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Sudan military rivals fight for power, scores of combatants and 56 civilians killed

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(Last Updated On: April 16, 2023)

Sudan’s military launched air strikes on a paramilitary force’s base near the capital in a bid to reassert control over the country on Sunday following clashes in which scores of combatants and at least 56 civilians were killed, Reuters reported.

At the end of a day of heavy fighting, the army struck a base belonging to the government’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in the city of Omdurman, which adjoins the capital Khartoum, eyewitnesses said late on Saturday.

The military and RSF, which analysts say is 100,000 strong, have been competing for power as political factions negotiate forming a transitional government after a 2021 military coup.

In the early hours of Sunday morning, eyewitness heard the sound of heavy artillery firing across Khartoum, Omdurman and nearby Bahri, and there was also gunfire heard in the Red Sea city of Port Sudan, where there had been no earlier reports of fighting, read the report.

The Sudanese Doctors’ Union reported at least 56 civilians had been killed and 595 people, including combatants, had been wounded since the fighting erupted on Saturday.

Scores of military personnel were also killed, it said without giving a specific number due to a lack of first hand information from many of the hospitals where those casualties were taken.

The group earlier said it recorded deaths at Khartoum’s airport and Omdurman, as well as west of Khartoum in the cities of Nyala, El Obeid and El Fasher.

The RSF claimed to have seized the presidential palace, army chief’s residence, state television station and airports in Khartoum, the northern city of Merowe, El Fasher and West Darfur state. The army rejected those assertions, Reuters reported.

The Sudanese air force told people to stay indoors while it conducted what it called an aerial survey of RSF activity, and a holiday was declared in Khartoum state for Sunday, closing schools, banks and government offices.

Gunfire and explosions could be heard across the capital, where TV footage showed smoke rising from several districts and social media videos captured military jets flying low over the city, at least one appearing to fire a missile.

A Reuters journalist saw cannon and armoured vehicles on the streets and heard heavy weapons fire near the headquarters of both the army and RSF.

Army chief General Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan told Al Jazeera TV the RSF should back down: “We think if they are wise they will turn back their troops that came into Khartoum. But if it continues we will have to deploy troops into Khartoum from other areas.”

The armed forces said it would not negotiate with the RSF unless the force dissolved. The army told soldiers seconded to the RSF to report to nearby army units, which could deplete RSF ranks if they obey.

The RSF leader, General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, better known as Hemedti, called Burhan a “criminal” and a “liar”.

“We know where you are hiding and we will get to you and hand you over to justice, or you die just like any other dog,” Hemedti said.

A prolonged confrontation could plunge Sudan into widespread conflict as it struggles with economic breakdown and tribal violence, derailing efforts to move towards elections, Reuters reported.

The clashes follow rising tensions over the RSF’s integration into the military. The disagreement has delayed the signing an internationally backed agreement with political parties on a transition to democracy.

A coalition of civilian groups that signed a draft of that agreement in December called on Saturday for an immediate halt to hostilities, to stop Sudan sliding towards “the precipice of total collapse”.

“This is a pivotal moment in the history of our country,” they said in a statement. “This is a war that no one will win, and that will destroy our country forever.”

The RSF accused the army of carrying out a plot by loyalists of former strongman President Omar Hassan al-Bashir – who was ousted in a coup in 2019 – and attempting a coup itself. The 2021 coup ousted the country’s civilian prime minister, read the report.

Eyewitnesses reported fighting in many areas outside the capital. Those included heavy exchanges of gunfire in Merowe, eyewitnesses told Reuters.

The RSF shared a video that it said showed Egyptian troops who “surrendered” to them in Merowe. Egypt said the troops were in Sudan for exercises with their Sudanese counterparts.

Hemedti told Sky News Arabia the Egyptians were safe and the RSF would cooperate with Cairo on their return.

The video showed men dressed in army fatigues crouched on the ground and speaking in an Egyptian Arabic dialect. Unconfirmed reports by open-source intelligence analysts said several Egyptian Air Force fighter planes and their pilots were captured by the RSF, along with Sudanese weapons and military vehicles.

Clashes also erupted between the RSF and army in the Darfur cities of El Fasher and Nyala, eyewitnesses said.

International powers – the United States, Russia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Nations, European Union and African Union – all appealed for an immediate end to the hostilities, Reuters reported.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Saturday he had consulted with the ‍foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates ‍and that they had agreed it was essential for the involved parties in Sudan to immediately end hostilities without any preconditions.

After a phone call, the Saudi, U.S. and UAE foreign ministers called for a return to the framework agreement on the transition to democracy, the Saudi state news agency reported.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres spoke with Burhan, Hemedti, and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Guterres’ spokesperson said.

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Russia says evidence links attackers to ‘Ukrainian nationalists’

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(Last Updated On: March 28, 2024)

Russian investigators said on Thursday they had uncovered evidence that the gunmen who killed more than 140 people in an attack on a concert hall near Moscow last week were linked to “Ukrainian nationalists”.

Russia has said from the outset that it is pursuing a Ukrainian link to the attack, even though Kyiv has denied it and the militant group Islamic State (Daesh) has claimed responsibility.

In a statement, the state Investigative Committee said for the first time that it had uncovered evidence of a Ukrainian link, Reuters reported.

“As a result of working with detained terrorists, studying the technical devices seized from them, and analyzing information about financial transactions, evidence was obtained of their connection with Ukrainian nationalists,” the statement said.

However, the White House has described Russia’s allegation that Ukraine was involved in the attack as “nonsense”.

National security spokesman John Kirby said it was clear that ISIS was “solely responsible.”

He added the US passed a written warning of an extremist attack to Russian security services, one of many provided in advance to Moscow.

Russia says however it is suspicious that Washington was able to name the alleged perpetrator of the attack so soon after it took place.

The head of Russia’s FSB security service said earlier this week, again without providing evidence, that he believed Ukraine, along with the U.S. and Britain, were involved.

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Spain air drops 26 tonnes of humanitarian aid to Gaza

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(Last Updated On: March 28, 2024)

Spanish military planes air dropped 26 tonnes of humanitarian aid to Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip on Wednesday and Madrid called on Israel to open land border crossings to prevent a famine, the Foreign Ministry said.

The operation, carried out in coordination with Jordan and co-financed by the European Union, dropped more than 11,000 food rations to alleviate the “catastrophic levels of food insecurity” faced by up to 1.1 million people in Gaza, the ministry said in a statement.

“Spain insists on the opening of the land crossings as an indispensable measure to avoid a famine situation,” it added.

Other Western countries, including the United States, France and Germany, have also resorted to air drops to deliver aid to ease the humanitarian crisis in Gaza after nearly six months of war between Israeli forces and Hamas militants, Reuters reported.

Aid agencies say deliveries into Gaza, much of which has been laid to waste by Israeli bombardments, have been held up by bureaucratic obstacles and insecurity since the start of the war on Oct. 7, 2023.

Last week, a U.N.-backed report said a famine was imminent and likely to occur by May in northern Gaza and could spread across the enclave by July.

The Spanish foreign ministry also reaffirmed its commitment to supporting UNRWA, the United Nations humanitarian agency for Palestinians, and to its continued existence.

In January, major donors to UNRWA, including the U.S. and Germany, suspended funding following allegations that around 12 of its tens of thousands of Palestinian employees were suspected of involvement in the attacks on Israel by Hamas which triggered the war.

Israel says it puts no limit on the amount of humanitarian aid entering Gaza and blames problems in it reaching civilians there on U.N. agencies, which it says are inefficient, read the report.

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UN expert says Israel has committed genocide in Gaza, calls for arms embargo

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(Last Updated On: March 27, 2024)

A United Nations expert told the global body’s Human Rights Council on Tuesday that she believed that Israel’s military campaign in Gaza since Oct. 7 amounted to genocide and called on countries to immediately impose sanctions and an arms embargo, Reuters reported.

Israel, which did not attend the session, rejected her findings.

“It is my solemn duty to report on the worst of what humanity is capable of and to present my findings,” Francesca Albanese, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on human rights in the Occupied Territories, told the U.N. rights body in Geneva, presenting a report called “The Anatomy of a Genocide”.

“I find that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the threshold indicating the commission of the crime of genocide against Palestinians as a group in Gaza has been met,” she said, citing more than 30,000 Palestinians killed among other acts.

“I implore member states to abide by their obligations, which start with imposing an arms embargo and sanctions on Israel and so ensure that the future does not continue to repeat itself,” she said, prompting a burst of applause.

The 1948 Genocide Convention, enacted in the wake of the mass murder of Jews in the Nazi Holocaust, defines genocide as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”.

Israel’s diplomatic mission in Geneva said the use of the word genocide was “outrageous” and said the war was against Islamist group Hamas and not Palestinian civilians. It was triggered when Hamas fighters stormed into southern Israel, killing 1,200 and taking 253 hostages, by Israeli tallies, read the report.

“Instead of seeking the truth, this Special Rapporteur tries to fit weak arguments to her distorted and obscene inversion of reality,” it said.

Gulf nations such as Qatar, as well as African countries including Algeria and Mauritania, voiced support for Albanese’s findings and alarm at the humanitarian situation, Reuters reported.

The seats for Israel’s ally the United States were left empty. Washington has previously accused the council of a chronic anti-Israel bias.

Albanese, an Italian lawyer, is one of dozens of independent human rights experts mandated by the United Nations to report and advise on specific themes and crises. Her views do not reflect those of the global body as a whole.

In the past, her comments on the Israel-Hamas conflict have drawn scrutiny, including from a U.S. ambassador in Geneva who said she has a history of using “antisemitic tropes”.

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