Category Archives: Middle East and North Africa

Bashar al-Assad tells Arab League he hopes his return marks new era of peace

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Assad is attending summit in Saudi Arabia after 12 years outside bloc over Syrian civil war

Twelve years after his country was thrown out of the Arab League due to his bloody suppression of pro-democracy protests, Syria’s leader, Bashar al-Assad, has told a summit of the bloc that he hopes his return marks a new phase of peace and prosperity in the region.

A smiling Assad received a warm welcome in the Saudi Arabian city of Jeddah, voicing hope in his first summit speech since 2011 for a new era of Arab cooperation.

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Iran executes three men accused over anti-government protests

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Human rights groups condemn executions following demonstrations that swept country last year

Iran has executed three men it said were implicated in the deaths of three members of the security forces during anti-government protests, drawing condemnation from rights groups and the EU and risking further international isolation.

Saleh Mirhashemi, Majid Kazemi and Saeed Yaqoubi were killed on Friday morning, the Tasnim agency reported. Crowds had gathered outside the prison where they were being held on Thursday night as rumours of their imminent executions grew.

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‘No one saw this level of devastation coming’: climate crisis worsens in Somalia

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Torrential rain, coming on top of the country’s worst drought in four decades, has forced 250,000 people to leave their homes

Jamal Ali Abdi has seen flooding in Beledweyne before but never on the scale witnessed earlier this month when the Shabelle River burst its banks, causing devastation to the central Somali town and displacing almost the entire population.

As water gushed through the streets, Ali’s home was soon surrounded by murky brown flood water.

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Israeli nationalists march in celebration of capture of East Jerusalem

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Thousands waved blue and white flags while some in the parade chanted racist slogans such as ‘Death to Arabs’

Thousands of Israeli nationalists, some of them chanting racist slogans, have paraded through Jerusalem’s Old City in an annual celebratory day for Israelis that became one of humiliation for Palestinians living under occupation.

The marchers, mostly male Orthodox teens and young men, were celebrating Israel’s capture of East Jerusalem in 1967. The crowd waved blue and white Israeli flags and chanted slogans such as “Death to Arabs” and “We will burn your village”.

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Syria’s Assad to attend Arab League summit as west opposes rehabilitation

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Western leaders and Gulf states clash over return of Syrian president after years of war against his own people

The Syrian president is to attend his first Arab League summit in 13 years on Friday as the west and Gulf states clash over his rehabilitation after more than a decade of war against his own people.

Bashar al-Assad will take his seat in Jeddah in a move engineered by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates that has already led to objections in Washington and London, which say the Syrian leader has shown no contrition for the millions who have been killed and displaced by his forces since pro-democracy protests started in 2011 and no willingness to change his brutal behaviour. The UAE appears to have also deliberately challenged the west by formally inviting Assad to attend the UN Cop28 climate change conference in Dubai in November, which would be his first global summit since the beginning of war.

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‘On every corner someone disappears’: the frantic search for Sudan’s missing

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Since fighting erupted last month, dozens of people have vanished, but communities are organising to find and bring them home

Kamal Ali Osman sent a text message to his family saying he was being stopped by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the militia group whose checkpoints now throttle the roads of the Sudanese capital, Khartoum.

Minutes later, the text was deleted from his phone. He has not been heard from since.

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‘The city was underwater’: quarter of a million Somalis flee flooded homes

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Climate crisis a key factor in flash flooding of Beledweyne as rains end drought and Shabelle River breaks its banks

Floods have caused almost a quarter of a million people to flee their homes after the Shabelle River in central Somalia broke its banks and submerged the town of Beledweyne, even as the country faces its most severe drought in four decades, according to the government.

Aid agencies and scientists have warned that the climate crisis is among the most significant factors accelerating humanitarian emergencies, while those affected are some of the least responsible for CO2 emissions.

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European leaders urged to help Tunisians resist assault on democracy

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International academics join effort to highlight crackdown on freedom after jailing of opposition leader, Rached Ghannouchi

European powers must stand by pro-democracy Tunisians resisting a fierce onslaught designed to take the country back to the darkest days of dictatorship, a letter from more than 70 academics has urged.

The letter, designed to shine a light on the Tunisian crackdown, was in part collated by Soumaya Ghannoushi, whose father, the Tunisian opposition leader, Rached Ghannouchi, was sentenced to a year in jail on Monday.

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Twitter and Saudi officials face racketeering lawsuit over jailed satirist

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Areej al-Sadhan sues on behalf of her brother, Abdulrahman, who was sentenced to 20 years for account mocking Saudi government

A US activist has filed a racketeering lawsuit against Twitter and senior Saudi officials on behalf of her brother, a Saudi aid worker who was forcibly disappeared – and then later sentenced to 20 years in jail – for using a satirical and anonymous Twitter account to mock the Riyadh government.

The lawsuit by Areej al-Sadhan alleges that Twitter has become a “participant tool” in a campaign of transnational repression by Saudi authorities as part of the company’s effort to monetise its relationship with the kingdom. Saudi Arabia is Twitter’s second-largest investor, after Elon Musk.

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Airstrikes hit Khartoum as fighting between Sudanese factions intensifies

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Rapid Support Forces claim to have captured 700 soldiers at base during new battles in and around capital

Airstrikes and artillery fire shook much of Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, and its neighbouring cities on Tuesday as fighting between the country’s warring factions intensified sharply.

New battles between the army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) flared from dawn in north and south Khartoum, as well as in the adjacent cities of Omdurman and Bahri, as the army sought to defend its bases from its paramilitary rival.

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Tunisian journalist given five-year prison term in ‘attack on press freedom’

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Union says increased sentence against Khalifa Guesmi under anti-terrorism law represents ‘dangerous authoritarian drift’

A Tunisian appeals court has sentenced a radio journalist to five years in prison for disclosing information about the country’s security services.

Khalifa Guesmi, of the Mosaique FM radio station, had appealed against a one-year term handed down in November before the sentence was increased under an anti-terrorism law.

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Sudan: Reports of women being raped in Khartoum by armed men

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Refugees are among those receiving support since civil war broke out last month – and officials believes more sexual assault cases are going unreported

There have been multiple reports of civilians being raped by armed men in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum where fighting broke out last month, say government officials.

Four women and a girl, three of them refugees, are being supported by a specialist unit whose director said she thought most of the sexual violence in the city was going unreported.

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UN labour rights watchdog facing backlash over Qatar conference nomination

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Exclusive: Qatari minister expected to take presidency of ILO event despite bribery investigation

The UN’s labour rights watchdog, the International Labour Organization (ILO), is facing a backlash over the nomination of Qatar to chair its flagship annual conference despite a police investigation into alleged bribery of EU lawmakers by the Gulf state.

The Guardian has learned that Qatar’s minister of labour, Ali bin Saeed bin Samikh Al Marri, is expected to take the presidency of the ILO’s international labour conference in Geneva in June, an annual event intended to advance global standards on workers’ rights.

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Recreate UK’s Homes for Ukraine scheme for Sudan refugees, urges one of plan’s architects

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Exclusive: Krish Kandiah wants same help given to Ukrainians offered to Sudanese families fleeing civil war

One of the architects of Britain’s Homes for Ukraine scheme is calling on the government to replicate the programme for refugees from Sudan.

Dr Krish Kandiah, the director of the Sanctuary Foundation, which was instrumental in matching many British hosts with Ukrainian refugees, said he wanted the country to show the “same generosity of spirit” to those fleeing war in Sudan as it did to Ukrainians.

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Gaza ceasefire ends five days of fighting that left dozens dead

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Hostilities destroyed more than 50 homes and displaced about 950 people, says the UN

Relative calm has returned to the blockaded Gaza Strip after a ceasefire that has ended five days of cross-frontier fire between Israel and militant groups in the coastal enclave that killed 33 Palestinians and two people in Israel.

A truce mediated by Egyptian officials that went into effect at 10pm (8pm BST) on Saturday night appeared to hold, despite the firing of a rocket towards southern Israel on Sunday evening that Palestinian factions said had launched due to a “technical error”.

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Ceasefire between Israel and Islamic Jihad in Gaza area takes effect

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Dozens of rockets were fired at Israel from Gaza, prompting airstrikes in return, in the half-hour leading up to the truce

A ceasefire has taken effect in and around the Gaza Strip after five days of cross-border exchanges that have killed at least 33 Palestinians in Gaza and two people in Israel.

The truce was due to take effect at 10pm local time (20.00 BST) on Saturday, Egyptian and Palestinian sources said. But, in the final 30 minutes before, dozens of rockets were fired from Gaza towards Israel, prompting renewed airstrikes, AFP correspondents in the territory said.

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Israel and Gaza militants trade heavy fire as hopes of truce fade

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Outbreak of violence – now in its fourth day – has killed dozens, all but one of them Palestinian

Israel and Gaza militants have traded heavy fire as hopes faded of securing a truce to end days of fighting during which dozens have been killed, all but one of them Palestinian.

There have been international calls for de-escalation, with the EU pushing for an “immediate comprehensive ceasefire”.

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Iran expected to execute three protesters over killing of police officers

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Videos released of Majid Kazemi, Saeed Yaqoubi and Saleh Mirhashemi confessing, which families say were torture-induced

A recent spate of executions in Iran looks set to continue after authorities released videos of three protesters confessing to the killing of three security officers in the so-called Isfahan House case.

The men have already been found guilty of the murder and have no further grounds for appeal. More than 60 people have been executed in Iran since late April, some for drug offences and many from the region of Balochistan, where the protests have been most intense.

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Israel treats Palestinian territories like colonies, says UN rapporteur

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Francesca Albanese says Israel is maintaining occupation to get as much land as possible for Jewish people

Israel treats the Palestinian territories as its colonies, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied territories has said on her first visit to London since her appointment last year.

Francesca Albanese, an Italian lawyer and human rights academic, has faced calls to resign by Israeli government ministers, such as Amichai Chikli, who accused her of “spewing hatred and antisemitism”, and Zionist groups have described her as biased.

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Diabetics fleeing Sudan struggle to keep their insulin safe in 40C heat

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With makeshift coolbags and an endless quest for ice, refugees are desperately struggling to protect their precious medication – if they can access any at all

Bags of ice and wet towels have become the emergency lifelines for Sudanese diabetics struggling to keep their insulin cool while waiting in extreme heat as they try to escape the recent violence.

A vital medication for many diabetics, insulin must be kept cool to remain effective, But since fighting broke out between the Sudanese army and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces last month, hospitals and pharmacies have forced to close and there has been damage to cold-storage facilities.

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