Drone strikes target army celebration in central Sudan: witnesses
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Arab News
4 hours ago
- Arab News
Despite risks, residents fight to protect Russian national park
KOROLYOV: After getting fined for her environmental protest against a road being built through a national park near Moscow, Irina Kuriseva is back to check on the construction. 'We only want to defend nature,' the 62-year-old told AFP at the Losiny Ostrov (Elk Island) park, a 129-square-kilometer nature reserve with hundreds of species of wildlife including endangered birds. With dissident voices in Russia almost totally silenced and as the country presses on with its massive military offensive in Ukraine, environmental activism has become highly risky. 'The authorities have become completely indifferent' and laws have been 'softened' in favor of polluters and property developers, said one activist, speaking on condition of anonymity. In the outskirts of Moscow, the issue has become particularly acute as developers continue to build new homes and residents commuting to the capital find themselves stuck in traffic jams for hours. In Korolyov, a town of 200,000 people, the authorities decided to build a highway that passes through the national park to ease congestion and give access to a new housing development. In July, Kuriseva and five other activists blocked machinery spreading asphalt in the forest. They were arrested by police and fined, after spending a night at the police station. 'We were interrogated like criminals who had killed someone,' said Kuriseva, a local resident. Russian law prohibits construction in national parks but local authorities got around it by arguing that the project consisted of 'repairs' to an existing road. Dmitry Trunin, an environmental defense lawyer with more than 25 years of experience, said this argument amounted to 'falsification and fraud.' 'There was never a road there,' he said, explaining that there had only been an unpaved track used by forest rangers which then became just a path through the forest. Kuriseva said that 'asphalt powder' was placed on the path in an attempt to classify it as a road. The highway is due to be completed by March 2026 at a cost of 5.4 million euros ($6.3 million), according to the regional transport ministry. Mikhail Rogov, a 36-year-old engineer who also took part in the protest with Kuriseva, said the judge was 'smiling' to the defendants in court. 'She told us: 'If you don't want any problems, sign these papers, pay your fines and you're free',' he said. The judge, Maria Loktionova, had in 2023 sentenced another environmental activist, Alexander Bakhtin, to six years in prison for three posts on social media criticizing the Russian offensive in Ukraine. Despite the crackdown on dissent, activists opposed to the highway have sought to appeal to President Vladimir Putin to help their cause. In June, around a thousand people queued outside the presidential administration building in Moscow to submit their complaints. Putin visited the national park in 2010 and fed a baby elk with a bottle, telling reporters that nature was 'a gift from God' that must be 'protected.' The tone from the Kremlin is very different in 2025. 'This is a question for the regional authorities. Don't get the president involved,' Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in July when asked about the project by AFP. Environmental protection 'should not be a barrier to development and the comfort of the lives of citizens,' he said. Trunin said it has become 'harder and harder to defend the truth in court.' 'The power vertical takes decisions and law enforcement and monitoring bodies obey,' he said.
Al Arabiya
6 hours ago
- Al Arabiya
Inside Trump's ‘Alligator Alcatraz': Migrant detainees allege extreme abuse
At US President Donald Trump's new migrant detention center in the Florida Everglades, time has no discernible meaning. Prisoners are barely able to see sunlight in the windowless space, living under fluorescent lamps that are always on, with no clocks or anything else by which they might mark the days. Several detainees, their family members and lawyers have denounced appalling conditions at the facility, nicknamed 'Alligator Alcatraz' by an administration that has likened undocumented migrants to 'animals' and promised to deport millions. AFP spoke with several 'Alligator Alcatraz' detainees by phone and obtained further information about conditions there from relatives, lawyers and legal documents. Detainees spoke of facilities covered in filth, a lack of medical care, mistreatment, and the violation of their legal rights. 'They don't even treat animals like this. This is like torture,' said Luis Gonzalez, a 25-year-old Cuban who called AFP from inside the center. Florida authorities built the facilities in eight days -- opening the center on July 2 at an abandoned airfield in the Everglades wetlands. Governed by Republican Ron DeSantis, the southeastern state signed an agreement with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to detain undocumented foreigners, a power that until now had been reserved for federal authorities. Now, the Trump administration wants to make this a model for other detention centers across the country. Like 'murderers' Gonzalez arrived in the United States in 2022 and settled in Florida after authorities released him while his asylum application was being reviewed. Last month, when an immigration judge dismissed his case, ICE agents arrested him and took him to 'Alligator Alcatraz.' They kept him chained by his hands, waist, and feet on a bus with other detainees for more than a day before taking him to one of the large tents that house eight cells each, he said. 'I haven't seen sunlight in the 14 days I've been here,' he said. 'When they take us to the dining hall, they take us with our hands on our heads as if we were murderers.' He lives in a cell with about 30 people, a space enclosed by chain-linked fencing that he compares to a chicken coop. It is hardly ever cleaned, he says, not even the three toilets that everyone shares. At the time of the call, Gonzalez had not showered for a week. The days are hot, with swarms of mosquitoes in the cells, and the nights are not much better. Beatings, attempted suicide Gonzalez and other detainees have denounced the lack of medical care available at the site. Michael Borrego Fernandez, 35, complained of pain but was not treated until he began to bleed, according to his lawyers and legal documents. He underwent emergency surgery for hemorrhoids, only to have to be hospitalized again when he was not given antibiotics and his wounds became infected. Some prisoners, such as Marcos Puig, 31, have rebelled. Before a visit from officials, guards isolated him to prevent him from protesting, he said by phone from another Florida facility where he is now being held. Outraged, he broke a toilet in his new cell, prompting a dozen guards to enter, handcuff him, and punch and kick him all over his body. Afterward, he says, they left him kneeling for about 12 hours in a space without cameras or air conditioning before transferring him to another detention facility. 'I arrived here broken. I was covered in bruises,' he said. Another inmate, Gonzalo Almanza Valdes, reported seeing guards 'beat up' detainees, according to a recorded phone call with his wife. Desperation has pushed some to the limit. On Sunday, Sonia Bichara called her partner, detainee Rafael Collado. Through the speakerphone, the 63-year-old man said: 'I have tried to kill myself twice, I have cut my veins.' When contacted by AFP, Florida authorities denied allegations of abuse. 'Completely illegal' Activists and lawyers are demanding the closure of the facilities, which are facing two lawsuits. The first alleges that migrants' right to due process is not being respected. 'There are people who have been there since they arrived and have still not seen a judge. And that cannot be, it is completely illegal,' said Magdalena Cuprys, Gonzalez's lawyer. She said detainees were unable to request bail or a case review because the courts that should be hearing the cases are not doing so, claiming they have no jurisdiction over the state-operated center. The second lawsuit alleges that the facility threatens the Everglades ecosystem. Last week, a federal judge ordered a 14-day suspension of all new construction at the center while she reviews the case.
Asharq Al-Awsat
6 hours ago
- Asharq Al-Awsat
Drone Strikes Target Army Celebration in Central Sudan, Say Witnesses
Drone strikes targeted the Sudanese town of Tamboul, southeast of the capital Khartoum, on Wednesday during a celebration organized by the army, two witnesses told AFP. One Tamboul resident said chaos had erupted in the central square where "hundreds of people had gathered" for the ceremony as air defenses responded. There were no immediate reports of casualties from the strikes, the first in Al-Jazira state in months, and neither the army nor its RSF foes issued any comment. Al-Jazira was Sudan's pre-war agricultural heartland, AFP reported. It had been largely calm since the army recaptured it from the Rapid Support Forces in January in the same counteroffensive that saw it retake Khartoum in March. According to the United Nations, around a million people have returned to their homes in Al-Jazira since January. Wednesday's celebration in Tamboul was due to be attended by Abu Aqla Kaykal, the commander of the Sudan Shield Forces, an armed group currently aligned with the regular army which has been accused of atrocities while fighting on both sides of Sudan's devastating war. His defection back to the army's side late last year helped pave the way for its gains of recent months. Since it began in April 2023, the war between the regular army and the RSF has killed tens of thousands of people and driven millions from their homes. The army now controls the centre, north and east of Sudan, while the RSF hold nearly all of the west and parts of the south.
