Latest atrocities in Sudan war include the shelling of house of traditional healer, who died with her children and neighbours
People trapped in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, and its twin city of Omdurman say civilians are being deliberately targeted in shelling by the warring parties.
A woman who had been helping wounded soldiers was killed along with her three children and six neighbours when her home was shelled by Sudanese army forces earlier this week.
Continue reading...Africa minister says civilian death toll horrific and UK is to send evidence to UN
War crimes and atrocities against civilians are being committed in Darfur, western Sudan, the UK’s Africa minister Andrew Mitchell said on Tuesday, becoming one of the first western officials to identify that the fighting in Sudan has developed into more than a power struggle between two rival factions.
Mitchell said there was growing evidence of serious atrocities being committed, describing the civilian death toll as horrific in a statement released by the Foreign Office. “Reports of deliberate targeting and mass displacement of the Masalit community in Darfur are particularly shocking and abhorrent. Intentional directing of attacks at the civilian population is a war crime.”
Continue reading...Families said to have run away with nothing as three forces fight in South Kordofan state
Thousands of people have fled their homes in the capital of South Kordofan state in Sudan after an attack by the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North rebel group, one of three forces now fighting in the area.
The SPLMN has been trying to capture the city from the regular army, known as the Sudanese Armed Forces, since June, when it entered the conflict that broke out in April between the SAF, led by Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), led by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.
Continue reading...Up to 17,000 more children a day lack food, Save the Children say, as global indifference to humanitarian crisis condemned as ‘racist’
The past four months of fighting in Sudan has pushed millions into food insecurity – with an additional 1.5 million children expected to fall into crisis levels of hunger by September – as aid agencies say they are struggling to reach people.
Up to 17,000 children a day have been falling into crisis levels of hunger, Save the Children warned on Tuesday. With 4 million people displaced so far, the charity said more people were facing hunger in Sudan than at any point since records there began in 2012.
Continue reading...Joint statement from UN agencies lays bare the effect of violence on the country’s food and healthcare systems
More than 1 million people have fled Sudan to neighbouring states, as people inside the country are running out of food and dying due to a lack of healthcare after four months of war, the United Nations has said.
Fighting between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has devastated the capital Khartoum and sparked ethnically driven attacks in Darfur, threatening to plunge Sudan into a protracted civil war and destabilise the region.
Continue reading...Dozens also injured as army shells three neighbourhoods in city close to capital, Khartoum
At least 18 people have been killed in the Sudanese city of Omdurman as the war between the national army chief and his former deputy continues.
Dozens of people were also injured when the army shelled three neighbourhoods in the city, which lies next to the capital, Khartoum, residents said.
Continue reading...Peace between Hemedti’s RSF and Sudan’s army will not end war crimes. As UN security council president, Britain must act
As conflict in Sudan escalates, it is becoming clear that the Rapid Support Forces has returned to Darfur to complete the genocide it began 20 years ago. The RSF is the Janjaweed rebranded, the “devils on horseback” used by the Sudanese government from 2003 to implement widespread and systematic crimes against non-Arab communities across Darfur. The RSF was, and still is, commanded by Gen Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo.
In recent weeks, what we knew was coming has been confirmed. Yale University’s Conflict Observatory, which uses a combination of satellite imagery, Nasa thermal-detection data and open-source analysis, found evidence of the “targeted destruction of at least 26 communities” by the RSF between 15 April and 10 July. Mass graves have been discovered, and satellite imagery shows entire urban neighbourhoods and villages have been burned down.
Continue reading...A rise in violence towards staff has led Médecins Sans Frontières to rethink its presence in the Sudanese capital as intense fighting continues
Increased violence against health workers in Khartoum is endangering the few hospitals still open in the Sudanese capital, the medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said after its employees were beaten and whipped by armed men on Thursday.
The MSF team was attacked 700 metres from the Turkish hospital, one of only two operating in southern Khartoum after others were forced to close during almost 100 days of fighting between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
Continue reading...In today’s newsletter: In April, fighting broke out between two rival factions – with no end in sight, the UN is investigating
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Last week the United Nations discovered a mass grave in Sudan’s West Darfur in which 87 people were buried, prompting the UN high commissioner for Human Rights to demand a “thorough and independent investigation” into activity in the region.
Ukraine | Explosions have reportedly hit the Kerch bridge connecting the Crimean peninsula to Russia, a heavily guarded road and rail link that is among the Kremlin’s most important infrastructure projects. The head of the Russian-controlled administration in Crimea, said traffic had been stopped because of “an emergency situation”. Two people have been killed and a child was injured.
Environment | Southern Europe is bracing for a second “heat storm” in a week. Record temperatures across the Mediterranean could be broken on Tuesday, and people in Italy have been told to prepare for most intense heatwave ‘of all time’. Meanwhile in the US more than 100 million people were under extreme heat advisories this weekend.
Iran | Iran’s “morality police” have returned to the streets 10 months after the death of a woman in their custody sparked nationwide protests. It comes as authorities announce a new campaign to force women to wear the Islamic headscarf.
Hospitals | The government is on track to break a key election promise from Boris Johnson to build 40 new hospitals in England by the end of the decade, a damning report by the public spending watchdog has found.
Music | France’s favourite “petite Anglaise”, the British-born singer and actor Jane Birkin, has died at her home in Paris aged 76. The French president, Emmanuel Macron, paid tribute to Birkin, saying she “embodied freedom and sang the most beautiful words in our language”.
Continue reading...Witnesses say some victims’ bodies still lay uncovered two days after incident in Omdurman
At least 30 people died when the Sudanese army shelled a market in Omdurman during what residents of the country’s most populous city described as the worst week for civilian casualties since the outbreak of war in April.
Most of the victims in the incident at the Shaabi souk on Tuesday were children and women, according to witnesses. Medical sources said the shells were fired from the Karri military base, which the army controls, during fierce fighting with the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.
Continue reading...Alleged victims of Sudanese paramilitary and allied militia found in shallow grave in West Darfur
At least 87 people including ethnic Masalits have been found buried in a mass grave in Sudan’s West Darfur, the UN human rights office has said, adding that it had credible information that the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) were responsible.
RSF officials denied any involvement, saying the paramilitary group was not a party to the conflict in West Darfur.
Continue reading...Move designed to send message to forces involved as fears grow conflict could become more widespread in the region
The UK has put sanctions on six companies it says are associated with the two sides fighting for power in Sudan, though the prospect of any of the Gulf states most entwined in the Sudanese economy joining the UK remain remote.
The Foreign Office slapped sanctions on three firms linked to leaders of the Sudanese armed forces and three connected to the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
Continue reading...When Wagner forces turned their guns against Russian forces it led to panic in Moscow. But after the coup was aborted and its leader accused of treachery, it was business as usual for the group’s lucrative Africa operations. Pjotr Sauer and Jason Burke report
Yevgeny Prigozhin’s march on Moscow caused panic and led Vladimir Putin to go on the airways to condemn the head of Wagner. He decried the ‘treachery’ and vowed to ‘liquidate’ what remained of Wagner – and many assumed Prigozhin himself.
In the days that followed, something more subtle happened. As our correspondent Pjotr Sauer tells Nosheen Iqbal, while Russian state TV has called Prigozhin corrupt and traitorous, it emerged that he had been invited for a face-to-face meeting with the Russian president.
Continue reading...António Guterres decries conflict’s ‘utter disregard’ for human rights law as clashes reported in multiple states
Sudan is on the brink of a “full-scale civil war” that could destabilise the entire region, the United Nations has warned, after an airstrike on a residential area killed about two dozen civilians.
The health ministry reported “22 dead and a large number of wounded among the civilians” from the strike on Khartoum’s sister city Omdurman, in the district of Dar al-Salam.
Continue reading...Despite Yevgeny Prigozhin’s rebellion against the Kremlin, his military contracts are proving too profitable to lose
Four days after Wagner group mercenaries marched on Moscow, a Russian envoy flew into Benghazi to meet a worried warlord. The message from the Kremlin to Khalifa Haftar, the self-styled general who runs much of eastern Libya, was reassuring: the more than 2,000 Wagner fighters, technicians, political operatives and administrators in the country would be staying.
“There will be no problem here. There may be some changes at the top but the mechanism will stay the same: the people on the ground, the money men in Dubai, the contacts, and the resources committed to Libya,” the envoy told Haftar in his fortified palatial residence. “Don’t worry, we aren’t going anywhere.”
Continue reading...Operation allegedly involved moving people from Syria to Spain on a circuitous route via Sudan and north Africa
Spanish police have broken up what they say is an organised criminal gang involved in a highly unusual people-smuggling operation involving the moving of migrants from Syria to Spain on an 8,000km trip via Sudan.
A year-long investigation, which was coordinated by Europol and involved dozens of police officers from France, Norway and Germany, uncovered a network of alleged people-smuggling cells across north Africa and northern Europe as well as the main nerve centre of the gang in southern Spain.
Continue reading...British MPs have been warned of ‘systematic ethnic cleansing’ at the hands of paramilitary forces
British MPs have been warned of the possibility of genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan and urged to put pressure on the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group, which has been accused of murder and arson attacks on minority groups in the area.
While the RSF has been fighting the Sudanese army for control of the country in the capital, Khartoum, it has been accused of waging a separate war in Darfur where the Janjaweed militias, from which the RSF was formed, were accused of genocide almost 20 years ago.
Continue reading...Merseyside charity worker whose children are stuck in Khartoum says Foreign Office delays have trapped many in conflict zone
A British charity worker has called on the government to help evacuate his children from Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, stressing that hundreds of people with the right to reside in the UK remain stuck in the conflict zone.
Alhussein Ahmed, 32, who works for the Merseyside Refugee Support Network in Liverpool, is concerned that the Foreign Office should be doing more to assist hundreds of people who have UK residency rights who remain stuck in Sudan.
Continue reading...The Rapid Support Forces says it has seized a key police base and captured a large amount of military equipment
Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) says it has seized the main base of a heavily armed police unit and captured a large amount of military equipment, during heavy fighting against the army in the capital Khartoum.
In a statement on Sunday, the RSF said it had taken full control of the large base belonging to the Central Reserve Police southern Khartoum and posted footage of its fighters celebrating inside the facility, some removing boxes of ammunition from a warehouse.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Charities and civil groups say FO pursued an over-optimistic agenda of ‘democracy first’ in Sudan
The UK Foreign Office has been accused of ignoring repeated warnings from Sudanese groups and western experts that Sudan was teetering on the brink of a conflict that would lead to mass atrocities and identity-based crimes.
Sudan has been gripped by violence since two rival generals went to war against each other in April. The Commons foreign affairs select committee is conducting an inquiry into Whitehall’s anticipation of the crisis and the level of support provided to British citizens trapped in Sudan.
Continue reading...