CAIRO: Egypt will ban any public religious gatherings during the holy Muslim fasting month Ramadan starting in around two weeks to counter the spread of the new coronavirus, a government statement said on Tuesday.
Muslims usually break the fast at sunset together with their families, go to the mosque to pray and spend maximum time with relatives.
But with health experts recommending social distancing measures during the global coronavirus crisis, Egypt will ban any gatherings and public iftars, or fast-breaking meals, as well as collective social activities, the ministry of Islamic endowments said in a statement.
Typically mass iftars are held for poor people.
The ban will also apply to the seclusion of Itikaf when Muslims spend the last 10 days of the month in mosques to pray and meditate, the ministry said.
Egypt has reported more than 1,300 confirmed cases of the coronavirus with more than 250 deaths, according to a Reuters tally.
Egypt is home to some 100 million people and also the seat of the Al-Azhar university, Egypt’s highest religious authority and one of the world’s most eminent seats of Sunni Muslim learning.
Ramadan will start around April 23 depending on the sighting of the moon marking the start of the month.
Egypt already last month ordered mosques and churches to shut their doors to worshippers. Prayer calls are broadcast via loudspeakers.
Egypt to ban Ramadan gatherings to counter spread of coronavirus
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Egypt to ban Ramadan gatherings to counter spread of coronavirus
- Egypt will ban any gatherings and public iftars
Blast kills Lebanese soldier dismantling mines in tunnel in south
- The resolution called for the disarmament of all non-state armed groups, and said Lebanese troops and UN peacekeepers should be the only forces in south Lebanon
BEIRUT, Lebanon: Lebanon's army said a soldier was killed and three others wounded Monday in an explosion in the country's south, where President Joseph Aoun said they had been dismantling mines in a tunnel.
"While a specialised army unit was carrying out an engineering survey of a site" in south Lebanon's Tyre district, "a suspicious object exploded, killing a member of the unit and moderately injuring three others", an army statement said.
A statement from Aoun's office said the soldiers had been "dismantling mines and explosive materials in a tunnel" in the area.
"Once again, the Lebanese army... is paying the price of extending state authority over the south and achieving stability there by implementing Resolution 1701," said Aoun, according to the statement.
United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701 ended a 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah and formed the basis of a November truce that largely ended more than a year of fresh hostilities between Israel and the Iran-backed group.
The resolution called for the disarmament of all non-state armed groups, and said Lebanese troops and UN peacekeepers should be the only forces in south Lebanon.
Under the truce, Hezbollah was to withdraw its forces north of the Litani River, about 30 kilometres (20 miles) from the Israeli border, and dismantle any remaining military infrastructure in the south.
Israel was due to complete its pullout from Lebanon by February 18 after missing a January deadline, but it has kept troops in five places it deems "strategic".
During the war, Israel's army said it uncovered Hezbollah tunnels and tunnel shafts in south Lebanon.
A source close to Hezbollah told AFP on Saturday that the group had ceded to the Lebanese army around 190 of its 265 military positions identified south of the Litani.
Qatar-based network Al Jazeera quoted Aoun on Monday as saying that the army had dismantled tunnels and confiscated weapons without objection from Hezbollah, but had not yet deployed across the whole of the south.
As Sudan civil war displacement tops 13m, UN Refugee Agency calls for ceasefire and funding boost
- After 2 years of conflict it marks a ‘very, very sad milestone’ in the world’s largest and fastest-growing displacement crisis, says agency’s regional chief
- He describes recent atrocities in Darfur as ‘unacceptable events … another example of the massive violations of human rights happening in Sudan’
NEW YORK CITY: Nearly two years into the civil war in Sudan, the humanitarian crisis continues to spiral, with more than 13 million people now forcibly displaced and human rights violations escalating, the UN Refugee Agency warned on Monday.
“This is a very, very sad milestone,” said Mamadou Dian Balde, the agency’s regional director for East and Horn of Africa and the Great Lakes.
Speaking to the press from Nairobi, he said that “close to 9 million Sudanese are internally displaced, and nearly 4 million have fled to neighboring countries,” making it the largest and fastest-growing displacement crisis in the world.
Balde also highlighted recent atrocities at the Zamzam displacement site, and in Abu Shouk near the town of El Fasher in Darfur, describing them as “just unacceptable events … another example of the massive violations of human rights happening in Sudan.”
The country has been locked in conflict since April 15, 2023, amid a power struggle between the Sudanese army and rival militia the Rapid Support Forces.
Scores of civilians were killed on Friday and Saturday in attacks by the RSF on El Fasher, Zamzam, Abu Shouk and other nearby locations in North Darfur State where displaced people were sheltering.
UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said on Monday that preliminary figures put civilian deaths at 300, including 10 humanitarian workers from the nongovernmental organization Relief International, who were killed while operating one of the last functioning health centers in the Zamzam camp.
The El Fasher area has been under siege for more than a year, cutting hundreds of thousands of people off from lifesaving humanitarian aid. Famine conditions have been identified in Zamzam and two other nearby displacement camps, as well as 10 other areas in Sudan. A further 17 are at risk of famine as soon as next month.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for the perpetrators of the latest attacks to be brought to justice. As the second anniversary of the conflict approaches, he urged all parties to “immediately cease the fighting and take steps towards an inclusive political process to put Sudan on a path towards peace and stability.”
More than two-thirds of Sudan’s population , 30.4 million people, urgently require humanitarian aid, with millions of them at risk of famine. About 80 percent of hospitals in conflict zones are no longer functioning, leaving millions without access to essential medical care amid a surge in outbreaks of disease.
Tens of thousands of Sudanese have been killed amid indiscriminate attacks on civilians, including in Darfur where ethnic violence has been constantly escalating.
Guterres renewed his call for the international community to unite in its efforts to bring an end to this “appalling conflict.”
Balde said the spillover from the war stretches far beyond Sudan’s borders and now affects countries that were not initially part of the regional refugee response, such as Uganda and Libya.
“This is not just a regional issue anymore,” he added. “Sudan is at the center of the African continent, and as this crisis continues more people are on the move, toward Southern Africa, the Gulf and Europe.”
The UN Refugee Agency’s $1.8 billion Regional Refugee Response Plan, which aims to support 4.9 million refugees and their host communities, is only 10 percent funded, a level Balde lamented as being “extremely, extremely low.”
He continued: “If you are in the fourth, soon fifth, month of the year and only funded at 10 percent, the level of support for food, water, shelter and education is going to be minimal.
“Communities that don’t have enough have shared what they have. That’s the true spirit of solidarity but they cannot do it alone.”
He urged donors to step up during a conference in London on Tuesday at which 20 foreign ministers will discuss the Sudan crisis.
“One expected outcome is greater support for both the refugees and the host governments,” Balde said. “Refugees are in need of urgent, life-saving support: food, health, shelter, protection services.”
In addition to financial aid, Balde emphasized the need for a ceasefire: “The people I see at the borders with Chad or South Sudan tell us one thing: they want normalcy so they can return home and take care of themselves.”
Neighboring South Sudan, which was already struggling with its own internal tensions, has received more than 1 million people from Sudan, adding to the burdens it faces as the country with the second-largest number of internally displaced persons and refugees after Sudan.
“It’s a very worrying situation,” said Balde, who noted that contingency plans are in place amid concerns about the renewed conflict in South Sudan.
He also addressed concerns surrounding the registration of refugees, which is a key step toward possible resettlement. He noted that the UN Refugee Agency supports national governments in this process but warned: “With funding going down, it’s going to be extremely difficult. That’s not the spirit of the Refugee Convention.”
He concluded with a stark reminder: “One in three Sudanese is displaced. One in six internally displaced persons globally is Sudanese. One in 10 refugees worldwide is from Sudan. That’s how devastating this crisis has been in just two years.”
3 students killed in school wall collapse in Tunisia
- According to videos shared on social media, the incident sparked public anger, with local residents staging protests shortly after the wall collapsed
TUNIS: A wall collapse at a school in Tunisia killed three high-school students and seriously injured two others on Monday, the civil defense rescue agency said.
“The collapse of a dilapidated wall today led to the death of three students, aged between 18 and 19,” in Tunisia’s central Sidi Bouzid, said civil defense spokesperson Moez Triaa.
The two injured students were taken to hospital, he said, without providing further details.
According to videos shared on social media, the incident sparked public anger, with local residents staging protests shortly after the wall collapsed.
Tunisia’s UGTT labor union federation called for a nation-wide school strike to protest what it said was “the authorities’ failure to find real and serious solutions to save public schools.”
In a statement, the UGTT blamed the “painful tragedy” on official negligence, accusing the government of abandoning the basic maintenance of school facilities.
Tunisians in interior regions have long deplored socio-economic woes and lack of infrastructure.
Iraq sandstorm leaves 1,500 people with respiratory problems
NAJAF: Around 1,500 people were sent to hospitals with respiratory problems on Monday as a sandstorm hit central and southern Iraq, health officials said.
Hospitals in Muthanna province in southern Iraq received at least “700 cases of suffocation,” local health official Mazen Al-Egeili told AFP. More than 250 people were hospitalized in the central Najaf province, and hundreds more in the provinces of Diwaniyah and Dhi Qar, other health officials reported.
Over 400 killed in Darfur paramilitary attacks: UN
- RSF has in recent weeks stepped up its attacks on refugee camps around El-Fasher in its effort to seize the last state capital in Darfur not under its control
GENEVA: More than 400 people have been killed in recent attacks by Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in the western Darfur region, according to sources cited by the United Nations.
The RSF, at war with the regular army since April 2023, has in recent weeks stepped up its attacks on refugee camps around El-Fasher in its effort to seize the last state capital in Darfur not under its control.
And since late last week, the RSF has launched ground and aerial assaults on El-Fasher itself and the nearby Zamzam and Abu Shouk displacement camps.
Just between Thursday and Saturday last week, the UN rights office “has verified 148 killings,” spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani told AFP.
“But this is very much an underestimate as our verification work is ongoing,” she said, stressing that the number did “not even include yesterday’s violence.”
“Credible sources have reported more than 400 killed,” she said.
Her comments came after UN rights chief Volker Turk decried in a statement that the “large-scale attacks ... made starkly clear the cost of inaction by the international community, despite my repeated warnings of heightened risk for civilians in the area.”
“Hundreds of civilians, including at least nine humanitarian workers, were reportedly killed,” he said, warning that “the attacks have exacerbated an already dire protection and humanitarian crisis in a city that has endured a devastating RSF siege since May last year.”
The UN rights chief insisted that “RSF has an obligation under international humanitarian law to ensure the protection of civilians, including from ethnically motivated attacks, and to enable the safe passage of civilians out of the city.”
With the conflict entering its third year on Tuesday, Turk called on all parties “to take meaningful steps toward resolving the conflict.”
