Latest news with #SudanCivilWar
Al Jazeera
4 days ago
- Health
- Al Jazeera
Six killed as RSF attack devastates Sudanese hospital in North Kordofan
At least six people have been killed in a suspected drone attack by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) on a hospital in southern Sudan, the latest civilian facility targeted in the brutal civil war, officials and rights advocates have said. The Emergency Lawyers, a rights group, blamed the RSF for the attack on Friday on the Obeid International Hospital, al-Dhaman, in Obeid, the capital city of North Kordofan province. At least 15 others were wounded in the attack, it said. In a statement on social media, the hospital said the attack resulted in severe damage to its main building. Services at the hospital, the main medical facility serving the region, were suspended until further notice, it said. A Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) source told the AFP news agency that the bombardment also hit a second hospital in the city centre. The city is a key staging post on the army's supply route to the west, where the besieged city of el-Fasher is the only state capital in the vast Darfur region still under the army-led government's control. El-Fasher has witnessed attritional fighting between SAF and RSF since May 2024, despite international warnings about the risks of violence in a city that serves as a key humanitarian hub for the five Darfur states. Adding to humanitarian woes on the ground, the Health Ministry in Khartoum state on Thursday reported 942 new cholera infections and 25 deaths the previous day, following 1,177 cases and 45 deaths the day before. Aid workers say the effort to control the cholera outbreak is deteriorating due to the near-total collapse of health services, with about 90 percent of hospitals in key warzones no longer operational. Since August 2024, Sudan has reported more than 65,000 suspected cholera cases and at least 1,700 deaths across 12 of its 18 states. Khartoum alone has seen 7,700 cases and 185 deaths, including more than 1,000 infections in children under five, as it contends with more than two years of fighting between the army and the RSF. 'Sudan urgently needs an increase in aid to help combat the cholera outbreak, hundreds of cases per day, which has even exceeded the more than 1000 cases per day,' Jean-Nicolas Armstrong Dangelser, Doctors Without Borders's, known by its French initials MSF, emergency coordinator in Sudan, told Al Jazeera. 'This is only the tip of the iceberg, because nobody has the full picture at the moment, unfortunately,' Dangelser said. Fighting in the al-Salha district, south of Ondurman, where there was a pocket of people sick with cholera, 'greatly contributed' to the spread of the disease, said Dangelser. The army said on May 19 it had seized control of the al-Salha district, considered the last stronghold of the RSF in Khartoum State. 'Now it's not just the returnees to Khartoum that are exacerbating the situation because of the devastated water system and the lack of healthcare, but it's also now spreading to Darfur, where people have been displaced by fighting,' Dangelser added. Violence and death follow Sudanese fleeing the war beyond their country's borders. On Friday, 11 Sudanese refugees and a Libyan driver were killed in a car crash in the desert in Libya, according to local authorities. Since fighting between the RSF and SAF broke out in April 2023, the UN has said 11 million people have been forced out of their homes, including 250,000 who have escaped into neighbouring Libya. Tens of thousands have been killed in the civil war.
Scoop
21-05-2025
- Politics
- Scoop
War In Sudan
On 11 April 2025, AP noted that the two-year-old Civil War in Sudan is regarded by the United Nations as "the world's worst humanitarian crisis", though it is grossly underreported (see Wake up: The Worst Humanitarian Crisis on Earth is in Sudan, by Shirley Martey Hargis and Mike Sexton, Third Way [2024]). Even Pope Leo XIV failed to mention 'Sudan' on Sunday when he denounced the conflicts in Gaza, Ukraine, and Myanmar (refer Pope Leo calls for peace in Gaza, Myanmar and Ukraine at the end of his inaugural mass, Africa News 18 May 2025). Al Jazeera's The Stream (20 May) posed this social media post: "Trying to raise awareness about Sudan is like talking into a void. Nobody seems to care about the starving children or the innocent people being brutally executed by the RSF on a daily basis". The young man, Elbashir Idris, political analyst, speaking from Cardiff, claimed: "There's an international conspiracy done by the global order that seems to be working together against the Sudanese people". What Sudan means to me, and that the conflict should mean to New Zealand I have not been to Israel, Gaza, Ukraine, or Myanmar; though I have been close to Gaza; Port Said (and other places in Egypt, during the week in September 1978 when Pope Jean-Paul I mysteriously died). And I enjoyed two days in Khartoum and Omdurman the following week. Sudan represents a special memory to me. It's an assertive place. Khartoum, on the confluence of the Blue Nile and the White Nile, was the site of one of the most spectacular defeats of the British Empire, in 1884/85. I still remember the epic 1966 movie Khartoum, starring Charlton Heston and Lawrence Olivier. That 1880s' stoush – reminiscent of the 2021 defeat of the United States by the Taliban – could have been New Zealand's first involvement in a foreign imperial war. The conservative government in New Zealand – headed by Harry Atkinson – refused the request from the United Kingdom for military support; contrast the subsequent adventure into South Africa in 1899 under the Liberal Government of Richard Seddon. Al Jazeera reported just today (20 May 2025, Sudan time) that the new Battle of Khartoum (2023–2025) has resolved with a victory to the Sudanese Armed Forces over the rebel Rapid Support Forces. (The Wikipedia article is premature, calling the present Battle of Khartoum over on 26 March 2025.) The Sudan Civil War remains far from over, however. One reason why the west has paid so little attention to this conflict is almost certainly a racism-tainted view; that it's just a civil war in 'black Africa', that the rest of the world can leave well-alone. But this view is not true, because the present Sudan Civil War is an international 'proxy war'; fuelled by extra-national powers – regional if not global. Before the Civil War started, there was a successful military coup, in October 2021. Sudanese politics have always been convoluted, as is true in reality for most countries. Sudan had struggled for decades with a humanitarian crisis in its west – Darfur – with attacks on civilian communities by the mysterious Janjaweed which had links to Libya in the time of Muammar Gaddafi. The Janjaweed has now largely morphed into the Rapid Support Forces, and it's an open contention that they are heavily backed by the United Arab Emirates; that is, the RSF – the force which appears to be mainly responsible for the humanitarian disaster – is an alleged proxy of the UAE. And the RSF have a lot of very sophisticated military kit; armaments which are clearly foreign-sourced and foreign-funded. Where is the journalism examining the role of the United Arab Emirates in this most brutal of wars; this war happening in front of our eyes but which we do not see? This is an important question for New Zealand, because the UAE is a particularly important commercial ally of New Zealand. Al Jazeera's Inside Story (15 April 2025) noted: "In March, the army-led government filed a case in the International Criminal Court against the United Arab Emirates". Conspiracy or not, there is certainly a massive missing narrative. Is this cognitive void simple racism on the part of The West (and maybe some others)? Or is it part of a wider problem of geopolitical smoke and mirrors? Or are New Zealand and its associates mesmerised, like a possum (or rabbit) in the headlights or an ostrich with its head firmly buried in the sand? (Chris Hipkins, New Zealand's Leader of the Opposition, deployed a little casual racism in Parliament yesterday [20 May 2025] – twice in the one speech – referring to "tinpot dictatorships and banana republics". Is the United Arab Emirates a 'tinpot dictatorship'? Would he call the President of the Philippines a 'banana republican'?) ------------- Keith Rankin (keith at rankin dot nz), trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand. Keith Rankin Political Economist, Scoop Columnist Keith Rankin taught economics at Unitec in Mt Albert since 1999. An economic historian by training, his research has included an analysis of labour supply in the Great Depression of the 1930s, and has included estimates of New Zealand's GNP going back to the 1850s. Keith believes that many of the economic issues that beguile us cannot be understood by relying on the orthodox interpretations of our social science disciplines. Keith favours a critical approach that emphasises new perspectives rather than simply opposing those practices and policies that we don't like. Keith retired in 2020 and lives with his family in Glen Eden, Auckland.
Al Jazeera
19-05-2025
- Politics
- Al Jazeera
Sudan's army leader al-Burhan appoints former UN official as prime minister
Sudan's army chief and de facto head of state, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, has appointed former United Nations official Kamil Idris as prime minister as part of changes to his sovereign council as the nation's civil war grinds on into its third year. Tens of thousands of people have been killed, critical infrastructure has been destroyed and more than 12 million people have been displaced as a result of the war, which shows no signs of stopping as vying leaders seek to consolidate their power. 'The chairman of the sovereignty council issued a constitutional decree appointing Kamil El-Tayeb Idris Abdelhafiz as prime minister,' a statement from Sudan's ruling Transitional Sovereignty Council read on Monday. Idris, a career diplomat, spent decades at the UN's World Intellectual Property Organisation and was its director general from 1997 to 2008. He also held various roles in Sudan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and used to serve in the country's permanent mission to the UN. Idris, whose higher education was in international law and international affairs, also ran as an independent candidate in Sudan's presidential election in 2010 against longtime military ruler Omar al-Bashir, who was later ousted in a 2019 coup. The new prime minister replaces veteran diplomat Dafallah al-Haj Ali, who was appointed by al-Burhan less than a month ago as acting premier. On Monday, al-Burhan also added two women to the council. The military leader reappointed Salma Abdel Jabbar Almubarak and named Nowara Abo Mohamed Mohamed Tahir to the governing body. The al-Burhan-led military and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary headed by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, have been at war for more than two years after the two generals failed to agree on a plan to integrate their forces. As al-Burhan tried to form an army-led government, Dagalo also announced the formation of a rival administration last month, shortly after signing a charter with allies in Kenya's Nairobi. The army, which holds areas in the central, eastern and northern parts of Sudan, has managed to claim some military victories in recent months, including taking control of the capital, Khartoum. The RSF, which holds most of the western region of Darfur and some areas in the south with its allied militias, has been striking Port Sudan repeatedly this month to devastating effect. Meanwhile, a worsening humanitarian crisis continues to engulf Sudan. International organisations and some countries have warned of the risks of further escalating the conflict, including in cities like el-Fasher in Darfur that have served as humanitarian aid hubs.
Reuters
15-05-2025
- Business
- Reuters
Democrats look to block UAE arms sales, as Trump announces new deals
WASHINGTON, May 15 (Reuters) - U.S. congressional Democrats on Thursday sought to block arms sales to the United Arab Emirates over its alleged involvement in Sudan's civil war and concern about crypto currency ties, the same day Republican President Donald Trump announced $200 billion in new deals with the Gulf State. Democrats Chris Murphy, Chris Van Hollen, Brian Schatz and Tim Kaine, and Bernie Sanders, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, introduced resolutions of disapproval in the Senate that would block three arms sales to the UAE. Gregory Meeks, the top Democrat on the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, and Sara Jacobs, the top Democrat on the panel's Africa subcommittee, introduced resolutions of disapproval in the House of Representatives. The senators cited concerns that have been raised about Abu Dhabi arming Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitaries in Sudan's civil war. The UAE has repeatedly denied such charges. They also cited the announcement by MGX, an investment firm backed by the Emiratis, that it would use a stablecoin launched by Trump's World Liberty Financial crypto venture for its $2 billion investment in crypto exchange Binance. A series of Trump family crypto-related ventures, including a "meme coin" launched in January, have drawn criticism from government ethics experts and political opponents over potential conflicts of interest. In a statement, Murphy said he wanted to force a full Senate debate on what he termed "nuclear grade corruption." The House members said the Trump administration had decided to move ahead with the UAE sales despite Meeks' hold on such transactions over of his concerns about the conflict in Sudan. "The Trump administration's end-run around Congress is irresponsible and will further embolden the UAE to violate the UN's Darfur arms embargo and continue its support for the RSF and the killing of innocent civilians," Meeks and Jacobs said in a statement. The White House and the UAE embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to requests for comment. However, both Republican and Democratic U.S. administrations have long viewed the Gulf state as a vital security partner and the UAE has denied providing weapons to the RSF. Trump pledged to strengthen U.S. ties to the Gulf State as he announced the deals. "I have absolutely no doubt that the relationship will only get bigger and better," he said in a meeting with UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan. U.S. law requires congressional review of major arms deals, and lets members of the Senate force votes on resolutions of disapproval that would block such sales. Although the law does not let House members force such votes, resolutions must pass both chambers of Congress, and potentially survive a presidential veto, to go into effect. No block has ever succeeded and survived a veto. Among the sales targeted in the resolutions were a $1.32 billion sale of helicopters and equipment, $130 million for F-16 aircraft components and accessories, and $150 million for Apache, Black Hawk and Chinook aircraft parts, logistics and support.
BBC News
15-05-2025
- Politics
- BBC News
Port Sudan strikes: Drone attacks raise stakes in new phase of bloody civil war
Paramilitary fighters appear to have opened a new phase in Sudan's civil war after being driven from the capital, in a move which some experts have described as a "shock and awe campaign".Just weeks after the army celebrated the recapture of Khartoum, its foe the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) launched a series of unprecedented drone strikes on Port Sudan in the east of the attacks have led to worsening power blackouts, as well as city residents facing water shortages."It's a level of power projection within this region that we haven't seen yet," says Alan Boswell, the Horn of Africa expert for the International Crisis Group."I think it raises the stakes quite a bit," he barrage of attacks on the war-time capital and humanitarian hub signals that the RSF is determined and able to carry on the fight despite significant territorial it has showcased the growth of advanced drone warfare in Africa. Drones have played an increasing role in the conflict, which has entered its third year. The war began as a power struggle between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the RSF and has drawn in other Sudanese armed groups and foreign backers, plunging the country into what the UN calls the world's worst humanitarian aerial vehicles (UAVs) helped the army advance earlier this year. And the RSF escalated its own use of drones as it was pushed out of central Sudan, especially Khartoum, back towards its traditional stronghold in the west of the recent months the paramilitaries had stepped up drone strikes on critical civilian infrastructure in army-controlled areas, such as dams and power their sustained attacks on Port Sudan, until now seen as a safe haven home to government officials, diplomats and humanitarian organisations, underlined a shift in strategy to a greater emphasis on remote warfare, and aimed to demonstrate strength. "The RSF is trying to show that they don't need to reach Port Sudan by land in order to be able to have an impact there," says Sudanese political analyst Kholood group is trying to achieve a "narrative shift" away from "the triumphant SAF that took over Khartoum," she says."It is saying to the Sudanese Armed Forces: 'You can take Khartoum back, but you'll never be able to govern it. You can have Port Sudan, but you won't be able to govern it, because we will cause a security crisis for you so large that it will be ungovernable'... They want to unequivocally show that the war is not over until they say so."The paramilitary group has not directly addressed the Port Sudan drone attacks. Rather, it has repeated its assertion that the SAF is supported by Iran and accused the armed forces of targeting civilian infrastructure and state institutions, calling the military strikes on Khartoum and RSF-held areas in the west and south of the country war sides stand accused of war crimes which they have denied, but the RSF has been singled out over allegations of mass rape and change in its tactics may have been triggered by battlefield necessity, but is possible because of technological RSF had previously used what are known as suicide or loitering drones, small UAVs with explosive payloads that are designed to crash into targets and can carry out coordinated seems to have deployed this method in Port Sudan, with the commander of the Red Sea Military Zone Mahjoub Bushra describing a swarm of 11 Kamikaze drones in the first strike on a military airbase. He said the army shot them down, but they turned out to be a tactical distraction to divert attention from a single strategic drone that successfully struck the make of this drone is not clear. But satellite images reported by Yale researchers and the Reuters news agency have shown advanced UAVs at an airport in South Darfur since the beginning of the year. The defence intelligence company Janes has determined them to most likely be sophisticated Chinese manufactured CH-95s, capable of long-range Binnie, an Africa and Middle East analyst at Jane's, told the BBC that photos of what appear to be the remnants of the smaller kamikaze drones suggest they are probably a different version than the RSF had used before, and might be better at penetrating air defences because of their shape. One regional observer suggested the RSF had been able to breach the SAF's anti-drone technology with signal jammers attached to the drones, but cautioned this was still South Darfur airport in Nyala, the presumptive capital and military base of the Rapid Support Forces, has been repeatedly bombed by the SAF, which destroyed an aircraft there earlier this month. Some experts see the RSF's bombardment of Port Sudan at least partly as Khartoum, a city left in ruinsSudan war: A simple guide to what is happeningThe escalating drone warfare has again highlighted the role of foreign actors in Sudan's civil conflict."This is a war of technology," says Justin Lynch, managing director at Conflict Insights Group, a data analytics and research organisation. "That's why the foreign supporters are so important, because it's not like the RSF is making the weapons themselves. They're being given this stuff."The army has accused the United Arab Emirates (UAE) of supplying the paramilitary fighters with the drones, and cut diplomatic ties with Abu Dhabi because of the UAE has strongly rejected the charges. It has long denied reports from UN experts, US politicians and international organisations that it is providing weaponry to the Mr Lynch says the evidence is overwhelming. He was the lead author of a US State Department-funded report late last year that concluded with "near certainty" the the UAE was facilitating weapons to the RSF by monitoring imagery and flight patterns of airlines previously implicated in violating a UN arms embargo. He told the BBC it would be surprising if the Emiratis were not helping deliver the drones used in the Port Sudan also determined with similar near-certainty that the Iranians were supplying weapons to the SAF, and he helped authenticate documents provided to the Washington Post that detail the sale of drones and warheads to the army by a Turkish defence has not responded to the allegations. Turkish officials have denied increasing use of drones by both sides may be redefining the war, but it is the ability of the RSF to strike strategic targets hundreds of kilometres from its positions that has rattled the a week of daily attacks on Port Sudan, the paramilitaries hit the country's only working international airport, a power station, several fuel depots, and the air base, apparently trying to disrupt the army's supply city is also the main entry port for relief supplies and the UN has warned that this "major escalation" could further complicate aid operations in the country and lead to large-scale civilian casualties."This was such a shock and awe campaign that it has not only stunned SAF, I think it's also stunned Egypt, Saudi Arabia, others who were behind SAF, and remakes the entire war," says Mr Boswell, adding that it closing the gap in air power between the RSF and the army."The RSF is widely viewed as a non-state actor," he says "and normally, groups like that can muster quite a bit of an insurgent force. But the government with the air force is the one that always has the aerial capacity, and this just turns all those old adages on its head." The development has triggered comparisons to the long-range drone warfare between Russia and Ukraine."These weapons have more precision, you don't need a manned aircraft any more, and they are much more affordable than operating sophisticated jets," says Mr Binnie. "This is part of a broader trend in technological proliferation where you can see what used to be really high-end capabilities being used in a civil war in sub-Saharan Africa."The Sudanese foreign ministry has warned that the attacks threaten regional security and the safety of navigation in the Red Sea, calling on international actors to take "effective action against the regional sponsor of the militia," a reference to the Lynch believes that only an agreement between the UAE and the Sudanese army will end the war."This war is always evolving, always changing," he says, "but you'll see it will continue for years and decades unless there is serious diplomatic action to stop it." More about Sudan's civil war from the BBC: WATCH: 'They ransacked my home, and left my town in ruins'The children living between starvation and deathBBC reporter: My heartbreaking decision to leave Sudan Go to for more news from the African us on Twitter @BBCAfrica, on Facebook at BBC Africa or on Instagram at bbcafrica
