Category Archives: Sudan

Human rights in decline globally as leaders fail to uphold laws, report warns

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Human Rights Watch’s annual report highlights politicians’ double standards and ‘transactional diplomacy’ amid escalating crises

Human rights across the world are in a parlous state as leaders shun their obligations to uphold international law, according to the annual report of Human Rights Watch (HRW).

In its 2024 world report, HRW warns grimly of escalating human rights crises around the globe, with wartime atrocities increasing, suppression of human rights defenders on the rise, and universal human rights principles and laws being attacked and undermined by governments.

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‘They attacked us. They displaced us’: grieving Sudanese confront Swedish oil giant over their days of slaughter

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A historic trial, which will call on 61 witnesses worldwide, is expected to set a precedent for global corporations in foreign jurisdictions

Before the arrival of Lundin Oil in the town of Leer, now part of South Sudan, life there was peaceful, says George Tai Kuony. His childhood was that of a “typical village boy”, driving cattle, helping his family and going to school. But in June 1998, when he was 15, armed forces entered the town and changed his life for ever.

He fled, became separated from his family and hid for seven days before he was able to return. “When we got there, Leer wasn’t the town I had left seven days ago,” says the 40-year-old lawyer and human rights defender. “Everything was burned down, everything was destroyed. I could see the bodies of dead people lying in the street.” As a result of the conflict, he lost his father, and later his mother and one sibling.

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RSF paramilitary seizes control of Wad Madani, Sudan’s second city

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Advance comes after three days of intense fighting that forced thousands to flee towards the south

Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have seized Wad Madani, the country’s second city, which had taken in hundreds of thousands of refugees from the capital, Khartoum, early in the eight-month war between the regular army and the paramilitary RSF.

Videos posted by the RSF on Monday showed fighters in pickup trucks driving along streets in the city, the capital of el-Gezira state.

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Thousands flee Wad Madani, Sudan’s second city, to escape fighting

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Region had been a place of refuge for those escaping conflict in Khartoum between the army and the Rapid Support Forces

Thousands of people are fleeing their homes in Wad Madani, Sudan’s second city, where the majority of the capital city Khartoum’s displaced people took refuge at the beginning of the conflict between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces last April.

The fighting reached Wad Madani, the capital city of el-Gezira state, home to Africa’s biggest agricultural scheme, in central Sudan on Friday. People have been seen on buses, while some are walking towards the south.

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Soldiers accused of widespread looting from homes near Sudanese capital

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People living in Ombada district in west of Omdurman say soldiers shot at those who tried to stop them

Residents of Omdurman have described widespread looting by soldiers from the Sudanese armed forces in the only part of the city they still control.

People living in Ombada district in the west of Omdurman, which lies across the Nile from the capital, Khartoum, said soldiers had taken everything from cars to spoons, and had shot at those who tried to stop them.

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Cheap over-the-counter nail drug found to work on crippling flesh-eating disease

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‘Momentous’ breakthrough as trial finds treatment for nail infections to be highly effective for neglected tropical disease

A cheap and easily taken drug used to treat fungal nail infections has been found to work against a devastating flesh and bone-eating disease found across Africa, Asia and the Americas.

Researchers say the breakthrough offers hope to thousands of patients who have suffered decades of neglect and can face amputations if the disease is left untreated.

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Hunger crisis threatens Chad as funding for food aid falters

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World Food Programme warns it will stop helping to feed 1.4 million people including refugees from Darfur as global demand for assistance increases

The UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) has warned that food aid for 1.4 million people in Chad faces a “looming halt” because there is no money, even as the country is experiencing an influx of refugees from the fighting in Sudan’s Darfur region.

Funding shortfalls and increasing humanitarian needs mean WFP will have to pause food for millions of displaced people and refugees in Nigeria, Central African Republic and Cameroon from December, the agency said.

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Irish woman inspired to return African and Aboriginal antiquities by Guardian article

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Isabella Walsh has contacted embassies and consulates to repatriate 10 objects that her father wanted to be returned

An Irish woman has been inspired by the Guardian to return her late father’s collection of 19th-century African and Aboriginal objects to their countries of origin.

Isabella Walsh, 39, from Limerick, has contacted embassies and consulates in Dublin and London to repatriate 10 objects, including spears, harpoon heads and a shield, after she read about other cases in the newspaper.

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UN warns violence against civilians in Sudan ‘verging on pure evil’

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UN humanitarian coordinator for Sudan says war between army and paramilitaries is ‘horrific’

Violence against civilians in Sudan is “verging on pure evil,” a senior UNofficial has warned, as fighting escalates seven months into the war between the army and paramilitaries.

“We keep saying that the situation is horrific and grim. But, frankly, we are running out of words to describe the horror of what is happening in Sudan,” said Clementine Nkweta-Salami, the UN humanitarian coordinator for Sudan.

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Sudanese paramilitary group says it has seized country’s second-largest city

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Claim by Rapid Support Forces to have taken the trade hub of Nyala could mark a turning point in the war

The paramilitaries fighting Sudan’s army say they have seized control of Nyala, the country’s second-largest city outside the Khartoum area, in a potential turning point in the six-month war.

The Rapid Support Forces said in a statement they had taken over the army’s main headquarters in the city, which is the capital of South Darfur state, and seized all of its equipment. The RSF published video, which Reuters could not verify, of their soldiers celebrating with gunfire, claiming to have overrun the base.

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Sudanese evacuees in the UK fear limbo as six-month visas begin to expire

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Some of the people evacuated by British after civil war broke out say they have received no information from Home Office about their future

People who were evacuated to the UK from war-torn Sudan fear they will be left in limbo when their six-month visas begin to expire this week. Evacuees, who have been living in hotels or with family members since April, say they have received no information from the Home Office about their future status.

“I’m worried that on 26 October I finish the six months and if nothing happens with my visa and there’s no extension I’ll become an illegal immigrant,” said Azza Ahmed, who was a university lecturer in the capital, Khartoum, and is now living in a hotel in London with her son.

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Thousands of refugees in danger as Sudan fighting spreads from Khartoum

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Fighting intensifies in South Kordofan state and also threatens Gezira state, to where hundreds of thousands of people have fled

Fighting between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has spread south of Khartoum towards Gezira state, endangering the lives of thousands of people who have fled there from the capital.

The conflict is also intensifying in South Kordofan state, where a large rebel force, the SPLMN, that mobilised in June, has been relentlessly attacking army barracks, and in Darfur, where Arab militias backed by or affiliated to the RSF have been accused of conducting a brutal campaign of ethnic violence.

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MSF suspends surgery at Khartoum hospital after Sudanese military blocks supplies

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Charity says that medication and materials at Bashair teaching hospital have run out and surgical team is being withdrawn

The medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières has suspended life-saving surgery at a hospital in Khartoum after the Sudanese military blocked medical supplies from entering the city.

MSF said it had been refused permission to transport supplies from warehouses in Wad Madani, in Al Jazirah state, to hospitals in the south of the capital since 8 September. The charity said on Thursday that medication and materials at Bashair teaching hospital have now run out and the team could no longer perform trauma surgery or caesarean sections.

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Sudan conflict ‘like planning for the apocalypse’, say aid workers

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At least 5.4 million people have been displaced by the fierce fighting that broke out in the country in April

Humanitarian officials say the widening conflict in Sudan has left them trying to “plan for the apocalypse” as aid supply lines are disrupted and more people are displaced both internally and across the country’s borders.

At least 5.4 million people have already been displaced by the fighting that broke out in April between between the Sudanese armed forces, led by Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the Rapid Support Forces loyal to his rival Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo – known as Hemedti.

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Sudan conflict: Khartoum landmarks in flames as battles rage across country

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Fire engulfs Greater Nile Petroleum Oil Company tower amid clashes around army headquarters in capital while fighting also reported in city of El-Obeid

Flames gripped the Sudanese capital on Sunday and paramilitary forces attacked the army headquarters for the second day in a row, witnesses reported, as fighting raged into its six month.

“Clashes are now happening around the army headquarters with various types of weapons,” said a Khartoum resident, who declined to be named.

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At least 40 civilians killed in airstrike on Khartoum market in Sudan

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Toll from army attack in the south of the capital is the largest in a single incident since war broke out

At least 40 civilians were killed and dozens injured in an airstrike by the army on a market in southern Khartoum, a local volunteer group has said, marking the largest single-incident death toll since the war in Sudan began in April.

Air and artillery strikes in residential areas have intensified as the war between the Sudanese army and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) nears the five-month mark with neither side declaring victory or showing any concrete signs of pursuing mediation.

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Humanitarian crisis as 5m displaced by civil war in Sudan

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IOM says half of country’s population now in need of aid and protection after months of violence

Five million people have been displaced by civil war in Sudan, which is facing a rapidly mounting humanitarian emergency after months of serious fighting between the military and a rival paramilitary force.

The displacement figure, provided by the International Organization for Migration, echoes a warning from the UN’s main refugee agency, UNHCR, that more than $1bn would be needed to support those fleeing the violence into neighbouring countries.

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Sudan war crime trial of former oil firm executives starts in Sweden

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Prosecutors say ex-chair and CEO were complicit in atrocities by Sudanese army and militias, which both deny

Two former executives of a Swedish oil company have gone on trial in Stockholm, accused of complicity in war crimes in Sudan between 1999 and 2003 – charges they both deny.

Ian Lundin, a Swede, and Alex Schneiter, a Swiss national, are accused of asking Sudan’s government to make its military responsible for security at the site of one of Lundin Oil’s exploration fields, which later led to aerial bombings, killing of civilians and burning of entire villages, according to the prosecution.

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Sudan: at least 25 civilians killed in weekend attacks on Khartoum

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Airstrikes and artillery and rocket fire reported as clashes between armed forces and paramilitaries shows no sign of abating

Twenty-five civilians were killed in attacks in Khartoum over the weekend, as the violence showed no signs of abating after nearly five months of war.

Five civilians died on Sunday when bombs that “fell on their homes” in the Sudanese capital, a medical source said, a day after an airstrike in the south of the city killed at least 20.

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Could reported death of Wagner chief push African leaders closer to Kremlin?

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Smooth transition of mercenary group’s network and holdings in Africa may not be straightforward for Moscow

The reported death of the founder and leader of the Wagner group in a plane crash in Russia could have huge consequences for a motley crew of regimes and warlords across Africa, but also for hundreds of millions of ordinary people, the west and all the powers battling for influence on the continent.

Some analysts now suggest that the demise of Yevgeny Prigozhin may strengthen the Kremlin’s hand in Africa among powerful actors who have relied on Wagner’s loose network of shadowy companies and paramilitaries to bolster their own power – and impress others who may be thinking of doing the same.

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