SOUTH SUDAN: South Sudan's opposition is threatening to resort to "guerrilla warfare" if peace talks in Ethiopia fail in the coming days as government forces advance on remaining rebel strongholds in the fifth year of civil war.
"We will keep fighting from the bush by using insurgencies and tactical strategies," James Otong, general deputy commander for the armed opposition, told The Associated Press during a visit to the rebel-held town of Akobo, near the Ethiopian border.
Untold tens of thousands of people have been killed and millions displaced since the world's youngest nation plunged into civil war in late 2013. Although high-level peace talks are set to resume on Feb. 5, opposition forces accuse the government of being more interested in "waging war" than in ending the conflict. The government says it acts only in self-defense.
The international community is openly frustrated with both sides as a cease-fire that took effect Dec. 24 was violated within hours. The United States is pressing the UN Security Council to impose an arms embargo on South Sudan, saying its leaders are "betraying" the country.
In Akobo, one of the last opposition strongholds, the AP spoke with several displaced families who said they fled recent attacks by government forces.
"They're probably dead," Nyakum Well said of her missing children, choking back tears as she sat in her small teashop under a tree. "If (President) Salva Kiir's government captures any human being they kill them."
Five days earlier, the 27-year-old was separated from her two young children when government troops attacked her town of Pieri, killing civilians and burning houses, she said.
Aid workers in Akobo estimate that 100 people have been flowing in daily since the middle of January. Local authorities are concerned the town will be targeted next.
Conflict experts said Akobo is considered the most "strategic and symbolic" of the remaining rebel-held areas and that the government is attempting to walk a "diplomatic tightrope" between advancing militarily and appeasing the international community.
"The government thinks it is winning the war militarily, so it doesn't see any reason to cede any real power through peace negotiations," said Alan Boswell, the South Sudan analyst for Small Arms Survey, a Geneva-based group focusing on armed violence.
Even if the rebels continue guerrilla warfare, they lack the resources to threaten the regime or "protect the civilian population from government assaults," Boswell said.
In recent months the opposition has ceded critical ground to the government, including the town of Lasu, its headquarters in the Equatoria region. The rebels still control a handful of areas across the country and roam freely in many rural areas, while key towns and the cities are under government control. It is not clear how many rebels are still fighting.
South Sudan's army denies claims that it is focused on expanding its territory, saying there's no strategy to intensify the war.
"We're focused on winning the minds and hearts of our people," army spokesman Lul Ruai Koang said.
Yet the international community's patience is fading quickly.
"It is long past time for the leaders of South Sudan to get serious and put the interests of the people of South Sudan before their own personal gain," Mark Weinberg, public affairs officer for the US Embassy, told the AP. He said the US and regional bodies will find ways to hold those who "block peace" accountable but didn't elaborate.
A past US attempt under the Obama administration to have a UN arms embargo imposed on South Sudan failed without enough support from Security Council members. On Saturday, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told African regional bodies he didn't think such "tougher measures" can come from the Security Council and that they need to come from the region instead.
Speaking ahead of the new round of peace talks, the chairman of the independent Joint Monitoring and Evaluation Commission, Festus Mogae, condemned South Sudan's leaders for signing a cease-fire agreement one day and allowing its "violation with impunity" the next.
"It is now time to revisit the range of practical measures that can be applied in earnest to those who refuse to take this process seriously," Mogae said.
South Sudanese who are weary of the fighting doubt that a solution is in sight when peace talks resume in Ethiopia's capital, Addis Ababa.
Sheltering in her makeshift home in one of Akobo's rundown schools, 27-year-old Nyajok Kir said her son was killed one week earlier when government troops stormed her town of Yuai and started indiscriminately shooting civilians.
"There was an agreement in Addis before," she said, hanging her head. "But (President) Kiir doesn't like the peace."
South Sudan rebels vow 'guerrilla war' if peace talks fail
South Sudan rebels vow 'guerrilla war' if peace talks fail
DHL cargo plane crashes into a house in Lithuania, killing at least 1
- The Lithuanian airport authority identified the aircraft as a “DHL cargo plane
VILNIUS: A DHL cargo plane crashed into a house Monday morning near the Lithuanian capital, killing at least one person.
Lithuanian’s public broadcaster LRT, quoting an emergency official, said two people had been taken to the hospital after the crash, and one was later pronounced dead. LRT said the aircraft smashed into a two-story home near the airport.
The Lithuanian airport authority identified the aircraft as a “DHL cargo plane flying from Leipzig, Germany, to Vilnius Airport.”
It posted on the social platform X that city services including a fire truck were on site.
DHL Group, headquartered in Bonn, Germany, did not immediately return a call for comment.
The DHL aircraft was operated by Swiftair, a Madrid-based contractor. The carrier could not be immediately reached.
The Boeing 737 was 31 years old, which is considered by experts to be an older airframe, though that’s not unusual for cargo flights.
UN chief slams land mine threat days after US decision to supply Ukraine
- The outgoing US administration is aiming to give Ukraine an upper hand before President-elect Donald Trump enters office
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called the mines ‘very important’ to halting Russian attacks
SIEM REAP, Cambodia: The UN Secretary-General on Monday slammed the “renewed threat” of anti-personnel land mines, days after the United States said it would supply the weapons to Ukrainian forces battling Russia’s invasion.
In remarks sent to a conference in Cambodia to review progress on the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Treaty, UN chief Antonio Guterres hailed the work of clearing and destroying land mines across the world.
“But the threat remains. This includes the renewed use of anti-personnel mines by some of the Parties to the Convention, as well as some Parties falling behind in their commitments to destroy these weapons,” he said in the statement.
He called on the 164 signatories — which include Ukraine but not Russia or the United States — to “meet their obligations and ensure compliance to the Convention.”
Guterres’ remarks were delivered by UN Under-Secretary General Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana.
AFP has contacted her office and a spokesman for Guterres to ask if the remarks were directed specifically at Ukraine.
The Ukrainian team at the conference did not respond to AFP questions about the US land mine supplies.
Washington’s announcement last week that it would send anti-personnel land mines to Kyiv was immediately criticized by human rights campaigners.
The outgoing US administration is aiming to give Ukraine an upper hand before President-elect Donald Trump enters office.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called the mines “very important” to halting Russian attacks.
The conference is being held in Cambodia, which was left one of the most heavily bombed and mined countries in the world after three decades of civil war from the 1960s.
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet told the conference his country still needs to clear over 1,600 square kilometers (618 square miles) of contaminated land that is affecting the lives of more than one million people.
Around 20,000 people have been killed in Cambodia by land mines and unexploded ordnance since 1979, and twice as many have been injured.
The International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) said on Wednesday that at least 5,757 people had been casualties of land mines and explosive remnants of war across the world last year, 1,983 of whom were killed.
Civilians made up 84 percent of all recorded casualties, it said.
Philippines’ Marcos says threat of assassination ‘troubling’
- Security agencies at the weekend said they would step up their protocols
MANILA: Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos said on Monday he will not take lightly “troubling” threats against him, just days after his estranged vice president said she had asked someone to assassinate the president if she herself was killed.
In a video message during which he did not name Vice President Sara Duterte, his former running mate, Marcos said “such criminal plans should not be overlooked.”
Security agencies at the weekend said they would step up their protocols and investigate the statement, which Duterte made at a press conference. The vice president’s office has acknowledged a Reuters request for comment.
An average of 140 women and girls were killed by a partner or relative per day in 2023, the UN says
- The agencies reported approximately 51,100 women and girls were killed in 2023
- The rates were highest in Africa and the Americas and lowest in Asia and Europe
UNITED NATIONS: The deadliest place for women is at home and 140 women and girls on average were killed by an intimate partner or family member per day last year, two UN agencies reported Monday.
Globally, an intimate partner or family member was responsible for the deaths of approximately 51,100 women and girls during 2023, an increase from an estimated 48,800 victims in 2022, UN Women and the UN Office of Drugs and Crime said.
The report released on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women said the increase was largely the result of more data being available from countries and not more killings.
But the two agencies stressed that “Women and girls everywhere continue to be affected by this extreme form of gender-based violence and no region is excluded.” And they said, “the home is the most dangerous place for women and girls.”
The highest number of intimate partner and family killings was in Africa – with an estimated 21,700 victims in 2023, the report said. Africa also had the highest number of victims relative to the size of its population — 2.9 victims per 100,000 people.
There were also high rates last year in the Americas with 1.6 female victims per 100,000 and in Oceania with 1.5 per 100,000, it said. Rates were significantly lower in Asia at 0.8 victims per 100,000 and Europe at 0.6 per 100,000.
According to the report, the intentional killing of women in the private sphere in Europe and the Americas is largely by intimate partners.
By contrast, the vast majority of male homicides take place outside homes and families, it said.
“Even though men and boys account for the vast majority of homicide victims, women and girls continue to be disproportionately affected by lethal violence in the private sphere,” the report said.
“An estimated 80 percent of all homicide victims in 2023 were men while 20 percent were women, but lethal violence within the family takes a much higher toll on women than men, with almost 60 percent of all women who were intentionally killed in 2023 being victims of intimate partner/family member homicide,” it said.
The report said that despite efforts to prevent the killing of women and girls by countries, their killings “remain at alarmingly high levels.”
“They are often the culmination of repeated episodes of gender-based violence, which means they are preventable through timely and effective interventions,” the two agencies said.
Russia says it downs seven Ukrainian missiles over Kursk region
Russia’s air defense systems destroyed seven Ukrainian missiles overnight over the Kursk region, governor of the Russian region that borders Ukraine said on Monday.
He said that air defense units also destroyed seven Ukrainian drones. He did not provide further details.
A pro-Russian military analyst Roman Alyokhin, who serves as an adviser to the governor, said on his Telegram messaging channel that “Kursk was subjected to a massive attack by foreign-made missiles” overnight.
