LONDON: The US, UK, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Pope Francis condemned Saturday's chemical gas attack on Syria’s Douma, while Russia and the Syrian regime denied claims of chemical weapons use.
Rescue workers said dozens of civilians had been killed in the attack and at least 80 civilians have been killed since Friday after the regime launched fresh air raids on rebel-held areas of Eastern Ghouta, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor.
The head of the United Nations said on Sunday he was “particularly alarmed” by the alleged use of chemical weapons against civilians in Syria.
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres joined world leaders and global entities in voicing alarm and said in a statement that he was “deeply concerned” about renewed violence in the city of Douma, citing reports that sustained airstrikes and shelling had killed civilians, destroyed infrastructure and damaged health facilities.
“The secretary-general is particularly alarmed by allegations that chemical weapons have been used against civilian populations in Douma,” the statement said.
While noting that the United Nations was not in a position to verify such reports, Guterres said that any confirmed use of chemical weapons would be “abhorrent.”
He called on all parties to cease fighting and to provide “humanitarian access across Syria to all people in need.”
United States
US President Donald Trump said there will be a “big price to pay” after what he called a “mindless CHEMICAL attack” in Syria, allegedly involving chlorine gas.
Trump also called Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad an “animal.”
“President Putin, Russia and Iran are responsible for backing Animal Assad. Big price to pay,” Trump said in a pair of tweets which began with a discussion of the attack in Syria’s Eastern Ghouta, where rescue workers alleged that regime loyalists had used chlorine gas.
“Many dead, including women and children, in mindless CHEMICAL attack in Syria. Area of atrocity is in lockdown and encircled by Syrian Army, making it completely inaccessible to outside world,” the president said.
“Open area immediately for medical help and verification,” Trump said. “Another humanitarian disaster for no reason whatsoever. SICK!"
Trump also criticized his predecessor Barack Obama for not striking after warning that the use of chemical weapons in Syria was a “red line.”
“If President Obama had crossed his stated Red Line in The Sand, the Syrian disaster would have ended long ago! Animal Assad would have been history!” Trump said.
Meanwhile, US State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said in a statement, “these reports, if confirmed, are horrifying and demand an immediate response by the international community.”
“The Assad regime and its backers must be held accountable and any further attacks prevented immediately,” she added, noting that “Russia, with its unwavering support for the regime, ultimately bears responsibility for these brutal attacks.”
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom called on the need to open an urgent international investigation into the chemical attack reports.
In a press statement issued by the UK Foreign Ministry, a spokesperson said that the Assad regime and his supporters must end the violence against innocent civilians.
“The reports that showed a large number of victims in the chemical attack in the city of Douma are disturbing and, if proved correct, will be further evidence of the brutality of the Assad regime and the disregard of its supporters of international laws,” the statement read.
France
French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said reports of the chemical attack were extremely worrying and called for the United Nations Security Council to meet quickly to examine the situation.
Le Drian said France strongly condemned attacks and bombings by Syrian government forces in the last 24 hours in Douma, adding they were a “gross violation of international humanitarian law.”
France would work with allies to verify reports that chemical weapons were used, Le Drian said.
Referring to President Emmanuel Macron’s warning that France could strike unilaterally if there was a deadly chemical attack, Le Drian said that Paris would assume all its responsibilities in the fight against the proliferation of chemical weapons.
European Union
The European Union said the evidence points to the use of chemical weapons by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces against a besieged rebel-held town in Syria, calling for an international response.
"The evidence points towards yet another chemical attack by the regime," the EU said in a statement. "It is a matter of grave concern that chemical weapons continue to be used, especially on civilians. The European Union condemns in the strongest terms the use of chemical weapons and calls for an immediate response by the international community."
The bloc called on the UN Security Council to re-establish its checks to identify perpetrators of chemical attacks and on Russia and Iran to use their influence with Assad to prevent further attacks.
Turkey
Turkey strongly condemned what it said was a chemical weapons attack in Douma, saying there was a “strong suspicion” the Assad regime was responsible.
“We strongly condemn the attack and we have the strong suspicion it was carried out by the regime, whose record on the use of chemical weapons is known by the international community,” the Turkish foreign ministry said in a statement.
Turkey said that the incident showed that past UN Security Council resolutions on the use of chemical weapons in Syria were “once again” being ignored.
The foreign ministry called for an investigation by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) and said it expected condemnation from the international community.
The foreign ministry statement did not explicitly refer to Russia and Iran, maintaining Turkey’s caution in not lashing out at its partners.
But it called on “the parties who have influence over the Syrian regime” to ensure that such attacks are halted and punished.
It noted that “in the past no measures have been taken against these attacks.”
Pope Francis
At the end of a Mass in St. Peter’s Square, the Pope said that, “there is no such thing as a good war and a bad war. Nothing, but nothing, can justify the use of such instruments of extermination on defenseless people and populations.”
He urged that “military and political leaders choose another path, that of negotiations, which is the only one that can bring about peace and not death and destruction.”
Moscow, Tehran, Damascus deny claims
Russia’s military is rejecting claims that Syrian government forces used chemical weapons in an attack on the rebel-held town of Douma.
Maj. Gen. Yuri Yevtushenko was quoted by Russian news agencies on Sunday as saying Russia was prepared to “promptly send Russian specialists in radiation, chemical and biological protection to Douma after its liberation from fighters to gather data that will confirm the fabricated nature of these statements.”
Yevtushenko said “a number of Western countries” are trying to prevent the resumption of an operation to remove Army of Islam fighters from Douma and “to this end they are using the West’s pet theme of the use of chemical weapons by Syrian forces.”
Iran also condemned the allegations as a “conspiracy” against its ally Assad and a pretext for military action.
“Such allegations and accusations by the Americans and certain Western countries signal a new conspiracy against the Syrian government and people, and a pretext for military action,” Iran’s foreign ministry said in a statement.
Tehran warned any military intervention would “certainly complicate the situation” in Syria and the wider region.
“With the Syrian army having the upper hand on the ground against the armed terrorists, it would not be rational for it to use chemical weapons,” the statement said.
Syria’s foreign ministry denounced accusations the government had deployed chemical weapons as an “unconvincing broken record.”
“Allegations of chemical use have become an unconvincing broken record, except for some countries that trade with the blood of civilians and support terrorism in Syria,” state news agency SANA quoted a ministry source as saying.
“Every time the Syrian Arab Army advances in the fight against terrorism, allegations of chemical use are used as an excuse to prolong the life of terrorists in Douma,” it said.
Douma is the last rebel-held town in Eastern Ghouta, once the opposition’s main bastion near Damascus but now battered by a seven-week regime assault.
The offensive has recaptured 95 percent of Ghouta, and the government announced on Sunday that it had reached a deal for rebels to be evacuated from their last holdout in Douma.
World condemns Assad regime’s chemical attacks on Douma, Moscow deny allegations
World condemns Assad regime’s chemical attacks on Douma, Moscow deny allegations
- Trump called Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad an 'animal'
- Turkey said there was a 'strong suspicion' the Syrian regime was responsible
15 killed in Darfur camp as battle for last army-held city intensifies
- Earlier in the day, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) announced they had captured Um Kadadah, a key town on the road to El-Fasher
KHARTOUM: Shelling by Sudanese paramilitaries killed at least 15 civilians in a Darfur displaced persons’ camp Thursday, a medical source told AFP, as fighting for the only part of the region still under regular army control intensified.
Earlier in the day, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) announced they had captured Um Kadadah, a key town on the road to El-Fasher, the last city in Darfur still in the hands of their regular army foes.
“The Abu Shouk camp was shelled by the RSF with 120mm and 82mm cannons fired inside the camp and the Nifasha market, killing at least 15 people and wounding 25,” the camp’s volunteer emergency department said in a statement.
The densely populated camps for the displaced around the besieged city of El-Fasher have suffered heavily during nearly two years of fighting between Sudan’s warring generals.
The Zamzam camp was the first part of Sudan where famine was declared.
The RSF has stepped up its efforts to complete its conquest of Darfur since losing control of the capital Khartoum last month.
On Thursday, it said it had captured Um Kadadah.
“Our forces took full control of the strategic town of Um Kadadah,” an RSF spokesman said in a statement, adding that hundreds of members of its garrison had been killed.
There was no immediate comment from the regular army.
The paramilitaries’ advance came after their shelling of besieged El-Fasher killed 12 people on Wednesday, the army and activists said.
The conflict in Sudan has killed tens of thousands of people and uprooted more than 12 million since a struggle for power between rival generals erupted into full-blown war in April 2023.
Famine has been declared in parts of the country, including displacement camps around El-Fasher, and is likely to spread, according to a UN-backed assessment.
On Wednesday the United Nations humanitarian office OCHA said conditions in Darfur are rapidly deteriorating.
“In North Darfur state, more than 4,000 people have been newly displaced in the past week alone due to escalating violence in El-Fasher, as well as in Zamzam displacement camp south of the city and other areas,” OCHA said on its website.
The RSF also controls parts of the south.
The army retook the capital Khartoum in late March. It holds sway in the east and north, leaving Africa’s third-largest country divided in two.
South Sudan replaces foreign minister
- No explanation was given for the sacking of Foreign Minister Ramadan Mohammed, which was announced on the state radio station late on Wednesday
JUBA: South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir has replaced its foreign minister with his deputy, Monday Semaya Kumba, state media reported, following a migration dispute with the United States.
No explanation was given for the sacking of Foreign Minister Ramadan Mohammed, which was announced on the state radio station late on Wednesday.
The move follows a row with Washington over Juba’s refusal to admit a Congolese man deported from the US, which led to the Trump administration threatening to revoke all US visas held by South Sudanese citizens.
South Sudan yielded to Washington’s demands on Tuesday and allowed the man to enter the country.
Separately, a faction of South Sudan’s main opposition party said on Wednesday it had replaced its chairman, First Vice President Riek Machar, with an interim leader, Peacebuilding Minister Stephen Par Kuol, until Machar was released from house arrest.
Analysts said the move, which other party members criticized, could allow Kiir to sack longstanding rival Machar and consolidate his power over the government by appointing Kuol.
“President Kiir (would) want people who would agree with him ... so that now the government’s legitimacy will be created,” said Kuol Abraham Nyuon, professor of political science at the University of Juba.
Machar, who has served in a power-sharing administration with Kiir since a 2018 peace deal ended a civil war between fighters loyal to the two men, was accused of trying to stir up rebellion and detained at his home last month.
Machar’s party denies government accusations that it backs the White Army.
This ethnic militia clashed with the army in the northeastern town of Nasir last month, triggering the latest political crisis.
African Union mediators arrived in Juba last week to try to rescue the peace deal but did not appear to have made any immediate progress.
On Thursday, embassies based in Juba, including France, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, the UK, US, and the EU, reiterated their call for the immediate release of all political detainees.
“South Sudan’s leaders must meet their obligations and demonstrate that their priority is peace,” they said in a joint statement.
The SPLM-IO said Machar’s detention had effectively voided the agreement that ended the five-year civil war in which hundreds of thousands of people were killed. The party later said they were committed to upholding the deal.
The SPLM-IO’s military wing remained loyal to Machar and was “not part and parcel of the betrayers in Juba,” its spokesperson, Lam Paul Gabriel, said in a statement on Wednesday.
UN food agency warns that tens of thousands could die during third year of war in Sudan
- Shaun Hughes of the World Food Programme says 10 areas of the country are affected by famine and it could spread to another 17
- His agency faces a $650m shortfall in its funding needs for Sudan over the next 6 months alone
LONDON: Tens of thousands of people will die in Sudan if the country’s civil war continues for another year, with the UN facing a vast food-aid funding gap and unable to reach those most vulnerable to famine, a senior official warned on Thursday.
The conflict, which began two years ago, has caused what is, “by any metric,” the largest humanitarian crisis in the world, Shaun Hughes, the World Food Programme’s emergency coordinator for the Sudan crisis, told a UN briefing.
He said famine had spread to 10 areas in the Darfur and Kordofan regions, and threatens to engulf another 17. Unless the WFP can bridge a $650 million gap in funding for its operations over the next six months, which amounts to an 80 percent shortfall, and gain better access on the ground to those in need, he said the crisis will continue to spiral out of control.
“This war is having devastating consequences for the people of Sudan and the entire region,” Hughes said during a video call.
“Tens of thousands more people will die in Sudan during a third year of war unless WFP and other humanitarian agencies have the access and the resources to reach those in need.”
The civil war began on April 15, 2023, amid a power struggle between the Sudanese army and the leader of a powerful rival militia called the Rapid Support Forces. The fighting has killed thousands of people and forced 12 million to flee their homes.
The army finally regained control of all of Khartoum last month, having been driven out of the capital at the start of the conflict. But the RSF continues to control vast areas in western and southern Sudan, including much of Darfur region.
Fighting has raged around the city of El-Fasher in Darfur, just south of which is located the Zamzam displacement camp that hosts 400,000 people. Famine was first reported in the camp in August last year and people continue to die from starvation and malnutrition there, Hughes said.
“It’s obviously a horrific situation,” he added. “El-Fasher, Zamzam and other camps have been at the center of famine and the epicenter of conflict in the Darfurs for several months now, and under an effective siege on a daily basis.
“People are unable to access services, and humanitarian agencies have, essentially, had to withdraw from the camp.”
He said the last delivery of food aid was in October but the WFP had managed to digitally transfer cash aid to help residents of the camp buy food wherever they can.
But unless aid efforts can be reestablished on the ground in Sudan’s worst-effected areas, Hughes fears the famine could spread, with nearly half of the country’s 50 million people facing the prospect of extreme hunger.
“We need to be able to quickly move humanitarian assistance to where it is needed, including through front lines, across borders within contested areas, and without lengthy bureaucratic processes,” he said.
The WFP has managed to increase the number of people it is reaching to 3 million per month, he added, but hopes to increase the figure to 7 million in the coming months. The focus will be on those areas already suffering from famine or most at risk of falling into it, Hughes said.
Many aid operations in Sudan have been affected by the US government’s slashing of foreign aid budgets since President Donald Trump took office, but Hughes said funding for his agency’s work in the country had not been affected by this.
Meanwhile, the International Committee of the Red Cross on Thursday released a report detailing the “catastrophic humanitarian situation” in Sudan.
It said attacks on hospitals and other civilian infrastructure have severely compromised access to essential services.
Migrant killed in clash at makeshift camp in Tunisia
Tunis: A man from Guinea died after migrants clashed at a makeshift camp in northern Tunisia, a parliamentarian who visited the site and the National Guard said on Thursday.
Tarak Mahdi, the MP for Sfax, around 30 km from camps set up in olive groves, said the violence began on Tuesday and that “dozens were wounded” by “machetes and knives.”
Mahdi said the violence erupted between two groups, one from Guinea and the other from the Ivory Coast, after a Champions League football match.
National Guard spokesman Houcem Eddine Jebabli said the dead man had been hit in the head by a stone and that six people have been arrested.
The clashes followed a significant security sweep last week to clear olive groves around El Amra, a town south of Tunis, where thousands of migrants from sub-Saharan Africa had set up home a few kilometers from the coast.
Tensions between residents and migrants have been rising in Tunisia.
Tempers flared in 2023 after President Kais Saied said that “hordes of sub-Saharan migrants” threatened to change the North African country’s demographics.
On March 25, Saied called on the International Organization for Migration to accelerate voluntary returns for irregular migrants to their home countries.
Tunisia has, in recent years, become a key departure point for migrants making the perilous Mediterranean Sea crossing in hopes of reaching Europe.
People staged two protest rallies on Wednesday against what they say is the authoritarian rule of President Kais Saied and demanded the release of political prisoners, while six detained opposition figures held a hunger strike.
The rallies highlight the opposition’s growing concerns about what it sees as Saied’s muzzling of dissent and efforts to establish one-man rule, accusations he denies.
Amputees in Gaza face life in war zone with little hope
- Prosthetics and other aid hard to get into blockaded Palestinian territory
CAIRO/GAZA: Farah Abu Qainas hoped to become a teacher, but an Israeli airstrike last year injured her so severely she lost her left leg, throwing all her plans into doubt and adding the 21-year-old to a list of thousands of new amputees in devastated Gaza.
Still living in a temporary shelter, Abu Qainas attends physiotherapy sessions at a prosthetics center in the territory where she waits in a wheelchair for an artificial limb that could allow her some freedom again.
“That day, I lost more than just my leg. My dreams vanished,” she said.
“I longed to attend university and teach children. But this injury has stolen that future.”
The war began on Oct. 7, 2023, when militants carried out a cross-border attack on Israeli communities.
Israel’s military campaign has since killed more than 50,000 Palestinians in Gaza, local health authorities say, and left most of the tiny, crowded coastal territory in ruins and nearly all its people homeless.
Many thousands more have suffered injuries that will change their lives for decades to come.
However, amid a conflict that has left the medical system barely able to function, estimates for how many Palestinians have lost limbs vary.
“Across Gaza, it is estimated that 4,500 new amputees require prosthetics, in addition to the 2,000 existing cases requiring maintenance and follow-up care,” the UN humanitarian agency OCHA reported last month.
Ahmed Mousa, who runs the physical rehabilitation program in Gaza for the International Committee of the Red Cross, said at least 3,000 people had been registered in their program, of whom 1,800 have amputations.
Many thousands more Palestinians have suffered spinal injuries or lost their sight or hearing, according to OCHA and the ICRC.
The large number of injuries has slowed and complicated efforts to provide treatment.
ICRC officials said that getting artificial limbs into the Gaza Strip has been challenging.
“Accessing proper prosthetics or mobility aids is increasingly challenging in Gaza right now, and unfortunately, there is no clear timeline for many,” said Mousa.
Israel suspended all humanitarian aid to Gaza after the collapse of a two-month-old ceasefire last month.
Abu Qainas, who attends Mousa’s therapy program, said she does not know when she might get an artificial leg or treatment abroad.
“They told me to wait, but I don’t know if it’s going to happen anytime soon,” she said.
Israel’s military has said its bombardment of Gaza is necessary to crush Hamas, which it accuses of hiding among the general Palestinian population. Hamas denies this. Israel says it tries to reduce harm to civilians.
Children have not escaped the carnage.
An April study by the Palestinian Bureau of Statistics said at least 7,000 children have been injured since October 2023, with hundreds losing limbs, sight, or hearing.
She said seven-year-old Shaza Hamdan had wanted to learn to ride a bike.
“My father asked (me) to join him for a walk, before shells began falling on us like rain. One hit my leg and cut it off, and another hit my father’s arm,” she said.
