple sentences in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison on charges including spreading propaganda, won the award on Oct. 6 in a rebuke to Tehran’s theocratic leaders, prompting the Islamic Republic’s condemnation.
Her twin 17-year-old children, Ali and Kiana Rahman, who live in exile in Paris, are due to accept the award at Oslo’s City Hall and give the Nobel Peace Prize lecture on her behalf.
In a letter smuggled out of prison and published by Swedish broadcaster SVT this week, Mohammadi said she would continue to fight for human rights even if it led to her death. But she said she missed her children the most.
Kiana Rahman, who last saw her mother eight years ago, said: “When it comes to seeing her again, personally I am very pessimistic.”
“Maybe I’ll see her in 30 or 40 years, but I think I won’t see her again,” she told a press conference via a translator. “But that doesn’t matter because my mother will always live on in my heart and with my family.”
Mohammadi was awarded the Peace Prize just over a year after 22-year-old Mahsa Amini died in the custody of Iranian morality police after being detained for allegedly violating the rules of wearing a hijab, an Islamic head scarf.
Amini’s death provoked months of nationwide protests that posed the biggest challenge to Shiite clerical rule in years, and was met with a deadly security crackdown costing several hundred lives.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee said the award for Mohammadi also recognized hundreds of thousands who had demonstrated against the theocratic regime’s policies discriminating and oppressing women.
Iran has called the protests Western-led subversion, accusing the Nobel committee of meddling and politicizing human rights.
Mohammadi’s son Ali said he had accepted from early childhood that the family would live apart, but said he would stay optimistic he might see her again.
“If we don’t see her again we will always be proud of her and go on with our struggle,” he said.
Mohammadi’s husband Taghi Rahmani said the award would give her a larger voice even if her own conditions were likely to become more difficult.
“It’s a political prize and therefore there will be more pressure on Narges, but at the same time it is going to create a space for echoing the voice of the people” said Rahmani, who will also attend Sunday’s ceremony.
Mohammadi is the 19th woman to win the prize, which today is worth 11 million Swedish crowns, or around $1 million, and the fifth person to win it while in detention.
It is awarded on Dec. 10, the anniversary of the death of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, who founded the awards in his 1895 will.


Iran says reviving nuclear deal ‘useless’

Iran says reviving nuclear deal ‘useless’
Updated 09 December 2023
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Iran says reviving nuclear deal ‘useless’

Iran says reviving nuclear deal ‘useless’
  • “Today, the more we advance, the more the JCPOA becomes useless,” Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said
  • “We are not currently on the path to return to the agreement”

TEHRAN: Iran said Saturday that attempting to revive its landmark nuclear deal with world powers that was effectively scrapped by former US president Donald Trump was increasingly “useless.”
“Today, the more we advance, the more the JCPOA becomes useless,” Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said in a speech to students at the University of Tehran, using the initials of the official name of the nuclear deal.
In 2015, Iran agreed to curbs on its nuclear program in exchange for a lifting of sanctions.
But while the deal was signed with several world powers — including China, Russia, Britain, France and Germany — it was rendered effectively useless when the United States unilaterally withdrew under Trump in 2018.
With the US reimposing sanctions, international banks and businesses have stayed away from Iran for fear of falling foul of US regulators.
Tentative efforts to revive the deal by Trump’s successor, Joe Biden, have been at a standstill since mid-2022.
“Because (Iran’s) red lines have sometimes been ignored by the other side, we are not currently on the path to return to the agreement,” Amir-Abdollahian said.
“Of course, this does not mean that we have set the agreement aside. If the agreement serves our interests, (we will accept it) with all its flaws,” he added.
The director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, called in October on the international community not to fail in Iran as it did in North Korea, which now has nuclear weapons.
Iran says its nuclear program is entirely peaceful, but since 2021 the UN body has struggled to monitor the development of its capabilities.


Turkiye’s Erdogan denounces UN ‘Israel protection council’

Turkiye’s Erdogan denounces UN ‘Israel protection council’
Updated 09 December 2023
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Turkiye’s Erdogan denounces UN ‘Israel protection council’

Turkiye’s Erdogan denounces UN ‘Israel protection council’
  • “Since October 7, the security council has become an Israel protection and defense council,” Erdogan said
  • “Is this justice?” asked Erdogan, adding that “the world is bigger than five,” a reference to the five veto-wielding nations in the UN Security Council

ISTANBUL: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday denounced the UN Security Council after the United States vetoed a cease-fire resolution for Gaza, describing the international body as the ‘Israel protection council’.
“Since October 7, the security council has become an Israel protection and defense council,” Erdogan said.
The United States on Friday vetoed a Security Council resolution calling for an immediate cease-fire in the intense fighting between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
Washington thus dashed a growing clamour for a halt to fighting that had been led by UN chief Antonio Guterres and Arab nations.
“Is this justice?” asked Erdogan, adding that “the world is bigger than five,” a reference to the five veto-wielding nations in the UN Security Council.
“Another world is possible, but without America,” the Turkish leader said.
“The United States stands by Israel with its money and military equipment. Hey, America! How much are you going to pay for that?” he added.
“Every day the Declaration of Human Rights is violated in Gaza,” he said, as the world this weekend celebrates the 75th anniversary of the declaration.
The UN resolution for a cease-fire was submitted more than two months after the start of the war in Gaza triggered by Hamas’s bloody attack on Israeli soil on October 7, which, according to the Israeli authorities, killed 1,200 people.
Since then Hamas has put the death toll in Gaza at 17,490, mostly women and children.


Israelis on edge as fears grow of wider Lebanon conflict

Israelis on edge as fears grow of wider Lebanon conflict
Updated 09 December 2023
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Israelis on edge as fears grow of wider Lebanon conflict

Israelis on edge as fears grow of wider Lebanon conflict
  • In peacetime, visitors flock to the town to enjoy its pleasant climate and good surfing
  • For over two months, residents have been living under the threat of near-daily exchanges of fire between the Israeli army and Hezbollah

NAHARIYA, Israel: In the seaside haven of Nahariya, the shock still lingers on Daniel Bussidan’s face. A recent rocket attack killed his friend’s father, and now this Israeli beach town, the closest to Lebanon, stands on edge.
“I’m scared from the attack,” said the 26-year-old who works in his father’s pastry shop on the Mediterranean resort’s eucalyptus-lined main street.
His friend’s father was killed when a rocket struck his farm while he was working, Bussidan told AFP.
“He died on the spot,” Bussidan said.
In peacetime, visitors flock to the town to enjoy its pleasant climate and good surfing.
But for over two months, residents have been living under the threat of near-daily exchanges of fire between the Israeli army and powerful Lebanese movement Hezbollah.
The Iran-backed Shiite group says it entered the fray in support of Hamas on October 8, the day after the Palestinian militants launched their attack in Israel which killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, according to Israeli officials.
Aiming to destroy Hamas, Israel launched a military offensive that the health ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza says has killed 17,490 people, mostly women and children, and left the Palestinian territory in ruins.
In northern Israel, residents fear a wider conflict emerging along the border with Lebanon, which snakes along a hill in the distance from Nahariya.
More than 120 people have been killed on the Lebanese side of the border since October 7, mostly Hezbollah fighters and more than a dozen civilians, according to an AFP tally.
Israel says six of its soldiers and four Israeli civilians have been killed in the area, and Lebanon lost its first soldier in the exchanges on Tuesday.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Hezbollah that if it “chooses to start a global war, then it will turn Beirut and South Lebanon... into Gaza and Khan Yunis with its own hands.”
Business has slumped along the Nahariya seafront, and many more rifles have appeared, slung over people’s shoulders.
Resident Nathalie Betito, 44, believes Hezbollah fighters could infiltrate the border. But she made a point of celebrating Hanukkah, the Jewish festival of lights, with around 100 people at the central synagogue this week.
She and her husband Arie, 47, immigrated from France five years ago. Nahariya represents an attractive destination, with special tax breaks due to its exposed position.
Arie, who now helps new arrivals at the town hall, said residents were nonetheless living in peril.
Hezbollah has thousands of “missiles pointed at us,” he said, stressing that he did not believe in escalating the conflict into a “total” war.
“The price to pay would be huge,” he said. “Neither side wants that.”
But people in Nahariya are preparing for the worst. Efi Dayan, 60, said he “knows there’s going to be a war here.”
“We’re getting ready with food, clothes. We’re waiting for it,” he said calmly under the winter sun.
But the military job in Gaza needs to be completed first, said Bussidan, a former soldier himself.
“We have to finish Hamas and take care of all civilians on both sides,” he said.


New Gaza aid crossing at Kerem Shalom being tested, not open yet — UN official

New Gaza aid crossing at Kerem Shalom being tested, not open yet — UN official
Updated 09 December 2023
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New Gaza aid crossing at Kerem Shalom being tested, not open yet — UN official

New Gaza aid crossing at Kerem Shalom being tested, not open yet — UN official
  • New crossing will allow trucks from Jordan into Gaza

CAIRO: A new process for inspecting aid for Gaza at the Kerem Shalom crossing is being tested, but efforts to get permission for trucks to enter through the crossing and ramp up relief are still ongoing, a senior UN official told Reuters on Saturday.
Under the new system, trucks would come to the Kerem Shalom crossing on the border between Israel, Gaza and Egypt for the first time from Jordan, before entering Gaza from Rafah, about 3 km (1.86 miles) away.
But the trucks would need to be allowed to enter Gaza directly through Kerem Shalom to alleviate an increasingly desperate situation in the coastal enclave, said Carl Skau, deputy executive director of the UN World Food Programme.
Israel has so far rebuffed pleas from the United Nations and others to open Kerem Shalom, but they both signalled on Thursday that Kerem Shalom could soon help process delivery of humanitarian supplies into Gaza.
Until now, limited quantities of aid have been delivered from Egypt through the Rafah crossing, which is ill-equipped to process large numbers of trucks.
Trucks have been driving more than 40 km (24.85 miles) south to Egypt’s border with Israel before returning to Rafah, leading to bottlenecks and delays.
A process to test the inspection system at Kerem Shalom for trucks arriving from Jordan is underway, said Skau, who visited Gaza on Friday.
“It’s good, it’s useful because it would also be the first time that we can then bring in a pipeline from Jordan. But we need that entry point as well because that would make all the difference,” he said in an interview.
“If you get that open, then it’s just a matter of how much is available and how much can be absorbed on the other side in an orderly fashion, but then certainly that capacity would not be the issue,” he added.
“We have front-loaded with our internal resources so that we have food available in Egypt and in Jordan to reach some 1,000,000 people in one month. We are ready to roll. The trucks are ready to move.”
Skau said the situation inside Gaza was increasingly chaotic as people grabbed what they could from aid distribution points, with larger numbers of people displaced southwards close to the border with Egypt and aid trucks at risk of being stopped by desperate residents if they even slow down at an intersection.
“There is a question for how long this can continue, because the humanitarian operation is collapsing,” he said.
“Half of the population are starving, nine out of 10 are not eating every day. Obviously the needs are massive.”