Over 200 killed in three-day Sudan paramilitary assault: lawyers

Over 200 killed in three-day Sudan paramilitary assault: lawyers
Displaced Sudanese, who fled the Zamzam camp, gather near the town of Tawila in North Darfur on Feb. 14, 2025. (AFP)
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Updated 18 February 2025
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Over 200 killed in three-day Sudan paramilitary assault: lawyers

Over 200 killed in three-day Sudan paramilitary assault: lawyers
  • The Emergency Lawyers group, which documents rights abuses, said RSF attacked unarmed civilians in the villages of Al-Kadaris and Al-Khelwat
  • The lawyer group said some residents were shot at while attempting to flee across the Nile River

PORT SUDAN: Sudanese paramilitaries have killed more than 200 people, including women and children, in a three-day assault on villages in the country’s south, a lawyer group monitoring the war said Tuesday.
The Emergency Lawyers group, which documents rights abuses, said the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces attacked unarmed civilians in the villages of Al-Kadaris and Al-Khelwat, in White Nile state.
The RSF carried out “executions, kidnappings, enforced disappearances and property looting” during the assault since Saturday, which also left hundreds wounded or missing, it said.
The lawyer group said some residents were shot at while attempting to flee across the Nile River. Some drowned in the process, with the lawyers calling the attack an act of “genocide.”
Sudan’s army-aligned foreign ministry said the death toll from the RSF attacks so far was 433 civilians, including babies. It called the assault a “horrible massacre.”
Both the army and the RSF have been accused of war crimes, but the paramilitaries have been specifically notorious for committing ethnic cleansing and systematic sexual violence.
The war has killed tens of thousands, displaced over 12 million and created what the International Rescue Committee has called the “biggest humanitarian crisis ever recorded.”
White Nile state is currently divided by the warring parties.
The army controls southern parts, including the state capital, Rabak, as well as two major cities and a key military base.
The RSF meanwhile holds northern parts of the state, bordering the capital Khartoum, which include several villages and towns and where the latest attacks took place.
Witnesses from the two villages, about 90 kilometers (55 miles) south of Khartoum, said thousands of residents fled their homes, crossing to the western bank of the Nile following RSF shelling.
A medical source speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity for their safety on Monday said some bodies were lying in the streets while others were killed inside their homes with no one able to reach them.
Fighting has intensified in recent weeks as the army advances in its bid to reclaim full control of the capital from paramilitaries.
The UN’s children agency, UNICEF, said on Sunday that those trapped in areas and around the fighting in Khartoum had reported indiscriminate shooting, looting, and forced displacement, as well as alarming accounts of families being separated, children missing, detained or abducted and sexual violence.
Many children, it added, showed signs of distress having witnessed the events around them.
“This is a living nightmare for children, and it must end,” said Sheldon Yett, UNICEF representative for Sudan.
Elsewhere, RSF shelling and gunfire shook the streets this week in a famine-hit camp near North Darfur’s besieged capital El-Fasher in the country’s west.
Hundreds of families fled the violence to neighboring towns with civilians saying that they were robbed and attacked on the roads.
The Zamzam camp, home to between 500,000 and a million people according to aid groups, was the first place famine was declared in Sudan last August under a UN-backed assessment.


Syrian Druze cross armistice line for pilgrimage to Israel

Syrian Druze cross armistice line for pilgrimage to Israel
Updated 19 sec ago
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Syrian Druze cross armistice line for pilgrimage to Israel

Syrian Druze cross armistice line for pilgrimage to Israel
  • Followers of the esoteric monotheistic faith are mainly divided between Syria, Lebanon, Israel and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights
  • The Druze account for about three percent of Syria’s population and are heavily concentrated in the southern province of Sweida
MAJDAL SHAMS: Dozens of Syrian Druze clerics crossed the armistice line on the Golan Heights into Israel on Friday for their community’s first pilgrimage to a revered shrine in decades.
On board three buses escorted by Israeli military vehicles, the clerics crossed at Majdal Shams in the Golan, and headed to northern Israel.
According to a source close to the group, the delegation of around 60 clerics is due to meet the spiritual leader of Israel’s Druze community, Sheikh Mowafaq Tarif, in northern Israel.
They are then set to head to the tomb of Nabi Shuaib in the Galilee — the most important religious site for the Druze.
Followers of the esoteric monotheistic faith are mainly divided between Syria, Lebanon, Israel and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
A source close to the delegation said that the visit followed an invitation from the Druze community in Israel, but that it had been met with “strong opposition” from other Druze in Syria.
The Druze account for about three percent of Syria’s population and are heavily concentrated in the southern province of Sweida.
In Israel and the occupied Golan Heights, there are around 150,000 Druze, with most of those living in Israel holding Israeli citizenship and serving in the army.
However, of the some 23,000 living in the occupied Golan Heights, most do not hold Israeli citizenship and still see themselves as Syrian nationals.
Israel seized much of the strategic Golan Heights from Syria in a war in 1967, later annexing the area in 1981 in a move largely unrecognized by the international community.
The pilgrimage comes as Israel has voiced support for Syria’s Druze and mistrust of the country’s new leaders.
Following the ouster of longtime Syrian president Bashar Assad in December, Israel carried out hundreds of air strikes on Syria and sent troops into the demilitarised buffer zone of the Golan in southwest Syria.
Israeli government spokesman David Mencer said on Thursday that 10,000 humanitarian aid packages had been sent to “the Druze community in battle areas of Syria” over the past few weeks.
“Israel has a bold alliance with our Druze brothers and sisters,” he told journalists.
During a visit to military outposts in the UN-patrolled buffer zone between Israel and Syria on Tuesday, Defense Minister Israel Katz said that Israel would remain in the area and ensure the protection of the Druze.
In early March, following a deadly clash between government-linked forces and Druze fighters in the suburbs of Damascus, Katz said his country would not allow Syria’s new rulers “to harm the Druze.”
Druze leaders immediately rejected Katz’s warning and declared their loyalty to a united Syria.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that southern Syria must be completely demilitarised, warning that his government would not accept the presence of the forces of the new Islamist-led government near its territory.

Hamas says it received proposal from mediators to restart Gaza ceasefire negotiations and agreed to it

Hamas says it received proposal from mediators to restart Gaza ceasefire negotiations and agreed to it
Updated 12 min 58 sec ago
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Hamas says it received proposal from mediators to restart Gaza ceasefire negotiations and agreed to it

Hamas says it received proposal from mediators to restart Gaza ceasefire negotiations and agreed to it
  • Hamas also said that it agreed to release Edan Alexander, an Israeli American hostage
  • Militant group will also release the bodies of four other hostages

DUBAI: Hamas said on Friday it received a proposal from mediators to restart Gaza ceasefire negotiations and had agreed to it.
Hamas also said that it agreed to release Edan Alexander, an Israeli American hostage, and will release the bodies of four other hostages.


Sudan paramilitary shelling kills six in key city: medic

Sudan paramilitary shelling kills six in key city: medic
Updated 19 min 9 sec ago
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Sudan paramilitary shelling kills six in key city: medic

Sudan paramilitary shelling kills six in key city: medic
  • El-Obeid has been under relentless bombardment for eight consecutive days by the paramilitary forces
  • The war has torn Sudan apart, with the RSF tightening its grip on Darfur and parts of the south

PORT SUDAN, Sudan: Sudanese paramilitary shelling of El-Obeid on Friday killed six people, including a child, a doctor said, just weeks after the army broke a prolonged siege of the key southern city.
El-Obeid, the state capital of North Kordofan, has been under relentless bombardment for eight consecutive days by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which has been locked in a devastating conflict with the army since April 2023.
A doctor at the city’s main hospital, speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity for safety reasons, said shelling also wounded eight civilians on Thursday evening and early Friday morning.
On Sunday, nine civilians were killed and 21 others were wounded.
For more than a week, residents have endured heavy bombardment from the RSF, which has been trying to reclaim ground lost to the army with attacks from the north and east.
Last month, Sudan’s military managed to end a nearly two-year RSF siege on El-Obeid, a key crossroads linking Khartoum to Darfur in the west.
The war has torn Sudan apart, with the RSF tightening its grip on Darfur and parts of the south, while the army controls the north and east.
In recent weeks, the army has clawed back large swathes of Khartoum and central Sudan.
What began as a power struggle between army chief Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan and his former deputy and RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo turned into the world’s largest displacement and huger crisis.
The conflict has claimed tens of thousands of lives, uprooted more than 12 million and pushed the country to the brink of famine.


Kurdish militant PKK says ‘impossible’ to safely meet on dissolution

Kurdish militant PKK says ‘impossible’ to safely meet on dissolution
Updated 43 min 36 sec ago
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Kurdish militant PKK says ‘impossible’ to safely meet on dissolution

Kurdish militant PKK says ‘impossible’ to safely meet on dissolution
  • Abdullah Ocalan, who founded the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), urged his fighters to disarm and disband

ISTANBUL: The outlawed Kurdish PKK said it was currently “impossible” for its leadership to safely meet to formally dissolve the group in line with a demand by its jailed founder, Kurdish media reported Friday.
“Every day (Turkish) reconnaissance planes are flying overhead, they are carrying out daily bombings and every day they are attacking,” the PKK’s co-leader Cemil Bayik told the Kurdish television station, Sterk TV.
“Holding a congress in these conditions is impossible and very dangerous.”
His remarks came two weeks after Abdullah Ocalan, who founded the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), urged his fighters to disarm and disband, ending a decades-long insurgency that has claimed tens of thousands of lives.
In his historic call – which took the form of a letter – he urged the PKK to hold a congress to formalize the decision.
Two days later, the PKK announced a ceasefire, saying it was ready to convene a congress but said “for this to happen, a suitable secure environment must be created,” insisting it would only succeed if Ocalan were to “personally direct and lead it.”
Bayik on Thursday said the congress would happen “if the conditions were fulfilled,” according to the PKK-aligned ANF news agency.
The PKK leadership is holed up in mountainous northern Iraq where Turkish forces have staged multiple air strikes in recent years, targeting the group which is also blacklisted by Washington and Brussels.
Despite the negotiations, there has been no indication that Turkish troops have stopped their operations against the PKK, with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warning against any delaying tactics.
“If the promises given are not kept and an attempt is made to delay... we will continue our ongoing operations... until we eliminate the last terrorist,” Erdogan said on March 1.
On Wednesday, Erdogan said he would be willing to hold a meeting with a delegation from the pro-Kurdish DEM party – who played a key role in relaying messages between Ocalan and Ankara – “if they ask for it.”
The party confirmed requesting a meeting but said no date had been set.
Many are hoping Ocalan’s call will ultimately result in concessions for the Kurds, who make up around 20 percent of Turkiye’s 85 million population.


IMF welcomes new Lebanon government request for help on ailing economy

IMF welcomes new Lebanon government request for help on ailing economy
Updated 14 March 2025
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IMF welcomes new Lebanon government request for help on ailing economy

IMF welcomes new Lebanon government request for help on ailing economy
  • The previous caretaker administration did not enact reforms the IMF had demanded to implement a loan package
  • Lebanon’s economic crisis has pushed most of the population below the poverty line, according to the UN

BEIRUT: The International Monetary Fund on Thursday welcomed the new Lebanese government’s request for support in addressing severe economic challenges.
Lebanon in January elected a new president after a more than two-year vacuum, and then formed a government led by Prime Minister Nawaf Salam. In February the IMF said it was open to a new loan agreement with the country following discussions with its recently-appointed finance minister.
The previous caretaker administration did not enact reforms the IMF had demanded to implement a loan package to save the collapsed economy.
The world lender “welcomed the authorities’ request for a new IMF-supported program to bolster their efforts in addressing Lebanon’s significant economic challenges,” the IMF said in a statement.
“Lebanon’s economy remains severely depressed, and poverty and unemployment are exceptionally high since the 2019 crisis,” said Ernesto Ramirez Rigo, the head of the IMF’s delegation to Lebanon.
Lebanon’s economic crisis has pushed most of the population below the poverty line, according to the United Nations.
International donors including the IMF have called on the Lebanese authorities to implement major reforms, including restructuring the banking sector, in order to unlock funding.
In April 2022, Lebanon and the IMF reached conditional agreement on a $3-billion-dollar loan package but painful reforms that the 46-month financing program would require have not been undertaken.
Ramirez Rigo pointed to positive steps including the stabilization of the dollar exchange rate and reduced inflation.
But he said these were “insufficient to address the ongoing economic, financial, and social challenges.”
“A comprehensive strategy for economic rehabilitation is critical to restore growth, reduce unemployment, and improve social conditions,” he continued.
“The banking sector collapse continues to hamper economic activity and provision of credit, with depositors unable to access their funds,” Ramirez Rigo said.
He moreover pointed to substantial infrastructure and housing needs resulting from the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, which ended with a November 27 ceasefire.