UN official says the war in Sudan is ‘one of the ugliest’ she has ever seen

Special UN official says the war in Sudan is ‘one of the ugliest’ she has ever seen
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Updated 14 September 2024
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UN official says the war in Sudan is ‘one of the ugliest’ she has ever seen

UN official says the war in Sudan is ‘one of the ugliest’ she has ever seen
  • ‘The conflict is driving a stake into the heart of Sudan,’ UN Population Fund’s Laila Baker tells Arab News
  • It is a war on all civilians and women are bearing the heaviest brunt, she adds

NEW YORK CITY: A UN official on Friday described the situation in war-torn Sudan as “one of the ugliest” she has ever witnessed, with more than 26 million people facing acute hunger and millions of displaced women and girls deprived of their most essential needs.

Speaking after a visit to the country, Laila Baker, the Arab States regional director at the UN Population Fund, said: “We all know that war is ugly but this is one of the ugliest situations that I have ever witnessed in my entire life, certainly in my professional one.”

After 500 “devastating days” of conflict, Baker painted a dire picture of thousands of displaced women packed into a crowded shelter.

“They have no clean water, no hygiene, not enough food for their next meal, no medical care,” she said.

The UN said in August famine conditions were officially confirmed in the Zamzam camp for displaced persons, located close to El-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, where one child is dying every two hours from malnutrition. Famine is probably also present in several other camps for displaced people in and around the city, the organization said.

War has been raging in the country for more than a year between rival factions of its military government: the Sudanese Armed Forces, under Gen. Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, led by Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, commonly known as Hemedti.

More than 19,000 people have been killed since the conflict began in April 2023. The war has also created the worst displacement crisis in the world, as more than 10 million have fled their homes to other parts of the country or neighboring nations.

Baker choked back tears as she recounted the “horrendous” story of a 20-year old woman named Sana who was raped and has been suffering in silence for 15 months, when “she should be at the prime of her vibrancy and life.”

Speaking from Amman in Jordan, Baker said the UN is attempting to help deal with needs in Sudan that are “far greater than what the international community can cope with.”

She added: “But what pains me the most is that in a country that once was the breadbasket of the entire continent, producing wheat that they could distribute across Africa, half of the population — slightly over half of the population, 26 million people strong — are now facing famine.

“Of the 600,000 pregnant women, 18,000 are likely to die as a result of that famine. They don’t know where their next meal is going to come from.

“Let me be clear: This is a war on all of the civilians. It’s not just the women and girls but if you take the complications of conflict — loss, both material and human; the devastation of being displaced; losing your loved ones; and where there is widespread sexual violence — you can understand that we are very concerned at (the Population Fund) about the consequences, both immediate and long-term, on the women and girls of Sudan.”

Aid workers continue to face harassment, attacks and even death, aid convoys delivering food, medicine and fuel have been looted, and humanitarian access continues to be obstructed. A recent escalation of fighting in Sennar has caused further blocking of the southern route that was the main cross-lines option for UN deliveries of humanitarian aid from Port Sudan to Kordofan and Darfur.

The UN has been calling for speedy approvals and security assurances so that its workers can deliver life-saving supplies, including essential medicines, nutritional aid, water-purification tablets and soap, from Port Sudan to Zamzam and other areas in need.

Baker again emphasized the urgent need for unimpeded humanitarian access in a country where only one-in-four medical facilities are still functioning, 80 percent of the healthcare system has been damaged or destroyed, and where large areas of the country, especially in the west, are completely unsafe for humanitarian work.

Asked by Arab News what message she would send to the leaders of the warring factions, Baker said: “I would say to the generals, and everyone else who's involved in this conflict and who can bring hostilities to a halt: the sooner, the better for everyone involved. Let peace flourish. Let it have a chance.

“The conflict is driving a stake into the heart of Sudan. No one prospers under this situation, least of all the women and girls.”


Netanyahu tells UN chief to move peacekeepers in Lebanon out of ‘harm’s way immediately’

Updated 5 sec ago
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Netanyahu tells UN chief to move peacekeepers in Lebanon out of ‘harm’s way immediately’

Netanyahu tells UN chief to move peacekeepers in Lebanon out of ‘harm’s way immediately’
BEIRUT: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday called on the UN chief to move UN peacekeepers deployed in southern Lebanon out of “harm’s way.”
Netanyahu’s appeal to UN chief Antonio Guterres comes a day after the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, known as UNIFIL, refused to withdraw from the border area despite five of its members being wounded in Israeli fire in recent days.
“Mr Secretary General, get the UNIFIL forces out of harm’s way. It should be done right now, immediately,” Netanyahu said in a video statement issued by his office, in what were his first comments on the issue.
Netanyahu, speaking at a cabinet meeting, said Israeli forces had asked UNIFIL several times to leave but it had “met with repeated refusals” that provided a “human shield to Hezbollah terrorists.”
“Your refusal to evacuate the UNIFIL soldiers makes them hostages of Hezbollah. This endangers both them and the lives of our soldiers,” Netanyahu said.
“We regret the injuring of UNIFIL soldiers and we are doing everything in our power to prevent this injuring. But the simple and obvious way to ensure this is simply to get them out of the danger zone.”
UNIFIL has refused to leave its positions in southern Lebanon.
“There was a unanimous decision to stay because it’s important for the UN flag to still fly high in this region, and to be able to report to the Security Council,” UNIFIL spokesman Andrea Tenenti told AFP in an interview on Saturday.
Tenenti said Israel had asked UNIFIL to withdraw from positions “up to five kilometers (three miles) from the Blue Line” separating both countries, but the peacekeepers refused.
That would have included its 29 positions in Lebanon’s south.
UNIFIL, a mission of about 9,500 troops of various nationalities that was created in 1978, is tasked with monitoring a ceasefire that ended a 33-day war in 2006 between Israel and Hezbollah.
Forty nations that contribute to the peacekeeping force in Lebanon said on Saturday that they “strongly condemn recent attacks” on the peacekeepers.
“Such actions must stop immediately and should be adequately investigated,” said the joint statement, posted on X by the Polish UN mission and signed by nations including leading contributors Indonesia, Italy and India.

Iran FM says ‘no red lines’ in defending itself

Iran FM says ‘no red lines’ in defending itself
Updated 1 min 35 sec ago
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Iran FM says ‘no red lines’ in defending itself

Iran FM says ‘no red lines’ in defending itself
  • Abbas Araghchi was in Baghdad to discuss the wars in Gaza and Lebanon with Iraqi officials
  • After Baghdad, Araghchi will head to Oman

BAGHDAD: Iran’s top diplomat vowed Sunday there would be “no red lines” for the country in defending its people and interests, ahead of Israel’s expected retaliation for Iran’s recent missile attack.
“While we have made tremendous efforts in recent days to contain an all-out war in our region, I say it clearly that we have no red lines in defending our people and interests,” Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi wrote in a post on X.
Iran fired 200 missiles at Israel on October 1 in what it said was retaliation for the killing of Tehran-aligned militant leaders in the region and a general in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has vowed Israel’s response will be “deadly, precise, and surprising.”
Araghchi was in Baghdad to discuss the wars in Gaza and Lebanon with Iraqi officials, according to the ministry.
Ali Al-Moussawi, political adviser to the Iraqi prime minister, told AFP Araghchi’s visit was part of a diplomatic effort “to silence weapons and violence... to establish security and stability in the region.”
After Baghdad, Araghchi will head to Oman, the Iranian ISNA news agency reported.
On Thursday, Araghchi was in Qatar where he met Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani over the wars in Gaza and Lebanon.
Qatar has been mediating talks aimed at a Gaza ceasefire and has called for a truce in Lebanon.
A day earlier, Araghchi met Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and his Saudi counterpart Prince Faisal bin Farhan.
In a recent interview, Araghchi said Iran does “not want war” but it was “not afraid of it.”
“We will be ready for any scenario,” he told Al Jazeera news network.


Sudan rescuers say air strike killed 23 in Khartoum market

Sudan rescuers say air strike killed 23 in Khartoum market
Updated 42 min 18 sec ago
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Sudan rescuers say air strike killed 23 in Khartoum market

Sudan rescuers say air strike killed 23 in Khartoum market
  • The market is near one of the main camps in the Sudanese capital, where the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have been fighting the military as part of a civil war

POST SUDEN: A Sudanese network of volunteer rescuers said on Sunday the military carried out an air strike a day earlier on a marketplace in Khartoum, leaving 23 people dead.
The market is near one of the main camps in the Sudanese capital, where the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have been fighting the military as part of a civil war that has killed tens of thousands of people.
“Twenty-three people were confirmed dead and more than 40 others wounded” and taken to hospital after “military air strikes on Saturday afternoon on the main market” in southern Khartoum, the youth-led Emergency Response Rooms said in a post on Facebook.
Fierce fighting has raged since Friday around Khartoum, much of which is controlled by the RSF, with the military pounding the center and south of the city from the air.
The military is advancing toward Khartoum from nearby Omdurman, where clashes erupted on Saturday, eyewitnesses said.

Since April 2023, when war broke out between army chief Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan and his former deputy, RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, the paramilitaries had largely pushed the army out of Khartoum.
The World Health Organization says at least 20,000 people have been killed in the civil war, but some estimates put the toll much higher at up to 150,000.
The war has also created the world’s largest displacement crisis, the UN says.
More than 10 million people, around a fifth of Sudan’s population, have been forced from their homes, according to UN figures.
A UN-backed assessment in August declared a famine in the Zamzam refugee camp in Darfur near the city of El-Fasher.
The government loyal to the army is based in Port Sudan on the Red Sea coast, where the army has retained control.
The RSF meanwhile has taken control of nearly all of the vast western region of Darfur, rampaged through the agricultural heartland of central Sudan and pushed into the army-controlled southeast.


Iran, Iraq funerals for general killed with Hezbollah chief

Iran, Iraq funerals for general killed with Hezbollah chief
Updated 13 October 2024
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Iran, Iraq funerals for general killed with Hezbollah chief

Iran, Iraq funerals for general killed with Hezbollah chief
  • Nilforoushan is a top commander in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force foreign operations arm was killed alongside Nasrallah

Tehran: Iran and Iraq will both stage funerals for Revolutionary Guard General Abbas Nilforoushan, killed in an Israeli air strike alongside Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, the Guards’ news agency said Sunday.
Nilforoushan, a top commander in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force foreign operations arm, was killed on September 27 alongside Nasrallah in the strike on south Beirut.
The IRGC said Friday his body had been recovered from the site of the strike on the Lebanese capital’s southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold.
Funeral ceremonies will be held in “Najaf and Karbala” in Iraq on Monday before the body is transferred to Iran’s holy city of Mashhad, the Sepah news agency said.
Another ceremony will take place at Tehran’s Imam Hossein Square on Tuesday before burial Thursday in the central city of Isfahan, his hometown, Sepah said.
On October 1, Iran fired some 200 missiles at Israel in retaliation for the killing of Nasrallah, Nilforoushan and Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh in late July.
Israel said it carried out the Beirut strike but did not comment on Haniyeh’s death in Tehran, where he had attended the inauguration of the Islamic republic’s new president.
Israel has vowed to retaliate for the Iranian missile attack, with Defense Minister Yoav Gallant saying the response would be “deadly, precise, and surprising.”


Iran condemns ‘illegal and unjustified’ US sanctions on oil industry: ministry

Iran condemns ‘illegal and unjustified’ US sanctions on oil industry: ministry
Updated 13 October 2024
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Iran condemns ‘illegal and unjustified’ US sanctions on oil industry: ministry

Iran condemns ‘illegal and unjustified’ US sanctions on oil industry: ministry
  • US on Friday slapped Iran with a spate of new sanctions on the country’s oil and petrochemical industry in response to Tehran’s October 1 attack against Israel.

Tehran: Iran condemned Sunday what it called an “illegal and unjustified” expansion of US sanctions targeting its oil industry following Tehran’s missile attack on Israel earlier this month.
In a statement, foreign ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei defended Iran’s attack on Israel and “strongly condemned” the sanctions, saying they were “illegal and unjustified.”
The United States on Friday slapped Iran with a spate of new sanctions on the country’s oil and petrochemical industry in response to Tehran’s October 1 attack against Israel.
Baghaei defended Iran’s attack on Israel as being legal and insisted on Iran’s right to respond to the new sanctions.
The US Treasury Department said it targeted Iran’s so-called shadow fleet of ships involved in selling Iranian oil in circumvention of existing sanctions.
It said it had designated at least 10 companies and 17 vessels as “blocked property” over their involvement in shipments of Iranian petroleum and petrochemical products.
The State Department also announced it was placing sanctions on six further firms and six ships for “knowingly engaging in a significant transaction for the purchase, acquisition, sale, transport, or marketing of petroleum or petroleum products from Iran.”
Baghaei said “the policy of threats and maximum pressure” had no impact on “Iran’s will to defend its sovereignty, territorial integrity, national interests and citizens against any violation and foreign aggressions.”
He said the sanctions would enable Israel “to continue killing innocents and pose a threat to the peace and unity of the region and the world.”
The new wave of sanctions comes as the world awaits Israel’s promised response to Tehran’s missile attack, with oil prices hitting their highest levels since August.
Earlier this month, US President Joe Biden advised Israel against targeting oil infrastructure in Iran, one of the world’s 10 largest producers.
Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi last Tuesday warned that “any attack against infrastructure in Iran will provoke an even stronger response.”