Syrians search for loved ones missing in Assad’s jails

People stand outside the infamous Saydnaya military prison, just north of Damascus, Syria, Monday, Dec. 9, 2024. (AP)
People stand outside the infamous Saydnaya military prison, just north of Damascus, Syria, Monday, Dec. 9, 2024. (AP)
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Updated 09 December 2024
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Syrians search for loved ones missing in Assad’s jails

People stand outside the infamous Saydnaya military prison, just north of Damascus, Syria, Monday, Dec. 9, 2024. (AP)
  • On Monday, rescuers from the Syrian White Helmets said they were searching for secret doors or basements in Saydnaya prison, looking for detainees

DAMASCUS: Syrian rescuers searched a jail synonymous with the worst atrocities of ousted president Bashar Assad’s rule, as people in the capital flocked to a central square Monday to celebrate their country’s freedom.
Assad fled Syria as militants swept into the capital, bringing to a spectacular end on Sunday five decades of brutal rule by his clan over a country ravaged by one of the deadliest wars of the century.
He oversaw a crackdown on a democracy movement that erupted in 2011, sparking a war that killed 500,000 people and forced half the country to flee their homes.
At the core of the system of rule that Assad inherited from his father Hafez was a brutal complex of prisons and detention centers used to eliminate dissent by jailing those suspected of stepping out of the ruling Baath party’s line.
On Monday, rescuers from the Syrian White Helmets said they were searching for secret doors or basements in Saydnaya prison, looking for any detainees who might be trapped.
“We are working with all our energy to reach a new hope, and we must be prepared for the worst,” the organization said in a statement.
Aida Taha, aged 65, said she had been “roaming the streets like a madwoman” in search of her brother, who was arrested in 2012.
She said she went to Saydnaya, where she believes some prisoners are still underground.
“The prison has three or four underground floors,” Taha said. “They say that the doors won’t open because they don’t have the proper codes.”
“We’ve been oppressed long enough, we want our children back,” she added.
While Syria has been at war for 13 years, the government’s collapse ended up coming in a matter of days, with a lightning offensive launched by Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS).
Rooted in Syria’s branch of Al-Qaeda, HTS is proscribed by Western governments as a terrorist group.
While it remains to be seen how HTS operates now that Assad is gone, it has sought to moderate its image and to assure Syria’s many religious minorities that they need not fear.
In central Damascus on Monday, despite all the uncertainties for the future, the joy was palpable.
“It’s indescribable, we never thought this nightmare would end, we are reborn,” 49-year-old Rim Ramadan, a civil servant at the finance ministry, told AFP.
“We were afraid for 55 years of speaking, even at home, we used to say the walls had ears,” Ramadan said, as people honked their car horns and rebels fired their guns into the air.
“We feel like we’re living a dream,” she added.
During the offensive launched on November 27, rebels wrested city after city from Assad’s control, opening the gates of prisons along the way and freeing thousands of people, many of them held on political charges.
Social media groups were alight with Syrians sharing images of detainees reportedly brought out from the dungeons, in a collective effort to reunite families with their loved ones, some of whom had been missing for years.
Others, like Fadwa Mahmoud, whose husband and son are missing, posted calls for help finding their missing relatives.
“Where are you, Maher and Abdel Aziz, it’s time for me to hear your news, oh God, please come back, let my joy become complete,” wrote Mahmoud, herself a former detainee.
US President Joe Biden said Assad should be “held accountable” as he called his downfall “a historic opportunity” for the people of Syria.
“The fall of the regime is a fundamental act of justice,” he said.
But he also cautioned that hard-line Islamist groups within the victorious rebel alliance would face scrutiny.
“Some of the rebel groups that took down Assad have their own grim record of terrorism and human right abuses,” Biden said.
The United States has taken note of recent statements by the rebels suggesting they were adopting a more moderate posture, but Biden said: “We will assess not just their words, but their actions.”
Amnesty International also called for perpetrators of rights violations to face justice, with its chief Agnes Callamard urging the forces that ousted Assad to “break free from the violence of the past.”
“Any political transition must ensure accountability for perpetrators of serious violations and guarantee that those responsible are held to account,” UN rights chief Volker Turk said on Monday.
How Assad might face justice remains unclear, especially after Russia refused on Monday to confirm reports by Russian news agencies that he had fled to Moscow.
The Syrian embassy in Moscow raised the flag of the opposition, and the Kremlin said it would discuss the status of its bases in Syria with the new authorities.
Russia played an instrumental role in keeping Assad in power, directly intervening in the war starting in 2015 and providing air cover to the army on the ground as it sought to crush the rebellion.
Iran, another key ally of Assad, said it expected its “friendly” ties with Syria to continue, with its foreign minister saying the ousted president “never asked” for Tehran’s help against the militant offensive.
Turkiye, historically a backer of the opposition, called for an “inclusive” new government in Syria, as the sheer unpredictability of the situation began to settle in.
“It is not just Assad’s regime falling, it is also the question of what comes in its place?” said Aron Lund, a specialist at the Century International think tank.
While Syria’s war began with a crackdown on grassroots democracy protests, it morphed over time and drew in jihadists and foreign powers backing opposing sides.
Israel, which borders Syria, sent troops into a buffer zone after Assad’s fall, in what Foreign Minister Gideon Saar described as a “limited and temporary step.”
Saar also said his country had struck “chemical weapons” in Syria, “in order that they will not fall in the hands of extremists.”
In northern Syria, a Turkish drone strike on a Kurdish-held area killed 11 civilians, six of them children, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor.


Aid agencies: Will take $80bn and 40 years to rebuild Gaza Strip

Aid agencies: Will take $80bn and 40 years to rebuild Gaza Strip
Updated 32 min 3 sec ago
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Aid agencies: Will take $80bn and 40 years to rebuild Gaza Strip

Aid agencies: Will take $80bn and 40 years to rebuild Gaza Strip

Rebuilding homes and infrastructure after Israel’s 15-month war on Gaza could take 40 years and cost more than $80 billion, aid agencies said on Friday.

The war has transformed the enclave into a rubble-strewn wasteland with blackened shells of buildings and mounds of debris. Major roads have been plowed up. Critical water and electricity infrastructure is in ruins. Most hospitals no longer function.
The full extent of the damage will be known only when the fighting ends on Sunday and inspectors have full access. The most heavily destroyed part of Gaza, in the north, has been sealed off and largely depopulated by Israeli forces in an operation that began last October.
Using satellite data, the UN estimates that 70 percent of structures in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed, including over 245,000 homes.

Before anything can be rebuilt, the rubble must be removed — a staggering task in itself.
The war has littered Gaza with over 50 million tonnes of rubble, about 12 times the size of the Great Pyramid of Giza. With over 100 trucks working full time, it would take 15 years to clear.

“I can’t think of any parallel, in terms of the severity of damage, for an enclave or a country or a people,” said Corey Scher of the Shelter Cluster, an international coalition of aid providers led by the Norwegian Refugee Council.

The first target for aid is the health sector, with more than 80 percent of Gaza’s health facilities damaged or destroyed.

The World Health Organization said on Friday it would start by bringing prefabricated hospitals into the enclave and medically evacuating over 12,000 patients, a third of them children.


South Sudan declares nighttime curfew after looting in capital

A puncture repair artisan prepares to receive customers in Juba. (Reuters)
A puncture repair artisan prepares to receive customers in Juba. (Reuters)
Updated 17 January 2025
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South Sudan declares nighttime curfew after looting in capital

A puncture repair artisan prepares to receive customers in Juba. (Reuters)
  • The riots followed the alleged killing of South Sudanese people by members of Sudan’s military and allied groups in the city of Wad Madani in Sudan’s Al-Jazira region

JUBA: South Sudan’s police imposed a nationwide curfew from 6 p.m. (1600 GMT) on Friday after a night of deadly rioting in the capital over the alleged killing of South Sudanese people by the army and allied groups in Sudan.
In a broadcast on state television, police chief Abraham Peter Manyuat said the curfew would continue until further notice from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. daily to try to restore security and prevent the destruction of property.
“The police will not tolerate any violations,” he said.
The police said in a statement that at least three people had been killed and seven wounded on Thursday night in South Sudan’s capital, Juba, some by bullets and machetes, when youths in several suburbs looted and vandalized shops of Sudanese people.

BACKGROUND

Police said at least three people had been killed and seven wounded on Thursday night in South Sudan’s capital, Juba, some by bullets and machetes, when youths in several suburbs looted and vandalized shops.

In Aweil, near the border with Sudan, three houses belonging to Sudanese people were burned, the police added.
On Friday, shops in many Juba suburbs were closed as police and other security forces tried to relocate Sudanese people to safer areas due to fears rioters could attack them.
The riots followed the alleged killing of South Sudanese people by members of Sudan’s military and allied groups in the city of Wad Madani in Sudan’s Al-Jazira region.
On Tuesday, the Sudanese army condemned what it called “individual violations” in Al-Jazira after human rights groups blamed it and its allies for ethnically targeted attacks against civilians accused of supporting the Rapid Support Forces.
South Sudan’s Foreign Ministry summoned Sudan’s ambassador over the alleged killings earlier this week, and President Salva Kiir Mayardit called for calm.
“We mustn’t allow anger to cloud our judgment or turn against Sudanese traders and refugees currently residing in our country,” his office said in a statement.

 


Macron says two French-Israelis among first hostages to be freed by Hamas

Macron says two French-Israelis among first hostages to be freed by Hamas
Updated 17 January 2025
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Macron says two French-Israelis among first hostages to be freed by Hamas

Macron says two French-Israelis among first hostages to be freed by Hamas
  • “Our fellow citizens Ofer Kalderon and Ohad Yahalomi are on the list of 33 hostages to be freed,” Macron said
  • The French president is set to meet with the families of the two Franco-Israeli hostages “very soon“

PARIS: French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday said that French-Israeli citizens Ofer Kalderon and Ohad Yahalomi are in the first group of hostages due to be freed by Hamas following a ceasefire with Israel.
Macron’s announcement came after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said that the release of hostages held in Gaza since Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack on Israel is expected to begin on Sunday.
“Our fellow citizens Ofer Kalderon and Ohad Yahalomi are on the list of 33 hostages to be freed in the first phase of the Gaza accord,” Macron said in a social media post.
“We remain mobilized without pause to ensure their return to their families,” he wrote.
The French president is set to meet with the families of the two Franco-Israeli hostages “very soon,” according to his entourage.
Yahalomi, who turned 50 in captivity, was kidnapped from his home in Nir Oz kibbutz.
His 12-year-old son, abducted separately, was released in November 2023 during the first truce.
Kalderon, 54, was kidnapped along with his son and daughter from Nir Oz kibbutz. The two children were released in the November 2023 truce.


UN says Sudan war turning ‘more dangerous’ for civilians after Al-Jazira attacks

UN says Sudan war turning ‘more dangerous’ for civilians after Al-Jazira attacks
Updated 17 January 2025
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UN says Sudan war turning ‘more dangerous’ for civilians after Al-Jazira attacks

UN says Sudan war turning ‘more dangerous’ for civilians after Al-Jazira attacks
  • The “Sudan conflict (is) taking more dangerous turn for civilians,” UN Human Rights Commissioner Volker Turk said
  • On Thursday, the US treasury department announced sanctions against army chief Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan

PORT SUDAN: The United Nations human rights chief warned Friday that the war in Sudan is becoming “more dangerous” for civilians, following reports from rights groups of army-allied militias carrying out ethnic-based attacks on minorities in Al-Jazira state.
The “Sudan conflict (is) taking more dangerous turn for civilians,” UN Human Rights Commissioner Volker Turk said on social media platform X, adding that “there is evidence of... war crimes and other atrocity crimes.”


The Sudanese army, at war with rival paramilitaries since April 2023, led an offensive this week on Al-Jazira state, recapturing its capital Wad Madani from the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
Rights groups said on Monday that at least 13 people including two children were killed in ethnically-targeted attacks against minority communities in the agricultural state.
Though the RSF has become notorious for alleged ethnic-based violence, reports have also emerged of civilians being targeted on the basis of ethnicity in army-controlled areas.
On Thursday, the US treasury department announced sanctions against army chief Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, accusing the army of attacking schools, markets and hospitals, as well as using food deprivation as a weapon of war.
It came a week after the US also slapped sanctions on RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, accusing his group of committing genocide.
Responding to recent reports from US officials of the Sudanese army using chemical weapons in Sudan, spokesperson of the UN human rights chief Ravina Shamdasani said Friday that due to limited access, the UN “has not specifically documented” such practices during the war.
At a briefing on Friday, Shamdasani described the reports as “very worrying,” adding that “they do require further investigation.”
She said what the UN has documented is “the use of extremely heavy weaponry in populated areas,” including air strikes on marketplaces.
Both sides have been accused of targeting civilians and indiscriminately shelling residential areas, with the RSF specifically accused of ethnic cleansing, systematic sexual violence and laying siege to entire towns.
The war has killed tens of thousands, uprooted over 12 million and pushed the country to the brink of famine, creating what the United Nations describes as one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
In its latest reports, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said that over 120,000 people have fled the ongoing violence in the southern Sudanese states of Blue Nile, White Nile and Sennar to South Sudan since early December 2024.


Israel publishes list of 95 Palestinian prisoners eligible for release starting Sunday

Israel publishes list of 95 Palestinian prisoners eligible for release starting Sunday
Updated 17 January 2025
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Israel publishes list of 95 Palestinian prisoners eligible for release starting Sunday

Israel publishes list of 95 Palestinian prisoners eligible for release starting Sunday
  • “The release of prisoners is... subject to government approval of the (ceasefire) plan and will not take place before Sunday,” the ministry said
  • Among those on the list is also Khalida Jarar, a leftist Palestinian lawmaker whom Israel arrested and imprisoned on several occasions

JERUSALEM: The Israeli justice ministry published a list of 95 Palestinian prisoners, the majority women, who are to be freed starting Sunday as part of the first exchange for Israeli captives under a Gaza ceasefire deal.
“The release of prisoners is... subject to government approval of the (ceasefire) plan and will not take place before Sunday 16:00 (1400 GMT),” the ministry said in a statement on Friday.
Israel’s security cabinet approved the deal, while the full cabinet will convene to vote on it later on Friday.
The list includes 69 women, 16 men and 10 minors.
According to the ministry, the youngest inmate on the list is 16.
The list includes only seven prisoners who were arrested before the October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas on Israel that sparked the war in Gaza.
Among those on the list is also Khalida Jarar, a leftist Palestinian lawmaker whom Israel arrested and imprisoned on several occasions.
Jarar is a prominent member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a group designated a “terrorist organization” by Israel, the United States and the European Union.
Detained in late December in the West Bank, a Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967, the 60-year-old has been held since then without charge.
In September 2021, she was released after serving a two-year sentence in an Israeli prison for participating in PFLP activities.
According to the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the release of hostages as part of the first phase of the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas is expected to begin Sunday.
Two sources close to Hamas told AFP that the first group of hostages to be released consists of three Israeli women soldiers.
However, since the Palestinian Islamist movement considers any Israeli of military age who has completed mandatory service a soldier, the reference could also apply to civilians abducted during the attack that triggered the war.
The first three names on a list obtained by AFP of the 33 hostages set to be released in the first phase are women under 30 who were not in military service on the day of the Hamas attack.
Justice ministry spokeswoman Noga Katz said the final number of prisoners to be released in the first swap would depend on the number of live hostages released by Hamas.
Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has called on political allies to vote against the Gaza deal, stating it would see the release of several Palestinian militants “serving life sentences” for killing Israelis.