BEIRUT: The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces took credit for defeating the Daesh group in its last stronghold in eastern Syria, celebrating the victory in front of throngs of journalists at a ceremony in March following a bloody four-year war.
But the Kurdish-led force now faces protests by local Arab tribesmen demanding better services, jobs and a bigger role in decision-making in the predominantly Arab, oil-rich and fertile region.
Demonstrations in more than a dozen villages in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor are limited for now, but they present a growing challenge to the US and its local partners at a time when President Donald Trump plans to reduce America’s military presence in Syria.
An SDF official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, said the protesters are a small percentage of Deir Ezzor residents. But the demonstration benefit the Syrian government, its Iranian backers and Turkey, and undermine “our victory against Daesh,” he said.
Several rounds of talks between the SDF and local officials have so far failed to make progress, leading to concerns the protests could transform into an all-out uprising against the predominantly Kurdish force.
The protests come as the force, founded in 2015 to fight Daesh and armed by the US, faces multiple challenges.
Daesh sleeper cells have intensified their attacks in areas controlled by the SDF in recent weeks. Syrian President Bashar Assad’s troops, based along the west bank of the Euphrates River that cuts through Deir Ezzor, have vowed to reassert control over Kurdish-held areas in northern Syria. And Turkey, which considers the force to be a terrorist organization, has also set its sights on the region.
The SDF controls nearly a third of Syria, but unlike the provinces of Raqqa and Hassakeh in the north that have large Kurdish populations, Deir Ezzor in the east is almost purely Arab, leading to ethnic tensions between the local population and the Kurdish force.
Two years after entering the province in their push against Daesh, the SDF appears to have failed to win the hearts and minds of the residents in the region, which suffers from a lack of services, rising crime, fuel shortages and anger over what they see as growing Kurdish influence.
Although the SDF is a mixed force consisting of Kurds, Arabs and Christian fighters, its backbone is the Kurdish People’s Protection Units, or YPG.
Some SDF officials say that what’s happening in eastern Syria are not protests, but riots backed by Assad’s government with the aim of hurting the SDF and its American backers. SDF officials warn that if the protests continue, it will affect the search for IS sleeper cells in the region.
For nearly two weeks, residents in more than a dozen towns and villages in Deir Ezzor have been rallying, closing major roads with burning tires to prevent SDF tanker trucks from taking crude to Kurdish-held areas in the country’s north.
Areas liberated from the IS suffer fuel shortages and IS sleeper cells are launching a guerrilla campaign to avenge their defeat two months ago when the SDF captured the village of Baghouz, marking the end of the extremists’ self-declared caliphate.
Some of the protesters believe that Kurdish fighters sell oil to Assad’s loyalists amid severe fuel shortages in government-held parts of the country, aggravated by US sanctions on Syria and its main backer, Iran.
Since SDF began capturing parts of Deir Ezzor in 2017, residents have expressed anger at what they say has been forced recruitment of Arab residents into the SDF, as well as the detention of many on suspicion of links to Daesh.
“People are fed up with the SDF,” said Omar Abu Laila, a Europe-based activist from Deir Ezzor who runs a group that monitors developments in the province. “They are robbing the wealth of the people in the region.”
The protests took a turn for the worse on April 24, when according to Deir Ezzor activists, the US-led coalition and SDF fighters stormed a house in the village of Daman and killed six people, including two women and a child. They said the raid targeted a man called Farhan Al-Sarhan, whom the SDF says is linked to IS, a charge that activists deny.
A day later, protests spread quickly to nearby villages and towns including Tayyaneh, Haseen, Mheimda, Husan, Shannan and Shheil.
“No to Kurdish occupation,” read one banner carried by protesters, according to images posted on social media.
“The pace of rehabilitation, economic development and provision of essential services has not been sufficient to meet the basic needs of the population,” Bassam Barabandi, a former Syrian diplomat now based in Washington, said of the protests. “As a result, people are feeling very hopeless about their current situation and the future. They do not see the regime as an acceptable alternative, and they are looking for the US to act.”
Several meetings have been held over the past weeks between SDF officials and Arab dignitaries from Deir Ezzor to try to ease the tension without success, according to Barabandi and the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a war monitoring group.
An Arab man from Deir Ezzor who took part in the talks, said that “the Kurds have been refusing to make any concessions.” He spoke on condition of anonymity out of concern for his safety.
He said the SDF is taking away most of the oil it pumps in Deir Ezzor — about 60,000 barrels a day — and leaves hardly anything behind.
Arab officials demanded, among other things, the release of SDF-held detainees, stopping the flow of oil from the province, giving Deir Ezzor fighters within the SDF a bigger role, ending compulsory conscription into the SDF and improving electricity and fuel services.
Rami Abdurrahman, who heads the Observatory, said chaos in eastern Syria is not a good omen for the SDF.
“The regime could be the biggest winner from what is happening,” he said.
Anti-Kurdish protests in east Syria could endanger US plans
Anti-Kurdish protests in east Syria could endanger US plans
- Demonstrations in more than a dozen villages in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor are limited for now
- The protests come as the force, founded in 2015 to fight Daesh and armed by the US, faces multiple challenges
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.
