Sudanese Armed Forces and RSF agree to 72-hour ceasefire starting at midnight, says Blinken – live

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Here’s a short round up of the response by African countries.

Kenya has said it will not be withdrawing its diplomats from Sudan as it wants them to help negotiate a “peaceful solution” to the conflict.

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Sudanese Armed Forces and Rapid Support Forces agree ceasefire, says Blinken

Secretary of state offers US support for plans to set up committee to negotiate peace deal after three-day pause in hostilities

The two opposing forces in Sudan’s civil war have agreed a three-day ceasefire, according to the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken.

“Following intense negotiation over the past 48 hours, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have agreed to implement a nationwide ceasefire starting at midnight on 24 April, to last for 72 hours,” Blinken said in a written statement on Monday issued two hours before the ceasefire was due to start.

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RAF plane lands in Sudan as UK assesses options for further evacuations

Armed forces minister says ‘job isn’t done’ in evacuating as many as 4,000 Britons and dual nationals trapped in war zone

The British military is assessing a highly fraught operation to rescue some of the thousands of British nationals stranded in Sudan after the Foreign Office was deluged by cross-party criticism for missing a window of opportunity on Sunday to evacuate more than just British diplomats and their families.

An RAF plane has landed at Port Sudan in the north-east of the country with some troops to look at the option of taking nationals who have attempted to drive – some in UN-protected convoys – from Khartoum and elsewhere. The landing ship RFA Cardigan Bay and the frigate HMS Lancaster are also being lined up as options to help people out of the war-torn country as the UK desperately considers its restricted options.

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Sudan: thousands flee Khartoum as civilian casualties escalate

Lack of supplies and rising prices add to perilous journey by road to Egyptian border and Port Sudan

Thousands more residents of Khartoum fled the Sudanese capital on Monday, risking long, dangerous journeys to escape continued street battles and murderous airstrikes that continue to cause significant civilian casualties.

Some headed north by road to the Egyptian border in packed buses, many with towering piles of luggage strapped to them. Others drove north-east to Port Sudan. Both journeys involved up to 24 hours of driving, with increasing reports of robbery of vehicles.

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2023 Goldman environmental prize winners include Texas Gulf coast defender

Diane Wilson took on Formosa Plastics and won a $50m settlement to help clean up decades worth of toxic plastic waste

Grassroots activists who took on British mining giants and a serial plastics polluter – and won – are among this year’s recipients of the world’s most prestigious environmental prize.

The environmental campaigns led by the six 2023 Goldman prize winners highlight the hurdles faced by some local activists, who are often on the frontlines confronting the toxic mix of corporate greed and systemic corruption that is fuelling the climate emergency, biodiversity collapse and increasingly forced displacement.

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Sudan unrest: evacuations intensify as US warns of humanitarian crisis

US agency sends in disaster response teams as western nations pull diplomats and citizens out of strife-torn country

The US has warned of shortages of vital medicines, food and water in Sudan and deployed disaster response experts to the region, as efforts intensified to evacuate foreign diplomats and citizens from Khartoum.

On Sunday, the UK successfully evacuated its diplomatic staff and their dependants from Khartoum in a complex operation, while Germany and France said they had each evacuated more than 100 people. Italy, Spain and Canada also evacuated their citizens among other nationalities. A Dutch military plane took evacuees to Jordan early on Monday, the Dutch foreign ministry said. The US evacuated diplomats, embassy workers and their families on Saturday night.

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Sixty killed in Burkina Faso village by raiders ‘wearing military uniforms’

More than 100 people invaded the village in northern Yatenga province, survivors say, amid increasing attacks blamed on suspected jihadists

About 60 civilians were killed in a village in northern Burkina Faso by men wearing military uniforms, a local prosecutor has said, announcing an investigation into the latest bloodshed.

Attacks blamed on suspected jihadists are on the rise in the west African country, which is battling an insurgency that spilled over from neighbouring Mali.

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Kenyan police recover 67 bodies of suspected starvation cult members

Search continues for dead and alive as Kenyan Red Cross says 112 people have been reported missing

The death toll from a Christian cult in Kenya that practised starvation has risen to 67, after more bodies were recovered from mass graves in a forest in the south-east of the country.

A major search is under way in the Shakahola forest near the coastal town of Malindi, where dozens of corpses were exhumed over the weekend. The bodies are thought to be those of followers of a cult who reportedly believed they would go to heaven if they starved themselves.

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UK armed forces evacuate British diplomats from Sudan after threats

Rishi Sunak says ‘complex and rapid’ operation carried out, amid fears for remaining UK nationals

The UK has evacuated its diplomatic staff and their dependants from Khartoum, the British prime minister and foreign secretary said on Sunday, but UK nationals still living in Sudan remained in the country.

Announcing the evacuation, Rishi Sunak said British armed forces had carried out “a complex and rapid” military operation. The evacuation involved members of UK special forces and the Parachute Regiment.

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Western and other nations escalate plans to evacuate diplomats from Sudan

Death toll passes 420, including 264 civilians, and more than 3,700 wounded as ceasefires fail to hold

Western and other nations have intensified increasingly desperate efforts to evacuate diplomats and their dependents from Khartoum, as battles raged in the centre of the Sudanese capital and in its twin city of Omdurman.

With a series of ceasefires failing to hold, the death toll has now passed 420, including 264 civilians, and more than 3,700 have been wounded, according to local and international NGOs. However, most analysts believe the true total of fatalities and injuries in more than nine days of fighting is much higher.

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Libyan warlord could plunge Sudan into a drawn-out ‘nightmare’ conflict

As Khalifa Haftar’s influence emerges, analysts warn the area could be a battleground for multiple players

The Libyan warlord Khalifa Haftar helped to prepare the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a militia now fighting for control of Sudan, for battle in the months before the devastating violence that broke out on 15 April, the Observer has been told by former officials, militia commanders and sources in Sudan and the UK.

The involvement of Haftar, who runs much of the eastern part of Libya, will raise fears of a long-drawn-out conflict in Sudan fuelled by outside interests. Analysts have described a “nightmare scenario” of multiple regional actors and powers fighting a proxy war in the country of more than 45 million people.

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Sudan: US evacuates embassy staff and families, France launches rescue for ‘Europeans and allies’

Joe Biden says US has retrieved personnel from Khartoum as fighting continues between rival armed groups

The US military has evacuated embassy staff and families from Khartoum, according to Joe Biden, as other countries are also scrambling to get their nationals out of Sudan amid continued fighting.

France’s foreign ministry said on Sunday that a “rapid evacuation operation” had begun, and that European citizens and those from “allied partner countries” would also be assisted, without giving further details.

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21 bodies exhumed in investigation of Kenyan cult

Paul Mackenzie Nthenge reportedly told followers to starve themselves to ‘meet Jesus’

Twenty-one bodies have been exhumed in eastern Kenya in an investigation into a cult whose followers are believed to have starved themselves to death, police sources have said.

On Saturday officials reported seven deaths in connection with the inquiry after the arrest of Paul Mackenzie Nthenge, who reportedly told followers to starve themselves in order to “meet Jesus”.

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Deadly triple suicide bombing hits central Mali

At least nine people reportedly killed and 60 injured in attack in town of Sévaré

At least nine civilians were killed and more than 60 injured in a triple suicide bomb attack in the central Mali town of Sévaré early on Saturday, an official has said.

“The blast destroyed about 20 houses in the neighbourhood. There are a total of nine dead and about 60 wounded, all civilians,” said Yacouba Maiga, a spokesperson for the regional governor.

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Avian flu outbreak in the Gambia threatens birds on East Atlantic Flyway

Hundreds of dead birds found in past three weeks as conservationists call for international funding to help stop the disease spreading on migration routes

An outbreak of avian influenza in seabirds in the Gambia could affect vast numbers of birds migrating along the East Atlantic Flyway, unless international funding is secured, warn conservationists.

Teams from the West African Bird Study Association (Wabsa), the Gambia’s Department of Parks and Wildlife Management, and UK-based NGO Conservation Without Borders have buried hundreds of dead birds over the past three weeks, including some ringed birds from Europe.

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US and UK troops moving close to Sudan for possible evacuation

MoD engaged in ‘prudent planning’ as several hundred British citizens are estimated to be in country

US and British troops are being moved close to Sudan amid growing speculation they could be involved in some sort of evacuation or rescue of western nationals trapped in the country by the outbreak of fighting a week ago.

Lloyd Austin, the US defence secretary, said on Friday afternoon that the US had deployed military forces “in theatre” – meaning in countries relatively close to Sudan – to give the White House choices as to how to proceed, with 19,000 US citizens estimated as being stuck in the country.

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Hit TV drama sparks calls for reform of Egypt’s oppressive guardianship law

Under Guardianship, broadcast during Ramadan, highlights the issues faced by women and children after the death of a father

Two Egyptian MPs have called for a review of the country’s guardianship law, prompted by the success of a TV drama broadcast during Ramadan.

On thursday, House representatives Amira El Adly and Mohamed Ismail submitted separate requests to the speaker of the house and to the justice minister to examine the impact of a law that critics say unfairly targets women and harms families.

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Sudan faces surge in fighting as ceasefire attempts fail before end of Eid

More shelling and gunfights in Khartoum amid fears opportunity to avoid full civil war may be lost

Sudan faces a weekend of intensified violence after last-minute efforts to impose a ceasefire before the end of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr and bring a close to almost a week of fighting in Khartoum failed.

Hundreds of thousands of civilians have now spent almost a week trapped in their homes in the capital, under constant bombardment with dwindling supplies of food and limited power.

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Sudan ceasefire fails as gunfire and shelling continues in Khartoum

Witnesses report shooting in north, west and centre of city, including during call for Eid prayers.

New efforts to halt fighting in Sudan failed on Friday, as residents of the capital, Khartoum, reported intense shelling and gunfights between soldiers and gunmen from the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

Witnesses said there was shooting in the north, west and centre of the city, including during the call for special early-morning Eid prayers.

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‘Nobody is left’: brutal fighting lays waste to wealthy central Khartoum

The most sought-after addresses in Sudan’s capital city are now so dangerous that residents cannot wait to flee

On one street is a small cafe where diplomats, successful businesspeople and visiting dignitaries enjoyed smoothies and burgers under umbrellas set against the blistering sun. On another is a showroom for custom-designed kitchens imported from Europe, a once well stocked pharmacy and a fast-food joint. Down dusty potholed roads, there are villas behind high walls and apartment blocks where chandeliers hang above shining marble stairways.

These central Khartoum neighbourhoods, once the most sought-after addresses in Sudan’s capital city, are now so dangerous that residents cannot wait to flee. For almost a week, they have been the stage for a brutal power struggle, shattered by shelling, grenades and automatic rifle fire that trapped tens of thousands in their homes.

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