PORT SUDAN: At least 132 people have died in war-torn Sudan as a result of flooding and heavy rains this year, the health ministry said Monday.
The country has experienced an intense rainy season since last month, with intermittent torrential flooding mainly in the country’s north and east.
“The total number of affected states is 10, while the number of affected families rose to 31,666 families and individuals to 129,650,” it said in a statement.
“The total number of deaths reached 132.”
While flooding takes place annually in Sudan, the impact is expected to be worse this year after more than 16 months of fighting between rival generals which has pushed millions of displaced people into flood zones.
Some 12,420 homes have completely collapsed and 11,472 others partially collapsed due to the rains, according to the ministry, which said most of the damage is in Sudan’s Northern and River Nile states.
Intense rain on Saturday flooded the Arbaat area north of the Red Sea city of Port Sudan, causing the Arbaat Dam to collapse and wash away entire villages.
“The torrent swept away houses and animals... people went up to the mountains to protect themselves,” said Issa Adroub, a resident of the area.
The reservoir is an important source of water for Port Sudan, where officials relocated to after war broke out in Khartoum.
Local volunteers helping with relief efforts told AFP that “13 people have been found dead, including women and children, and the search is ongoing for 210 missing persons.”
They reported that the deluge of water completely washed away 20 villages and damaged 50 others. The rain is unusual for this time of year, with the region usually experiencing rainfall in November and March.
Sudanese authorities and the United Nations have reported a surge in cholera cases amid the downpours.
The World Health Organization earlier in August said Sudan had had at least 11,327 cholera cases, 316 of them deadly, since June 2023.
Sudan’s Health Minister Haitham Ibrahim said “climatic conditions and water contamination” were behind the epidemic.
War has raged in the country since April 2023 between the Sudanese army, under the country’s de facto ruler Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, which are commanded by Burhan’s former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.
Both sides have been accused of war crimes, including the targeting of civilians and looting or obstructing humanitarian aid.
At least 132 killed in Sudan flooding: health ministry
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At least 132 killed in Sudan flooding: health ministry
- Some 12,420 homes have completely collapsed and 11,472 others partially collapsed due to the rains
Unrecognized Bedouin villages in Israel build own bomb shelters
- Amid threat of Iranian missiles, Bedouin families resorted to building shelters out of available material
- The feeling of not having anywhere to go or hide is almost as terrifying as the missiles themselves
BEERSHEBA, Israel: When the sirens wail in the southern Israeli desert to herald an incoming missile, Ahmad Abu Ganima’s family scrambles outside. Down some dirt-hewn steps, one by one, they squeeze through the window of a minibus buried under 10 feet of dirt.
Abu Ganima, a mechanic, got the cast-off bus from his employer after it was stripped for parts. He buried it in his yard to create an ad-hoc bomb shelter for his family. Abu Ganima is part of Israel’s 300,000-strong Bedouin community, a previously nomadic tribe that lives scattered across the arid Negev Desert.
More than two thirds of the Bedouin have no access to shelters, says Huda Abu Obaid, executive director of Negev Coexistence Forum, which lobbies for Bedouin issues in southern Israel. As the threat of missiles became more dire during the 12-day war with Iran last month, many Bedouin families resorted to building DIY shelters out of available material: buried steel containers, buried trucks, repurposed construction debris.
“When there’s a missile, you can see it coming from Gaza, Iran or Yemen,” says Amira Abu Queider, 55, a lawyer for the Shariah, or Islamic court system, pointing to the wide-open sky over Al-Zarnug, a village of squat, haphazardly built cement structures. “We’re not guilty, but we’re the ones getting hurt.”
Al-Zarnug is not recognized by the Israeli government and does not receive services such as trash collection, electricity or water. Nearly all power comes from solar panels on rooftops, and the community cannot receive construction permits. Residents receive frequent demolition orders.
Around 90,000 Bedouins live in 35 unrecognized villages in southern Israel. Even those Bedouin who live in areas “recognized” by Israel have scant access to shelter. Rahat, the largest Bedouin city in southern Israel, has eight public shelters for 79,000 residents, while nearby Ofakim, a Jewish town, has 150 public shelters for 41,000 residents, Abu Obaid says.
Sometimes, more than 50 people try to squeeze into the 3 square meters of a mobile bomb shelter or buried truck. Others crowded into cement culverts beneath train tracks, meant to channel storm runoff, hanging sheets to try to provide privacy. Shelters are so far away that sometimes families were forced to leave behind the elderly and people with mobility issues, residents say.
Engineering standards for bomb shelters and protected rooms are exhaustive and specific, laying out thickness of walls and types of shockwave-proof windows that must be used. The Bedouins making their own shelters know that they don’t offer much or any protection from a direct hit, but many people say it makes them feel good to go somewhere. Inside the minibus, Abu Ganeima says, the sound of the sirens are deadened, which is comforting to his children.
“Our bomb shelters are not safe,” says Najah Abo Smhan, a medical translator and single mother from Al-Zarnug. Her 9-year-old daughter, terrified, insisted they run to a neighbor’s, where they had repurposed a massive, cast-off truck scale as the roof of a dug-out underground shelter, even though they knew it wouldn’t be enough to protect them from a direct hit. “We’re just doing a lot of praying.”
When sirens blared to warn of incoming missiles, “scene filled with fear and panic” unfolded, says Miada Abukweder, 36, a leader from the village of Al-Zarnug, which is not recognized by Israel. “Children screamed, and mothers feared more for their children than for themselves. They were thinking about their children while they were screaming, feeling stomach pain, scared, and crying out, ‘We are going to die, where will we go?’” says Abukweder, part of a large clan of families in the area.
The feeling of not having anywhere to go or hide, many say, is almost as terrifying as the missiles themselves.
Immediately after the Oct. 7 attack, Israeli security services placed around 300 mobile bomb shelters in Bedouin areas, Abu Obaid says. Civil service organizations also donated a handful of mobile shelters. But these mobile bomb shelters are not built to withstand Iran’s ballistic missiles, and are grossly inadequate to meet widespread need. Abu Obaid estimates thousands of mobile shelters are needed across the far-flung Bedouin communities
UN expert on Palestinians says US sanctions are a ‘violation’ of immunity
BOGOTA: The UN’s unflinching expert on Palestinian affairs Francesca Albanese said Tuesday that Washington’s sanctions following her criticism of the White House’s stance on Gaza are a “violation” of her immunity.
The United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories made the comments while visiting Bogota, nearly a week after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the sanctions, calling her work “biased and malicious.”
“It’s a very serious measure. It’s unprecedented. And I take it very seriously,” Albanese told an audience in the Colombian capital.
Albanese was in Bogota to attend an international summit initiated by leftist President Gustavo Petro to find solutions to the Gaza conflict.
The Italian legal scholar and human rights expert has faced harsh criticism for her long-standing accusations that Israel is committing “genocide” in Gaza.
“It’s clear violation of the UN Convention on Privileges and Immunities that protect UN officials, including independent experts, from words and actions taken in the exercise of their functions,” Albanese said.
Rubio on July 9 announced that Washington was sanctioning Albanese “for her illegitimate and shameful efforts to prompt (ICC) action against US and Israeli officials, companies, and executives.”
The sanctions are “a warning to anyone who dares to defend international law and human rights, justice and freedom,” Albanese said.
On Thursday, the UN urged the US to reverse the sanctions against Albanese, along with sanctions against judges of the International Criminal Court, with UN chief Antonio Guterres’s spokesman calling the move “a dangerous precedent.”
On Friday, the European Union also spoke out against the sanctions facing Albanese, adding that it “strongly supports the United Nations human rights system.”
Albanese, who assumed her mandate in 2022, released a damning report this month denouncing companies — many of them American — that she said “profited from the Israeli economy of illegal occupation, apartheid, and now genocide” in the occupied Palestinian territories.
The report provoked a furious Israeli response, while some of the companies also raised objections.
Washington last month slapped sanctions on four ICC judges, in part over the court’s arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, barring them from the United States.
UN special rapporteurs like Albanese are independent experts who are appointed by the UN human rights council but do not speak on behalf of the United Nations.
Presidents of UAE and Turkiye witness signing of agreements to strengthen ties
- They cover key areas including protection of classified information; founding of a joint consular committee; and investments in food, agriculture, pharmaceuticals, tourism and hospitality
- Ministers sign the documents during ceremony at Presidential Palace in Ankara, during state visit by Emirati leader Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan
LONDON: The president of the UAE, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, and his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, witnessed on Wednesday the signing of several agreements and memorandums of understanding between their countries.
The aim of the deals, finalized during Sheikh Mohammed’s state visit to Turkiye, is to expand cooperation, and they reflect the shared commitment of both nations to the advancement of ties across various sectors, officials said.
The agreements covered a number of key areas, including: mutual protection of classified information; the establishment of a joint consular committee; investments in food and agriculture, the pharmaceutical industry, and tourism and hospitality; and cooperation in the industrial sector and polar research.
They were signed during a formal ceremony at the Presidential Palace in Ankara by Emirati and Turkish ministers responsible for the industrial, trade, investment and technology sectors.
US hopeful of quick ‘deescalation’ after Syria ‘misunderstanding’
- Rubio blamed “historic longtime rivalries” for the clashes in the majority-Druze city of Sweida
- State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce said that the US was asking Syrian government forces to pull out of the flashpoint area
WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Wednesday that Washington hoped within hours to ease tensions in Syria, as he voiced concern over violence that has included Israeli strikes on its war-torn neighbor.
“In the next few hours, we hope to see some real progress to end what you’ve been seeing over the last couple of hours,” Rubio told reporters in the Oval Office as President Donald Trump nodded.
Rubio blamed “historic longtime rivalries” for the clashes in the majority-Druze city of Sweida, which Israel has cited for its latest military intervention.
“It led to an unfortunate situation and a misunderstanding, it looks like, between the Israeli side and the Syrian side,” Rubio said of the situation which has included Israel bombing the Syrian army’s headquarters in Damascus.
“We’ve been engaged with them all morning long and all night long — with both sides — and we think we’re on our way toward a real deescalation and then hopefully get back on track and helping Syria build the country and arriving at a situation in the Middle East that is far more stable,” said Rubio, who is also Trump’s national security adviser.
State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce said that the United States was asking Syrian government forces to pull out of the flashpoint area.
“We are calling on the Syrian government to, in fact, withdraw their military in order to enable all sides to de-escalate and find a path forward,” she told reporters, without specifying the exact area.
She declined comment on whether the United States wanted Israel to stop its strikes.
Rubio, asked by a reporter earlier in the day at the State Department what he thought of Israel’s bombing, said, “We’re very concerned about it. We want it to stop.”
“We are very worried about the violence in southern Syria. It is a direct threat to efforts to help build a peaceful and stable Syria,” Rubio said in a statement.
“We have been and remain in repeated and constant talks with the governments of Syria and Israel on this matter.”
Trump has been prioritizing diplomacy with Syria’s new leadership.
US military says Yemeni force seized Iranian arms shipment bound for Houthis
- NRF is an anti-Houthi force in Yemen led by Tarek Saleh, nephew of former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh
- The force is not formally part of the internationally recognized government
DUBAI: The US Central Command (CENTCOM) said in a post on X on Wednesday that a military group known as the Yemeni National Resistance Forces (NRF) seized a ‘massive’ Iranian weapons shipment bound for Houthi militants.
The NRF is an anti-Houthi force in Yemen led by Tarek Saleh, nephew of former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, and is not formally part of the internationally recognized government.
Yemeni forces “seized over 750 tons of munitions and hardware to include hundreds of advanced cruise, anti-ship, and anti-aircraft missiles, warheads and seekers, components as well as hundreds of drone engines, air defense equipment, radar systems, and communications equipment,” it added.
Since Israel’s war in Gaza against the Palestinian militant group Hamas began in October 2023, the Iran-aligned Houthis have been attacking vessels in the Red Sea in what they say are acts of solidarity with the Palestinians.
