How armed groups are using fire to displace communities in Sudan’s troubled Darfur 

Special How armed groups are using fire to displace communities in Sudan’s troubled Darfur 
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Updated 23 May 2024
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How armed groups are using fire to displace communities in Sudan’s troubled Darfur 

How armed groups are using fire to displace communities in Sudan’s troubled Darfur 
  • Satellite images show fires have ravaged settlements surrounding the westen city of Al-Fashir in recent weeks 
  • UN officials have accused combatants of setting fires to sow fear and ethnically cleanse tribal communities 

LONDON: Fires in western Sudan, reportedly set by militiamen, have torn through hundreds of settlements in recent months, forcing thousands of civilians to flee their homes, while those who remain live in constant fear of attack.

A recent report by the Sudan Witness project of the UK-based Centre for Information Resilience found that a total of 201 villages and settlements in western Sudan had suffered fire damage since the start of the war.

April was the worst month on record, with 72 communities impacted by fires set deliberately or as a byproduct of the fighting that has raged between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces since April 2023.

The report, published on May 12, highlighted a surge in the number of fires to the north and west of the city of Al-Fashir in North Darfur State, which has seen escalating violence.

Analysts believe the fires are being set deliberately to displace the population of these areas.

“When we see reports of fighting or airstrikes coinciding with clusters of fires, it indicates that fire is being used indiscriminately as a weapon of war,” Anouk Theunissen, project director at Sudan Witness, stated in the report.

He warned that “the trend is worsening and continues to lead to the mass displacement of Sudanese people.”

Sudan Witness investigators pieced together open-source NASA satellite imagery and social media content to map the pattern of fires since the onset of the Sudanese conflict more than a year ago. They primarily focused on Kordofan and the troubled Darfur region.

Until the end of April 2024, at least 311 individual fires broke out in the two provinces. The assessment also revealed that 51 settlements of various sizes have suffered multiple fires since the war began.




Investigators have pieced together open-source satellite imagery, left, and social media content to map the pattern of fires in Kordofan and Darfur since the onset of the Sudanese conflict more than a year ago. (AFP file)

Expressing horror at the violence unfolding in Al-Fashir, UN human rights chief Volker Turk described the situation in the city as “hell on Earth” and renewed calls for the warring parties to end the hostilities.

Ravina Shamdasani, spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said at least 58 civilians had been reported killed and 213 others injured in Al-Fashir “since fighting dramatically escalated.”

INNUMBERS

• 201 Villages and settlements in western Sudan which have suffered fire damage since April last year.

• 311 Individual fires that had broken out until the end of April 2024 in Kordofan and Darfur.

During a press briefing in Geneva on May 17, she said “these figures are certainly an underestimate,” warning that the fighting between the two parties and their allied armed militias was taking “a deeply devastating toll on civilians.”

She said Turk had held phone conversations with both sides to urge them to cease hostilities, to ensure the protection of civilians, and to warn them that fighting in Al-Fashir “would have a catastrophic impact on civilians and deepen intercommunal conflict with disastrous humanitarian consequences.”

Al-Fashir, the capital of North Darfur, has been under siege by the RSF for several months, trapping an estimated 1.8 million residents and internally displaced people, according to UN figures.




This picture taken on June 16, 2023, shows bodies strewn outdoors near houses in the West Darfur state capital El Geneina. (AFP/File photo)

Anticipating the worst, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the US ambassador to the UN, warned in late April of a potentially imminent massacre in Al-Fashir. 

“As I’ve said before, history is repeating itself in Darfur in the worst possible way. And an attack on Al-Fashir would be a disaster on top of a disaster,” she said during the UN Security Council Stakeout on the Situation in Sudan.

“It would put 500,000 internally displaced persons at risk, people who traveled from across Darfur to seek refuge. And that’s on top of the 2 million Sudanese who call Al-Fashir home.”

Cut off from the outside world, the people in Al-Fashir are now at imminent risk of famine. Yet the UN says it has received just 12 percent of the $2.7 billion it had requested from donors to head off mass starvation.




Internally displaced women wait in a queue to collect aid from a group at a camp in Gedaref on May 12, 2024. (AFP)

Since the outbreak of conflict in Sudan last year, at least 15,500 people have been killed, more than 33,000 injured, and some 6.8 million displaced inside the country, according to UN figures.

“Half of the population, 25 million people, need humanitarian aid,” Jens Laerke, a spokesperson for the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, told AFP news agency.

“Famine is closing in. Diseases are closing in. The fighting is closing in on civilians, especially in Darfur.”

Health infrastructure in Al-Fashir has also not been spared. On May 19, the RSF launched a barrage of artillery at the city’s Women’s, Maternity and Neonatal Hospital, injuring nine people and causing significant damage to the facility, according to the Sudan Tribune.

A recent report by the New York-based monitor Human Rights Watch accused the RSF and its allied militias of committing “crimes against humanity” and “genocide” in West Darfur.




The RSF has said its fighters are not involved in what it describes as ‘a tribal conflict’ in Darfur. (AFP file)

The report, published May 16, emphasized that the hostilities in El-Geneina alone from April to November last year left thousands dead and forcibly displaced hundreds of thousands more.

The RSF has said it is not involved in what it describes as a “tribal conflict” in Darfur. 

Even the use of fire as a weapon of war is nothing new in Sudan. The Sudan Witness project published a map in October last year plotting multiple fire incidents in the country since the start of the conflict.

The map revealed that the highest concentration of fire incidents was in the southwest of the country, with 68 villages in the Masalit-majority Darfur region having been set ablaze by the RSF and its allied militias, according to media reports.

Masalit tribes were among the rebel groups that fought the Sudanese government and the Janjaweed militia — the forerunner of the RSF — during the war in Darfur that started in 2003, leading to reprisals and ethnic cleansing.

Andrew Mitchell, the UK’s minister for development and Africa, warned in December that the latest reported targeting and mass displacement of the Masalit community in Darfur “bears all the hallmarks of ethnic cleansing.”

Alice Nderitu, the UN special adviser on the prevention of genocide, warned on Tuesday that Sudan is exhibiting all the signs that genocide could — and may already — be taking place.




Alice Nderitu, UN special adviser on the prevention of genocide. (Supplied)

“The protection of civilians in Sudan cannot wait,” Nderitu told a meeting of the UN Security Council. “The risk of genocide exists in Sudan. It is real and it is growing, every single day.

“In Darfur and Al-Fashir, civilians are being attacked and killed because of the color of their skin, because of their ethnicity, because of who they are. They are also targeted with hate speech and with direct incitement to violence.”

Nderitu said the burning and destruction of villages and settlements around Al-Fashir is intended to cause displacement and fear, rather than accomplish any specific military objectives.

“It is imperative that all possible actions aimed at the protection of innocent civilian populations, in Al-Fashir as in the entire territory of Sudan, are expedited,” she said. “It is urgent to stop ethnically motivated violence.”
 

 


Israel urging UN agencies, aid groups to replace UNRWA in Gaza, envoy says

Israel urging UN agencies, aid groups to replace UNRWA in Gaza, envoy says
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Israel urging UN agencies, aid groups to replace UNRWA in Gaza, envoy says

Israel urging UN agencies, aid groups to replace UNRWA in Gaza, envoy says
GENEVA: Israel is actively encouraging UN agencies and other aid groups to take over the work of the UN Palestinian relief agency (UNRWA) in Gaza, Israel’s ambassador said on Monday, after banning the agency on Israeli territory in January.
“We, the State of Israel, are working to find substitute to the act, to the work of UNRWA inside Gaza,” Daniel Meron, Israel’s ambassador to the UN in Geneva, told reporters.
He declined to give specifics but said Israel was “encouraging the UN agencies and NGOs to take over each one in its own field that they specialize in.”

Adopted orphan brings couple ‘paradise’ in war-ravaged Gaza

Rami Arrouki and his wife Iman Farahat interact with their newly-adopted five-month-old orphaned baby Jannah.
Rami Arrouki and his wife Iman Farahat interact with their newly-adopted five-month-old orphaned baby Jannah.
Updated 39 min 34 sec ago
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Adopted orphan brings couple ‘paradise’ in war-ravaged Gaza

Rami Arrouki and his wife Iman Farahat interact with their newly-adopted five-month-old orphaned baby Jannah.
  • Farhat, 45, and her husband Rami Al-Arouqi, 47, adopted the well-behaved and chubby baby in January
  • “At first, we had mixed feelings of both joy and fear, because it is a huge responsibility and we had never had a child,” said Arouqi

GAZA CITY: In their home in war-devastated Gaza City, Iman Farhat and her husband cherish the “paradise” brought by their newly-adopted baby, one of many orphans in the Palestinian territory after more than 15 months of fighting between Israel and Hamas.
Wrapping five-month-old Jannah in a brightly colored blanket, Farhat gently sang as she rocked her to sleep.
“I chose Jannah just as she was,” the new mother said smiling, explaining the couple simply wanted to adopt a young child without preference for gender or physical appearance.
“Her name was Massa, and I officially changed her name from Massa to Jannah,” which means “paradise” in Arabic, she added.
Farhat, 45, and her husband Rami Al-Arouqi, 47, adopted the well-behaved and chubby baby in January.
“At first, we had mixed feelings of both joy and fear, because it is a huge responsibility and we had never had a child,” said Arouqi, a Palestinian Authority employee.
The couple already owned a cat.
“The idea of adopting a child had crossed our minds, but it was cemented during the war” which “wiped out entire families and left only orphans,” he added.
In September, the United Nations children’s fund, UNICEF, estimated there were 19,000 children who were unaccompanied or separated from their parents in Gaza, Jonathan Crickx, UNICEF’s spokesman for the Palestinian territories, told AFP.
Data for the number of adoptions in Gaza was not immediately available.
The war sparked by Palestinian militant group Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel left more than 69 percent of Gaza’s buildings damaged or destroyed, displaced almost the entire population and triggered widespread hunger, according to the United Nations.
Hamas’s attack resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people on the Israeli side, most of them civilians, according to official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory military offensive has killed at least 48,446 people in Gaza, the majority of them civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry. The UN considers these figures reliable.
Farhat and her husband said that before Jannah’s adoption, she was taken care of by the SOS Children’s Villages — an international NGO which looks after children in need.
After the NGO’s premises in the southern Gaza city of Rafah were destroyed in the war, the organization had to move to nearby Khan Yunis where “they could not house all the children in buildings, so they set up tents for them,” Farhat said.
Her husband Arouqi told AFP that another motive for adopting a child came from the idea that “Palestinians should stand by each other’s side.”
“The whole world has abandoned and let us down, so we shouldn’t let each other down,” he added.
Once the pair took Jannah home, “our life was turned upside down in a beautiful and pleasant way,” he said.
“Her name is Jannah and our world has truly become a paradise.”
A fragile truce took effect on January 19, largely halting the devastating fighting between Israel and Hamas Palestinian militants.
The ceasefire’s first phase ended last weekend.
While Israel has said it wants to extend the first phase until mid-April, Hamas has insisted on a transition to the deal’s second phase, which should lead to a permanent end to the war.


UK warns Israel cutting Gaza electricity could breach international law

A man walks outside Southern Gaza Desalination plant, which stopped working earlier after Israel cut off electricity supply.
A man walks outside Southern Gaza Desalination plant, which stopped working earlier after Israel cut off electricity supply.
Updated 47 min 37 sec ago
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UK warns Israel cutting Gaza electricity could breach international law

A man walks outside Southern Gaza Desalination plant, which stopped working earlier after Israel cut off electricity supply.
  • Netanyahu government cuts power supplies a week after suspending food, medical aid into the enclave
  • Pressure mounts as Israel, Hamas attempt to renegotiate ceasefire agreement

LONDON: The UK has warned Israel it could have broken international law after Benjamin Netanyahu’s government halted electricity supplies into Gaza.
The move came ahead of the second phase of the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, and a week after Israel also blocked food, fuel and medical aid from entering the enclave.
The two sides have been attempting to renegotiate the terms of the ceasefire, with Hamas wanting to move on to the second phase, but Israel insisting on the release of more hostages taken by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023 before any further negotiations take place.
Hamas is believed to still have 24 living hostages, as well as the bodies of another 35 people.
In a post on social media platform X, Israeli Energy Minister Eli Cohen said: “I have now signed an order to cut off electricity to the Gaza Strip immediately. Enough with the talk, it’s time for action!”
A UK Foreign Office spokesman said: “Humanitarian aid should never be contingent on a ceasefire or used as a political tool.
“A halt on goods and supplies entering Gaza, including basic needs such as electricity, risks breaching Israel’s obligations under international humanitarian law.”
The suspension of aid into Gaza will have a detrimental effect on the lives of the 2 million people in the enclave, with fears mounting that cutting electricity will hinder the ability of locals to operate Gaza’s desalination plants, disrupting the supply of safe drinking water.
More than 48,000 people have died in Gaza since Israel began military operations against Hamas following the Oct. 7 attack.
The initial phase of the ceasefire deal, agreed on Jan. 17, has so far seen the release of 25 hostages from Gaza, with Israel releasing about 2,000 Palestinian prisoners in exchange.


EU official cites reports accusing Assad regime of mass killings in Syria

EU official cites reports accusing Assad regime of mass killings in Syria
Updated 15 min 32 sec ago
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EU official cites reports accusing Assad regime of mass killings in Syria

EU official cites reports accusing Assad regime of mass killings in Syria
  • Anita Heber, foreign affairs and security policy spokesperson, says the EU has reports confirming the accusation

DUBAI: A top EU official on Monday claimed that remnants of the regime of ousted leader Bashar Assad were responsible for the recent mass killings in two of the Syrian Arab Republic’s coastal cities.

Speaking to Al Arabiya Television, Anita Heber, the EU’s foreign affairs and security policy spokesperson, said the body has reports confirming this charge.

Heber said the transitional authorities in Syria have moved to contain the situation, and she called for those responsible to be held accountable.

She also stressed that Europe was working toward a comprehensive political transition in Syria.

Syria’s interim president, Ahmad Al-Sharaa, has vowed he would find those who killed the Alawite civilians this past week.

In its latest report, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said 973 Alawite civilians were killed execution-style by either security personnel or pro-government fighters in the coastal provinces of Latakia and Tartus since March 6.

The UN’s rights chief Volker Turk said the killings “must cease immediately,” while the Arab League, US, Britain and several governments have condemned the violence.


Palestinian Authority says Israel’s Gaza electricity cut ‘escalation in genocide’

Palestinian Authority says Israel’s Gaza electricity cut ‘escalation in genocide’
Updated 33 min 55 sec ago
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Palestinian Authority says Israel’s Gaza electricity cut ‘escalation in genocide’

Palestinian Authority says Israel’s Gaza electricity cut ‘escalation in genocide’
  • UK govt urges Israel to lift Gaza electricity 'restrictions'

RAMALLAH: The Palestinian Authority on Monday said Israel’s decision to halt the electricity supply to Gaza was “an escalation in the genocide” in the war-ravaged territory.
The Palestinian foreign ministry said in a statement that it “strongly condemns the Israeli Ministry of Energy's decision to cut electricity to the Gaza Strip, considering it an escalation in the genocide, displacement and humanitarian disaster in Gaza”, which is controlled by Hamas and not the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority.

Th British government also urged Israel to lift the Gaza electricity “restrictions”