Kenya Faces Backlash Over Role in Controversial Afrikaner Resettlement Plan
According to official sources, the U.S. State Department—working through the NGO Church World Service (CWS)—requested that Kenya send over 30 staff members to South Africa to help process resettlement applications. These staffers reportedly applied for 'volunteer visas' to enter the country, but South Africa's Home Affairs Ministry has signaled it may reject the requests, arguing that the work is paid and falls outside the scope of such visas.
At the heart of the controversy is the unusual way the resettlement program operates. Instead of processing asylum cases in a third country, as is standard practice, the U.S. has chosen to evaluate claims directly within South Africa. The program initially targeted Afrikaners who claimed they were victims of racial persecution, but was later expanded to include 'ethnic minorities facing discrimination.' International bodies such as the International Organization for Migration have refused to recognize these applicants as legitimate refugees.
Former UNHCR official Hans Lunschoff noted that processing asylum claims inside the country of origin is 'highly irregular and generally reserved for exceptional political cases, not mass relocations.'
The initiative has fueled friction between South Africa and the U.S. President Cyril Ramaphosa has repeatedly rejected claims that minorities face systemic persecution, pointing out that violent crime in South Africa affects all racial groups. His government also bristled at Washington's decision to impose 30% tariffs on certain South African imports after failing to halt the program.
Kenya's involvement has added a new layer of controversy. Nairobi-based CWS, which runs a regional office in East Africa, has been tasked with conducting medical screenings, cultural orientation, and travel logistics for the resettled Afrikaners. Kenyan nationals applying for visas to take part in the mission are believed to be tied to this organization, which has both American and Kenyan leadership figures.
With the first group of Afrikaner families already relocated to the U.S. earlier this year and another wave expected by late August, the political fallout is intensifying. Critics in both South Africa and Kenya accuse Washington of politicizing migration, while human rights experts warn of dangerous precedents in redefining refugee status along racial or ideological lines.
The dispute risks straining Kenya's ties with both Pretoria and Washington, raising broader questions about the intersection of migration policy, geopolitics, and the ethics of selective resettlement.
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Egypt Independent
a day ago
- Egypt Independent
The common thread in Trump's latest moves: squeezing big blue cities
President Donald Trump is moving systematically to tighten his grip on Democratic-leaning big cities — the geographic center of resistance to his agenda — by undermining their autonomy and eroding their political strength. Those militant goals are the common thread that links the high-profile initiatives Trump has launched in recent days to seize control of law enforcement in Washington, DC; pressure red states to draw new congressional district lines; and potentially pursue an unprecedented 'redo' of the 2020 census. These new efforts compound the pressure Trump is already placing on major cities with an agenda that includes aggressive immigration enforcement; cuts in federal research funding to universities central to the economy of many large metros; and threats to rescind federal funding for jurisdictions that resist his demands to impose conservative policies on immigration, education, homelessness and policing. Trump is pursuing this confrontational approach at a time when major metropolitan areas have become the undisputed engines of the nation's economic growth — and the nexus of research breakthroughs in technologies such as artificial intelligence, which Trump has identified as key to the nation's competitiveness. The 100 largest metropolitan areas now account for about three-fourths of the nation's economic output, according to research by Brookings Metro, a center-left think tank. Yet Trump is treating the largest cities less as an economic asset to be nourished than as a political threat to be subdued. Mark Muro, a senior fellow at Brookings Metro, said Trump's approach to the nation's largest cities is 'colonial' in that he wants to benefit from their prodigious economic output while suppressing their independence and political clout. This administration is 'treating America's great economic engines as weak and problematic colonial outposts,' Muro said. 'They view them as the problem, when (in reality) they are the absolute base of American competitiveness in the battle against China or whoever (else).' Antagonism toward major cities has long been central to Trump's message. Several times he has described American cities with mayors who are Democrats, members of racial minorities, or both, as dystopian 'rodent-infested' 'hellholes.' Trump in 2024 nonetheless ran better in most large cities than in his earlier races, amid widespread disenchantment about then-President Joe Biden's record on inflation, immigration and crime. Still, as Trump himself has noted, large cities, and often their inner suburbs, remain the foundation of Democratic political strength and the cornerstone of opposition to his agenda. A series of dramatic actions just in the past few days shows how systematically Trump is moving to debilitate those cities' ability to oppose him. DC Mayor Muriel Bowser attends a news conference on August 11 about President Donald Trump's plan to place Washington police under federal control and deploy National Guard troops to the nation's capital. Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP Normalizing 'militarized cities' The most visible way Trump is pressuring big cities is by deploying federal law enforcement and military personnel into them over the objections of local officials. In his first term, Trump sent federal law enforcement personnel into Portland, Oregon, and Washington, DC, in the aftermath of George Floyd's 2020 murder. But after he left office, Trump, who does not often publicly second-guess himself, frequently said that one of his greatest regrets was that he did not dispatch more federal forces into cities. In his 2024 campaign, he explicitly pledged to deploy the National Guard, and potentially active-duty military, into major cities for multiple purposes: combating crime, clearing homeless encampments and supporting his mass deportation program. In office, Trump has steadily fulfilled those promises. When protests erupted in Los Angeles in June over an intense Immigration and Custom Enforcement deportation push, Trump deployed not only the National Guard (which he federalized over the objection of California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom), but also active-duty Marines. Then, the administration used those forces not only to guard federal buildings, but also to accompany ICE (and other agencies) on enforcement missions — including a striking deployment of armored vehicles and soldiers in tactical gear to a public park in a heavily Hispanic neighborhood. The underlying immigration enforcement that precipitated the LA protests constituted a different show of force. As a recent CNN investigation showed, ICE is relying much more on street apprehensions in cities in blue states than in red states, where it is removing more people from jails and prisons. The administration says that imbalance is a result of 'sanctuary' policies in blue states and cities limiting cooperation with federal immigration enforcement. But civil rights groups see the administration's confrontational blue-state approach as an attempt to intimidate both local officials and immigrant communities. (The fact that ICE last week conducted an immigration sweep directly outside a Newsom press conference bolstered the latter interpretation.) Whatever the rationale, research by the University of California at Merced suggests the administration's enforcement approach is hurting blue cities. Using census data, the school's Community and Labor Center recently found that from May to July the number of California workers holding a private-sector job fell by about 750,000 — proportionally an even greater decline than during the 2008 Great Recession. Hispanic people and Asian Americans accounted for almost all the falloff. Sociology professor Ed Flores, the center's faculty director, said he believes the decline is 'absolutely' tied to economic disruption flowing from 'the presence of ICE and the way that (people) are being apprehended' on the street. New York City, too, has seen a notable drop in the labor force participation rate among Hispanic men. Members of the National Guard face off against people protesting an ICE immigration raid at a licensed cannabis farm near Camarillo, California, on July with the military (if not ICE) presence in LA winding down, Trump has sent hundreds of National Guard troops into Washington, DC, while also utilizing a section of federal law that allows him to temporarily seize control of the city's police department. In his news conference last week announcing the DC moves, Trump repeatedly said he would supplement the National Guard forces, as he did in LA, with active-duty troops if he deems it necessary. And he repeatedly signaled that he is considering deploying military forces into other cities that he described as overrun by crime, including Chicago, New York, Baltimore and Oakland, California — all jurisdictions with Black mayors. 'We're not going to lose our cities over this, and this will go further,' Trump declared. Most experts agree that Trump will confront substantial legal hurdles if he tries to replicate the DC deployment in other places. 'What they are doing in DC is not repeatable elsewhere for a number of reasons,' said Joseph Nunn, a counsel in the national security program at the Brennan Center for Justice. Nunn said Trump can order this mission because of the DC National Guard's unique legal status. On the one hand, Nunn noted, the DC Guard is under the president's direct control, rather than the jurisdiction of a state governor. On the other, he said, the Justice Department has ruled that even when the president utilizes the DC Guard, its actions qualify as a state, not federal, deployment. That's critical because state guard deployments are not subject to the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act's ban on federal military forces engaging in domestic law enforcement. If Trump tries to deploy the National Guard to address crime in the big cities of blue states, such as Chicago or New York, Nunn argued, he would face a catch-22. Since there's virtually no chance Democratic governors would agree to participate, Trump could only put troops on those streets by federalizing their states' National Guard or using active-duty military, Nunn said. But, he added, 'once they are working with federalized National Guard or active-duty military forces, the Posse Comitatus Act applies' — barring the use of those forces for domestic law enforcement. Trump could seek to override the Posse Comitatus Act's ban on military involvement by invoking the Insurrection Act. The Insurrection Act has not been used to combat street crime, but the statute allows the president to domestically deploy the military against 'any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy.' Trump answers questions during a White House press conference on August Briffault, a Columbia Law School professor who specializes in the relationships among different levels of government, agreed that invoking the Insurrection Act to justify sending the National Guard into cities over mayors' objections would shatter the generally understood limits on the law's application. But he also believes that precedent provides no firm assurance that this Supreme Court, which has proved extremely receptive to Trump's expansive claims of presidential authority, would stop him. Trump 'could try' to win court approval of military deployments to fight crime by citing the Insurrection Act's language about ''domestic violence' and 'unlawful combinations'' and then claiming that is 'depriving the people of their right to security,' Briffault said. Whatever the legal hurdles, more widely deploying the military on domestic missions would bring substantial consequences. Mayor Jerry Dyer of Fresno, California, who spent 18 years as the city's police commissioner, says that putting military forces onto the streets of more cities would create problems of coordination with local officials and trust with local communities. 'Whenever you start sending federal resources into local jurisdictions and actually take over the policing of that jurisdiction, it can become very disturbing to that community and quite frankly can create some neighborhood issues and ultimately a lack of trust,' said Dyer, who co-chairs the Mayors and Police Chiefs Task Force for the US Conference of Mayors. Even more profound may be the implications of numbing Americans to the sight of heavily armored military forces routinely patrolling the streets of domestic cities — an image that historically has been common only in authoritarian countries. New York University historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a leading scholar of authoritarian regimes, wrote last week that the ultimate aim of Trump's domestic deployments 'is to habituate Americans to see militarized cities and crackdowns against public dissent in cities as normal and justified.' Step by step, she argued, Trump is seeking 'to disempower and delegitimize all Democratic municipal and state authorities.' How the redistricting war is marginalizing cities In less obvious ways, the battle that has erupted over redistricting — and the likely fight approaching over the census — constitutes another Trump-backed effort to 'disempower' large metropolitan areas. The unusual mid-decade congressional redistricting that Texas Republicans are pursuing at Trump's behest would increase the number of Republican-leaning US House seats largely by reducing the number of districts representing the state's biggest metropolitan areas, including Dallas, Houston and Austin, which all lean Democratic. The new map would further dilute the political influence of Texas' major metro areas, even as they have accounted for about four-fifths of the state's population and economic growth over recent years, said Steven Pedigo, director of the LBJ Urban Lab at the University of Texas' Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs. 'The growth in Texas has been driven by urban communities, but those communities are not going to be represented in these additional maps,' Pedigo said. In that way, the new Texas map extends the strategy that Republicans there, and in other growing Sun Belt states, used in the maps they drew after the 2020 census, said John Bisognano, president of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee. Empty seats are seen as a Texas House meeting is called to order at the state Capitol in Austin on August 5. Texas Democratic lawmakers fled the state to protest a proposed Republican redistricting such as Texas and Florida that added the most House seats and electoral votes after the 2020 census — and are poised to gain the most again after 2030 — are adding population primarily among non-White people and in Democratic-leaning metro areas, Bisognano noted in a recent memo. Yet both of those groups will be denied the additional House representation generated by that population growth if the Republicans controlling Sun Belt state governments continue to draw district lines that splinter metro populations and favor rural ones. 'They are subjugating (metro voters) to produce a partisan outcome that is not reflective of the people of those cities,' Bisognano said. The calls from Trump and Vice President JD Vance to 'redo' the 2020 census, partly to exclude undocumented immigrants, could marginalize cities even more. Even if Trump could surmount the many legal and logistical obstacles to conducting a mid-decade census, a reapportionment of House seats and electoral votes that excluded undocumented immigrants would not result in the shift of influence from blue to red states that many conservatives envision. John Robert Warren, a University of Minnesota sociologist, concluded in a 2025 paper that if unauthorized immigrants were excluded from the 2020 census, California and Texas would each lose a House seat and New York and Ohio would each gain one. 'It would make literally zero difference,' Warren said. 'If you assume Texas and Ohio go red and California and New York go blue, then it's just a wash.' Excluding undocumented immigrants from the count, though, could offer Trump another way to squeeze urban centers. Many agricultural communities have substantial undocumented immigrant populations, but half of all undocumented immigrants live in just 37 large counties, according to estimates by the Migration Policy Institute. 'Within a state that Republicans control, by not including (undocumented people), it would be much easier to draw Republican districts because you would have a smaller minority population base to work with,' said Jeffrey Wice, a redistricting expert at New York University's law school. Not only congressional representation but also the many federal funding sources tied to population would shift toward rural areas if the census undercounts the urban population, he noted. Wice, who formerly consulted for Democrats on redistricting, says blue states and cities can't assume Trump won't pursue any of these possibilities, no matter how far-fetched they now seem. The same is surely true on the deployment of federal force into blue places. The New Republic's Greg Sargent recently published an internal Department of Homeland Security memo that described the joint ICE-National Guard mission in Los Angeles as 'the type of operations (and resistance) we're going to be working through for years to come.' (Emphasis added.) During World War II, the German siege of Leningrad famously lasted nearly 900 days. Big blue American cities may be counting down the hours as anxiously for the 1252 days remaining in Trump's second term.
Daily News Egypt
2 days ago
- Daily News Egypt
Kenya Faces Backlash Over Role in Controversial Afrikaner Resettlement Plan
A fresh diplomatic storm is brewing in southern Africa as Kenya finds itself entangled in a contentious U.S.-backed program to resettle white Afrikaners from South Africa in the United States. The initiative, first launched under former U.S. President Donald Trump, has sparked legal disputes, political pushback, and rising tensions between Pretoria, Nairobi, and Washington. According to official sources, the U.S. State Department—working through the NGO Church World Service (CWS)—requested that Kenya send over 30 staff members to South Africa to help process resettlement applications. These staffers reportedly applied for 'volunteer visas' to enter the country, but South Africa's Home Affairs Ministry has signaled it may reject the requests, arguing that the work is paid and falls outside the scope of such visas. At the heart of the controversy is the unusual way the resettlement program operates. Instead of processing asylum cases in a third country, as is standard practice, the U.S. has chosen to evaluate claims directly within South Africa. The program initially targeted Afrikaners who claimed they were victims of racial persecution, but was later expanded to include 'ethnic minorities facing discrimination.' International bodies such as the International Organization for Migration have refused to recognize these applicants as legitimate refugees. Former UNHCR official Hans Lunschoff noted that processing asylum claims inside the country of origin is 'highly irregular and generally reserved for exceptional political cases, not mass relocations.' The initiative has fueled friction between South Africa and the U.S. President Cyril Ramaphosa has repeatedly rejected claims that minorities face systemic persecution, pointing out that violent crime in South Africa affects all racial groups. His government also bristled at Washington's decision to impose 30% tariffs on certain South African imports after failing to halt the program. Kenya's involvement has added a new layer of controversy. Nairobi-based CWS, which runs a regional office in East Africa, has been tasked with conducting medical screenings, cultural orientation, and travel logistics for the resettled Afrikaners. Kenyan nationals applying for visas to take part in the mission are believed to be tied to this organization, which has both American and Kenyan leadership figures. With the first group of Afrikaner families already relocated to the U.S. earlier this year and another wave expected by late August, the political fallout is intensifying. Critics in both South Africa and Kenya accuse Washington of politicizing migration, while human rights experts warn of dangerous precedents in redefining refugee status along racial or ideological lines. The dispute risks straining Kenya's ties with both Pretoria and Washington, raising broader questions about the intersection of migration policy, geopolitics, and the ethics of selective resettlement.
Mada
2 days ago
- Mada
RSF's largest assault on Fasher in a year kills dozens of civilians in Abu Shouk camp Humanitarian collapse in South Kordofan's Kadugli, Dalang as RSF, SPLM-N tighten siege
In the first high-level engagement with the United States since the outbreak of war, a senior Sudanese delegation met with US officials in Zurich on Monday, a source in the Transitional Sovereignty Council (TSC) told Mada Masr. Responding to a US proposal for direct talks with the United Arab Emirates — a member of the Washington-led group on Sudan — the Sudanese side said that such a meeting would only happen if Abu Dhabi first ceased its military support to the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The talks came as the UAE has rolled out a series of economic measures against Sudan in recent weeks. Earlier this week, the UAE, Sudan's largest gold buyer, suspended all trade with the country. Soon after, Khartoum began preparing to launch its first national gold exchange, a TSC member told Mada Masr. The move, the source said, aims to position Sudan as a global gold trading hub, with any transactions conducted outside the exchange deemed illegal. Meanwhile, the RSF mounted its largest ground assault in over a year on Fasher — the Sudanese Armed Forces' last major stronghold in Darfur — on Monday and Tuesday, deploying foreign mercenaries, military sources told Mada Masr. Military and allied forces repelled the attack and killed three RSF commanders, the military announced. In the offensive, RSF fighters stormed the Abu Shouk displacement camp north of Fasher and killed 34 civilians. In South Kordofan, the cities of Dalang and Kadugli are in the grip of deepening hunger and humanitarian collapse as the RSF and its ally, the Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North, tighten their joint siege. Child malnutrition rates have risen to 25 percent amid soaring prices, dwindling food supplies and a devastated agricultural sector, while around 80 percent of essential medicines have run out in both cities' hospitals, state officials said. The RSF-led Tasis coalition's government, declared in late July, continues to draw regional and international opposition. On Wednesday, the United Nations Security Council joined the African Union and the Arab League in rejecting the parallel administration. Khartoum welcomed the move, while Tasis said their new government draws legitimacy from 'the support of large sectors of the population.' *** Unannounced Sudan-US talks held in Switzerland In a first major step since United States President Donald Trump took office, a high-level Sudanese delegation met with US officials to discuss ending the war, humanitarian aid delivery and the role of the United Arab Emirates in negotiations. The meeting was held on Monday in Zurich, Switzerland, an informed source in the Transitional Sovereignty Council (TSC) told Mada Masr, and tackled three longstanding points of contention that have stalled US efforts to broker negotiations between Sudan's government, the RSF and international stakeholders — issues on which Khartoum has held a firm stance since the US-led Geneva peace talks in August 2024. Both sides explored the possibility of crafting a roadmap to end the war, discussing the government's conditions for entering broader negotiations involving the US-led Quad group on Sudan and other regional powers. While the US suggested that Sudan and the UAE could hold discussion sessions, the Sudanese delegation insisted that Abu Dhabi must halt all military assistance to the RSF before any consultations or formal process could begin. The talks also focused extensively on humanitarian aid. Sudan, the source said, rejected US claims that the government was slow in facilitating aid deliveries. The delegation outlined the government's efforts to ensure aid reached its destinations and detailed RSF attacks on convoys, particularly those bound for Fasher, accusing the RSF of pursuing a strategy of looting humanitarian supplies. The source would not confirm whether TSC head Abdel Fattah al-Burhan personally led the delegation, but said it included senior officials from the council, the Foreign Ministry, the General Intelligence Service and military intelligence. The US side, they added, included advisors, members of the Central Intelligence Agency and State Department officials. Describing the talks as 'highly transparent' and conducted with 'a flexibility that could help build mutual trust,' the source suggested they could pave the way for more in-depth discussions toward a workable process. Meanwhile, Sudanese press reported that Burhan attended a Qatari-arranged high-level meeting in Switzerland on Monday night with Massad Boulos, the US senior advisor on Arab, Middle Eastern and African affairs. *** Humanitarian collapse in South Kordofan's Kadugli, Dalang as RSF, SPLM-N tighten siege Kadugli and Dalang in South Kordofan are facing a deepening hunger crisis and full-scale humanitarian collapse as the RSF and its allied Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N) tighten their joint siege on the cities. On August 4, Finance Minister Jibril Ibrahim announced an emergency plan to airdrop food and medicine in coordination with government bodies and United Nations agencies. Conditions in the two cities had worsened sharply by the end of June, when RSF and SPLM-N forces closed the road linking Kadugli and Dalang, bringing supply chains to a complete halt. But the blockade itself began in October 2023 and has since driven prices of basic staples by up to 300 percent compared to pre-siege levels, South Kordofan Deputy Governor Jaber Daldoum told Mada Masr. Sixty percent of local grain reserves are now depleted, he said, while basic services have collapsed over the past two years, with near-total absence of water, healthcare and electricity. Fighting between the two sides has only worsened the acute food shortage. Around 40 percent of crops have been destroyed and 75 percent of livestock killed as the war continues to engulf the cities and their surrounding areas, according to an official in the state's Agricultural Ministry department. This has led to a 60 percent drop in agricultural output, the official said. Child malnutrition rates have risen to 25 percent, a public health official told Mada Masr, and 30 percent of residents now face severe shortages of clean drinking water. In late July, women and girls in Kadugli staged protests over the deteriorating living conditions, demanding that the military release food stored in its warehouses. The demonstrations were met with repression, and eight women were detained for at least two days, according to the Sudanese Women Rights Action. The group noted that most households in Kadugli are headed by women, 'who are disproportionately affected by rising prices and limited access to food.' On the healthcare front, around 80 percent of essential medicines have run out from hospitals in both cities, and half of all health centers have shut down entirely, the state's Health Minister Jawaher Suleiman told Mada Masr. Seventy percent of kidney failure patients in Dalang have been unable to access dialysis sessions, she noted, while the public health official said 40 percent of births take place without adequate medical care. Suleiman confirmed that the government is working with UN agencies to carry out urgent airdrops of medicines. Dalang and Kadugli are considered strategic strongholds for the military, serving as its largest bases in the south. Since 2010, they have been central hubs for protecting military and commercial interests and, since the outbreak of war in 2023, for supplying ground operations against the RSF in Darfur. The cities also play a key role in preventing North and West Kordofan from falling under RSF control, acting as launch points for strikes on RSF supply lines from Darfur and the Central African Republic. *** Sudan to establish gold exchange after UAE trade restrictions After the United Arab Emirates, Sudan's largest gold buyer, suspended all trade with the country, Transitional Sovereignty Council Chair Abdel Fattah al-Burhan ordered the activation of the Sudan International Gold Exchange, sources in the TSC and Cabinet told Mada Masr. According to the TSC source, the decision aims to position Sudan as a global hub for gold trading. The exchange will regulate all domestic and international sales, set the official price of Sudanese gold and operate an online platform for international transactions. Burhan instructed the Finance Ministry and the Central Bank of Sudan to activate the exchange, which was first approved in August 2021, when Finance Minister Jibril Ibrahim issued a decision to establish an exchange for gold and minerals. But implementation stalled due to arrangements related to the transitional government at the time, the TSC source said. The current directive establishes a facilitating committee chaired by the Finance Ministry and includes senior officials from the Minerals Ministry, the Central Bank of Sudan, the Sudan Gold Refinery Company and the Khartoum Stock Exchange. The committee is tasked with developing an implementation plan for the exchange, designing infrastructure in line with global standards, drafting executive regulations and outlining technical requirements for a digital trading system. All gold exports will be required to go through the exchange, with any transactions outside it deemed a breach punishable by law. Prices will be set at a competitive rate below the global market to attract buyers and investors, the source said, with the aim of boosting hard-currency revenues. The decision comes after the UAE suspended all trade with Sudan, a Cabinet source told Mada Masr. That move was preceded by a ban on Sudanese airlines landing at Emirati airports last week, imposed just days after Khartoum accused Abu Dhabi of financing mercenaries fighting alongside the RSF. The UAE is one of Sudan's largest trading partners. According to a source at the Central Bank of Sudan, exports to the UAE in 2024 reached US$1.7 billion, more than half of Sudan's total $3.14 billion in exports. Gold made up the bulk of these exports. Of the 23 tons shipped abroad in 2024, from a total of 64 tons produced, most went to UAE markets, the source said. The military controls all of Sudan's gold production sites, whether operated by investment companies or individuals working in traditional mining. Current production is concentrated in four main states, with the Nile River and Northern states accounting for over 80 percent of Sudan's total output, according to a source in the Sudanese Mineral Resources Company, which manages all gold-related activities. Since the 2011 secession of South Sudan, which saw Khartoum lose 75 percent of its crude oil production, Sudan has relied heavily on gold. From 2013 onward, Sudan's gold drew growing competition from business and military sectors. Mohamed Hamdan 'Hemedti' Dagalo rose both as a military and economic power through his control of the Jabal Amer gold mine and other areas. This financial expansion lasted until Burhan dissolved his companies in September 2023, bringing them under military control. Since the outbreak of the war in April 2023, Sudan's treasury has leaned even more heavily on gold exports, which have continued uninterrupted. Production surged to 64 tons in 2023, from 41 tons the previous year, according to the Sudanese Minerals Resources Company. Meanwhile, Sudan's imports from the UAE — the second largest source after China — have declined sharply during the war, dropping to between US$600 million and $800 million annually in 2023 and 2024, down from around $1.17 billion per year before the war, according to a source in the Finance Ministry. The source attributed the drop to the conflict's impact on commercial and industrial activity. Yet the trade balance between the two countries still yielded a surplus, providing Sudan with significant foreign currency to fund vital imports such as petroleum, medicines and other basic goods, according to the source. Much of Sudan's private sector relies on export revenues from gold, agricultural products and other commodities to finance their operations. *** Military, allied forces repel RSF attack on Fasher, dozens shot dead in raid on Abu Shouk camp Heavy fighting broke out this week in Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, in what a military source described as the fiercest RSF assault on the city in over a year. The offensive included a deadly raid on the Abu Shouk displacement camp, north of the city, which killed dozens of civilians. The RSF launched the assault at around 6:30 am on Monday, advancing from several directions in over 500 vehicles carrying troops and heavy weaponry, according to the military source. Drones were deployed extensively, striking Fasher's outskirts and residential areas before ground forces engaged. As part of the offensive, RSF fighters stormed the northern part of Abu Shouk camp, the camp's emergency room stated. Thirty-six civilians were killed, four others injured and six reported missing. Victims were shot dead in their homes and on the streets, while others were killed by stray bullets, according to the emergency room. Backed by the armed movements' joint force and Popular Resistance groups, the military repelled the attack on Fasher, the military source told Mada Masr. Initially withdrawing from some defensive positions to draw the RSF forward, particularly along the livestock market axis, they then launched a series of ambushes that inflicted heavy losses and forced the attackers to retreat to east Lafa Tagro on Fasher's outskirts. According to the joint force, 254 fighters were killed in the battle, with 16 combat vehicles destroyed and 34 others captured. The military announced that three RSF commanders were killed in the fighting and said that the attackers included mercenaries from Colombia, South Sudan and other countries. The RSF, for its part, said it made significant advances toward the military's Sixth Infantry Division headquarters. On Tuesday, it renewed its assault from the south and southwest, but the Sixth Infantry Division said it repelled the attack, killing more RSF fighters, destroying and seizing combat vehicles and chasing the fighters out of Fasher. A field source in the armed movements told Mada Masr that Colombian fighters were among those ambushed on Tuesday, with some killed and others captured. Social media accounts and news outlets circulated videos showing foreign mercenaries fighting alongside the RSF. Joint force spokesperson Ahmed Hussein Mostafa told Mada Masr that Colombian mercenaries have been involved in Fasher for about a year. He said that they initially travelled from the UAE to Benghazi, Libya, and then crossed the desert to Fasher. But after the military intercepted several convoys along the desert route, the path was changed to run from the UAE to Benghazi and then on to Nyala International Airport in South Darfur before reaching Fasher. Mostafa said that the RSF's foreign fighters also include mercenaries from Chad, the Central African Republic, Libya, Ethiopia, South Sudan and beyond Africa. He accused the UAE of supplying mercenaries to bolster the RSF after its core forces had been depleted, aiming to secure a victory in Fasher. Mostafa maintained that the situation on the ground remains 'fully under control,' dismissing claims of RSF advances into Fasher and saying the group suffered a 'crushing defeat' after amassing forces in Libya for the Monday assault. The RSF, he added, continues to rely on long-range artillery and strategic drone strikes from outside Fasher. *** Drone strike hits military-allied Sudan Shield Forces parade in eastern Gezira A drone strike on Wednesday targeted a Sudan Shield Forces parade in Tambul, eastern Gezira, during celebrations marking the 71st anniversary of the founding of the Sudanese Armed Forces. The event was attended by Sudan Shield Forces Commander Abu Agla Keikel. Three people were killed and 10 others injured, including children, a source in Tambul told Mada Masr. Ground defenses shot down two suicide drones, while a third hit its target and a fourth crashed in an empty area, they said. The Sudan Shield Forces accused the RSF of carrying out the attack, confirming civilian deaths and injuries, among them three children. The group said the assault could have killed hundreds of its fighters and civilians. In a statement after the incident, Keikel said the attack would not intimidate his forces, vowing to press ahead with their advance to 'liberate Kordofan and Darfur' and secure 'complete victory over the militias.' In recent weeks, at the military's request, the Sudan Shield Forces have deployed large numbers of troops to Kordofan fronts, where they made territorial gains and engaged in heavy clashes with RSF forces. *** UN Security Council rejects parallel govt in western Sudan The United Nations Security Council has rejected the RSF's announcement of a parallel government in western Sudan. In a statement on Wednesday, council members said the formation of such an administration poses a 'direct threat to Sudan's territorial integrity' and could fuel the ongoing fighting and deepen an already severe humanitarian crisis. The statement comes weeks after the RSF-led Tasis coalition declared the parallel government in late July, naming RSF Commander Mohamed Hamdan 'Hemedti' Dagalo head of its presidential council. Council members stressed that the priority remains the resumption of negotiations aimed at securing a permanent ceasefire and creating the conditions for an inclusive political settlement involving all Sudanese political and social forces. They also urged all UN member states to avoid any external interference that could prolong the war. While the Foreign Ministry welcomed the statement, the Tasis coalition said on Thursday that its government draws legitimacy from 'the support of large sectors of the population who have been deprived, by the authority in Port Sudan, of their most basic constitutional rights.' Speaking to Mada Masr, the RSF commander's advisor Omran Abdallah dismissed the UN council's statement as symbolic with no binding effect on the RSF. He said that the group agrees with many of the council's points regarding humanitarian conditions in Darfur and Kordofan and supports calls for aid access, but rejected what he described as allegations of an RSF-imposed siege on Fasher. Abdallah maintained that the RSF is working to protect civilians and said the Tasis-led government emerged from urgent public needs for essential services, including identity documents, currency, security, medicine, healthcare and education.
