World
Red Cross head says ‘history repeating’ in Sudan after reported killings
The head of the Red Cross says history is repeating itself in Sudan’s Darfur region after reports of mass killings during the fall of the city of al-Fashir to the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary last week.
The RSF’s capture of al-Fashir – the Sudanese army’s last holdout in Darfur – marked a milestone in Sudan’s civil war, giving the paramilitary force de facto control of more than a quarter of the country’s territory, Reuters reported.
Hundreds of civilians and unarmed fighters may have been killed during the city’s fall, the U.N. human rights office said on Friday. Witnesses have described RSF fighters separating men from women and children, with gunshots ringing out afterwards. The RSF denies harming civilians.
CIVILIANS TRAPPED WITHOUT FOOD AND WATER
The situation in Sudan is “horrific,” International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) President Mirjana Spoljaric told Reuters in a weekend interview during a visit to Riyadh.
She said tens of thousands of people had fled al-Fashir after the RSF seized the city and it was likely that tens of thousands more were trapped there without access to food, water or medical assistance.
“It’s history repeating, and it becomes worse every time a place is taken over by the other party,” she said.
A crackdown on Darfur rebels in the 2000s led to years of ethnically driven violence that killed hundreds of thousands in what was widely labelled genocide. The RSF has its roots in the “Janjaweed” militias mobilised by the government at the time.
Spoljaric also said the ICRC was “extremely concerned” about reports of a suspected massacre at the Saudi Hospital, the last-known functioning medical facility in al-Fashir, although it could not yet substantiate what happened there.
ICRC staff in the nearby town of Tawila had heard reports that people fleeing were “sometimes collapsing and even dying out of exhaustion or because of their wounds,” Spoljaric said, calling the situation “absolutely beyond what we can consider acceptable.”
The United States has said the RSF had committed genocide in the Darfur city of Geneina during an earlier stage of the two-and-a-half-year civil war, which the group denies. Rights groups and U.S. officials have also accused the RSF and allied militias of ethnic cleansing in the region.
APPEAL FOR RESTRAINT AND PROTECTION OF CIVILIANS
Asked about her messaging to alleged foreign backers of parties to the conflict, Spoljaric said: “Especially those states that have an influence on parties to conflict are under responsibility to do the necessary to restrain them and to make sure that they protect civilian populations.”
The United Arab Emirates has been accused of sending the RSF substantial military support but has repeatedly denied doing so. The rival Port Sudan-based authorities have foreign backers including Egypt and deployed Iranian-made drones to try to turn the tide of the conflict last year.
More than 70,000 people have fled al-Fashir since October 26, according to the International Organisation for Migration, but little is known about the fate of almost 200,000 others thought to have remained there during the 18-month RSF assault and siege of the city.
Spoljaric said the world was living through a “decade of war,” with armed conflicts doubling in the past 15 years to approximately 130, and urged parties to conflicts from the Gaza Strip to Ukraine to uphold the rules of war.
She said the proliferation of conflicts was being accelerated by rapidly evolving military technology, particularly drones, which “create an environment where nowhere is safe anymore.”
In the lead-up to the RSF’s takeover of al-Fashir, residents told Reuters they had been taking refuge in underground bunkers to try to protect themselves from drones and shells after intensifying attacks on displacement shelters, clinics and mosques.
World
Israeli attacks kill 31 Palestinians in Gaza, including children
At least 31 Palestinians, including six children, were killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza City and Khan Younis since early Saturday, according to medical sources cited by Al Jazeera.
The strikes came a day before Israel is scheduled to reopen the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt on Sunday, marking the first reopening of the border crossing since May 2024.
Gaza’s Government Media Office said that more than 500 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces since a United States-brokered ceasefire came into effect on October 10.
According to local health authorities, Israel’s military campaign in Gaza has killed at least 71,769 Palestinians and wounded 171,483 others since it began in October 2023. In Israel, at least 1,139 people were killed during the Hamas-led attacks on October 7, 2023, with approximately 250 people taken captive.
World
Guterres warns of UN’s ‘imminent financial collapse’
In his letter, Guterres said “decisions not to honour assessed contributions that finance a significant share of the approved regular budget have now been formally announced.”
The U.N. chief has told member states the organisation is at risk of “imminent financial collapse,” citing unpaid fees and a budget rule that forces the global body to return unspent money, a letter seen by Reuters on Friday showed.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has repeatedly spoken about the organisation’s worsening liquidity crisis but this is his starkest warning yet, and it comes as its main contributor the U.S. is retreating from multilateralism on numerous fronts.
“The crisis is deepening, threatening programme delivery and risking financial collapse. And the situation will deteriorate further in the near future,” Guterres wrote in a letter to ambassadors dated January 28.
The U.S. has slashed voluntary funding to U.N. agencies and refused to make mandatory payments to its regular and peacekeeping budgets.
U.S. President Donald Trump has described the U.N. as having “great potential” but said it is not fulfilling that, and he has launched a Board of Peace which some fear could undermine the older international body.
Founded in 1945, the U.N. has 193 member states and works to maintain international peace and security, promote human rights, foster social and economic development, and coordinate humanitarian aid.
In his letter, Guterres said “decisions not to honour assessed contributions that finance a significant share of the approved regular budget have now been formally announced.”
He did not say which state or states he was referring to, and a U.N. spokesperson was not immediately available for comment.
Under U.N. rules, contributions depend on the size of the economy of each member state. The U.S. accounts for 22% of the core budget followed by China with 20%.
But by the end of 2025 there was a record $1.57 billion in outstanding dues, Guterres said, without naming the nations that owed them.
“Either all Member States honour their obligations to pay in full and on time – or Member States must fundamentally overhaul our financial rules to prevent an imminent financial collapse,” he said.
U.N. officials say the U.S. currently owes $2.19 billion to the regular U.N. budget, another $1.88 billion for active peace-keeping missions and $528 million for past peace-keeping missions.
The U.S. State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Guterres letter.
Guterres launched a reform task force last year, known as UN80, which seeks to cut costs and improve efficiency. To that end, states agreed to cut the 2026 budget by around 7% to $3.45 billion.
Still, Guterres warned in the letter that the organisation could run out of cash by July.
One of the problems is a rule now seen as antiquated whereby the global body has to credit back hundreds of millions of dollars in unspent dues to states each year.
“In other words, we are trapped in a Kafkaesque cycle expected to give back cash that does not exist,” said Guterres, referring to author Franz Kafka who wrote about oppressive bureaucratic processes.
World
Man sprays U.S. lawmaker Ilhan Omar with liquid, disrupting Minnesota event
Police arrested a man who sprayed Democratic U.S. Representative Ilhan Omar with a foul-smelling liquid in Minneapolis on Tuesday as she condemned the actions of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials in Minnesota.
Omar, the frequent target of political insults from President Donald Trump, was uninjured. A security guard immediately grabbed the man and took him to the ground, according to a Reuters witness and video of the town hall event, Reuters reported.
Police said they arrested the man for third-degree assault.
In her remarks, Omar was criticizing ICE and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, demanding that Noem resign after the recent shooting deaths of two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis during Trump’s immigration enforcement surge.
“ICE cannot be reformed, it cannot be rehabilitated, we must abolish ICE for good, and DHS Secretary Kristi Noem must resign or face impeachment,” Omar said, to applause.
Moments later, a man seated in a front row stepped toward her and sprayed her with the contents of what police described as a syringe, telling Omar, “You must resign.”
Omar defiantly took a few steps toward him, with her hand raised, before he was subdued.
She continued her remarks after a short break, resisting associates’ urging to seek medical attention, saying she just needed a napkin. Her office later issued a statement saying she was OK.
Forensic scientists were gathering evidence at the scene, Minneapolis police said in a statement.
A Reuters witness said the liquid smelled of ammonia and caused minor throat irritation.
“I learned at a young age, you don’t give in to threats,” Omar told the audience, after refusing to suspend the event. “You look them in the face and you stand strong.”
Trump has repeatedly targeted Omar in public remarks and social media posts, also taking aim at her Somali nationality.
“Ilhan Omar is garbage,” Trump said during a cabinet meeting in December. “She’s garbage. Her friends are garbage.”
Omar, 43, came to the United States as a 12-year-old girl and became a U.S. citizen in 2000.
On Tuesday, U.S. Capitol Police said its threat assessment cases rose in 2025 for the third year in a row, spiking nearly 58% from 2024.
In 2025, it investigated 14,938 instances of statements, behavior, and communications directed against members of Congress, their families, staff, and the Capitol complex, it added, up from 9,474 in 2024.
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