Sudan crisis traps Ethiopians displaced by Tigray war between two conflicts

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Updated 23 May 2023
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Sudan crisis traps Ethiopians displaced by Tigray war between two conflicts

  • Strife-torn country was home to 1.1 million refugees before the eruption of violence on April 15
  • Outbreaks of fighting forced many Tigrayans to seek refuge in neighboring Sudan in recent years

JUBA: Tens of thousands of refugees who escaped ethnic violence in Ethiopia’s Tigray find themselves trapped in neighboring Sudan, once a safe haven for the region’s displaced, now itself the site of a worsening humanitarian emergency.

Adise Gemechu, an Ethiopian refugee and a mother of two children who has lived in Khartoum since leaving her native Tigray, says the Sudanese capital is in a state of chaos. “There are airstrikes. It’s terrible,” she told Arab News.

“We’ve closed our doors and are in the house. The children cry if I open the doors.”

Now over a month since Sudan’s conflict erupted, Khartoum has become a war zone, with families huddling at home as gun battles rage in the streets. Meanwhile, the western region of Darfur has descended into chaos.

Residents of Khartoum, a city of 5 million, have endured weeks of food shortages, power blackouts, communications outages and runaway inflation. Foreign embassies have suspended operations and hospitals, banks, shops and wheat silos have been ransacked by looters.




Ethiopian refugees who fled the fighting in the Tigray region transport merchandise using a donkey-pulled cart, at Umm Rakuba camp in eastern Sudan’s Gedaref State. (File/AFP)

Around 1,000 people have been killed, mainly in and around Khartoum as well as the ravaged state of West Darfur, according to medics. Saudi Arabia has hosted envoys from both sides in a bid to halt the conflict and allow humanitarian access.

In addition to the threat of being caught in the crossfire, refugees who remain in Sudan face significant difficulties accessing food, with many families forced to limit their meals to just one per day owing to scarcity.




A vehicle of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces drives down Al-Sittin Road in Khartoum, on May 22, 2023. (AFP)

As a result, many have been left in an impossible position — unable to stay put, but too afraid to risk returning home.

“Refugees face a painful dilemma of whether to go back to where they fled from,” William Carter, Sudan country director at the Norwegian Refugee Council, told Arab News. “It’s a tragic choice they have.”

The situation has been particularly difficult for Tigrayans who fled persecution as well as for refugees and migrants from Eritrea and other neighboring countries.

According to the UN refugee agency UNHCR, Sudan was home to 1.1 million refugees prior to the eruption of violence on April 15 between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, making it one of the largest refugee-hosting nations in the world.

Now, more than 700,000 people have been internally displaced by the violent power struggle, and nearly 200,000 have fled Sudan for neighboring countries. There are fears for the stability of the wider region.

FASTFACTS

* Before the war erupted, Sudan hosted one of the largest refugee populations in Africa

* Sudan welcomed and assisted 58,000 Ethiopian refugees and asylum seekers (UNHCR)




Smoke rises above buildings in southern Khartoum on May 19, 2023. (AFP)

The situation in Um Rakuba refugee camp in the east of Sudan, which hosts around 20,000 Tigrayan refugees, is “deteriorating, with limited access to aid due to unsafe roads and markets hit hard by inflation,” Ahmed Shaweesh, a humanitarian aid worker for the Norwegian Refugee Council, recently posted on Twitter.

“Prices of basic necessities have skyrocketed, leaving refugees struggling to afford even basic items.”

In November 2020, a two-year war erupted between Ethiopia’s federal government and forces led by the Tigray People’s Liberation Front. The conflict has killed tens of thousands of people, displaced millions and caused famine-like situations for hundreds of people.

Periodic outbreaks of fighting have forced many to repeatedly seek refuge in neighboring Sudan in recent years.

Maebel Gebremedhin, co-founder of Tigray Action Committee, was born in the Safaw refugee camp in Sudan in 1986 after her family fled the so-called Red Terror — a period of extreme violence and repression carried out by Ethiopia’s Marxist military regime known as the Derg.

“This is devastating. Being in Sudan was never the goal for the Tigrayans. This was just the opportunity to survive,” Gebremedhin told Arab News. “Right now, they are trapped in another war, experiencing devastation after devastation.”

Last November, the government and the TPLF struck a peace agreement in the South African capital, Pretoria, that allowed additional aid to reach the region. However, despite the pact, the situation remains dire for many Tigrayans.

“The peace process in Ethiopia seems to be working, but Eritreans continue to occupy some parts of Tigray, with the support of the Amhara region forces,” Mohamed Kheir Omer, an expert on the region’s affairs, told Arab News.

The continuing dispute over the status of Western Tigray, also known as Welkait-Tegede among members of the Amhara ethnic group, which borders Sudan, remains an obstacle to the return of displaced communities, he added.

According to Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, the disputed area has been the site of multiple crimes against humanity and bouts of ethnic cleansing.

Tigrayan activists have broadly denounced the Pretoria peace agreement, citing allegations of the continued marginalization and dispossession of their people.

“The political negotiation was one-sided,” Leake Zegeye, an activist who fled the Tigray region when the fighting erupted in late 2020, told Arab News.




A Sudanese army armoured vehicle is stationed in southern Khartoum on May 21, 2023. (AFP)

“The Tigrayan people were not properly represented, and six months after its signing, the deal has been badly implemented.”

To achieve the security of Tigrayans caught up in the fighting in Sudan, Zegeye says the only solution is to resolve the dispute in their home country and permit them to safely return.

“My heart goes out to the people of Sudan because they have been very kind and accommodating,” he said.

“Refugees are now vulnerable to attacks; they must be put back to their rightful places where they were evicted from.”


Explosion occurs at Turkish oil refinery during drills

Updated 53 min 21 sec ago
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Explosion occurs at Turkish oil refinery during drills

  • A fire was quickly brought under control by the privately owned company’s own emergency crews

ANKARA: An explosion occurred at an oil refinery in northwestern Turkey on Tuesday, an official said, adding the situation was “under control” and there were no reports of any casualties.
Mayor Tahir Buyukakin told private NTV television that the blast occurred at the Turkish Petroleum Refineries company, Tupras, in Izmit provicince during “routine drills.”
A fire was quickly brought under control by the privately owned company’s own emergency crews and no request for help was made, he said.
Video footage from the site showed smoke rising from the refinery.
It was not immediately clear what caused the explosion.


Lebanon media reports strike on residential building south of Beirut

Updated 05 November 2024
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Lebanon media reports strike on residential building south of Beirut

BEIRUT: Lebanese state media reported a strike on an apartment in the Jiyeh coastal area south of Beirut on Tuesday, more than a month into the Israel-Hezbollah war.
The official National News Agency said “a raid targeted a residential apartment in a building in the town of Jiyeh,” where an AFP correspondent said a large plume of grey smoke covered the area.


Iran says killed eight militants since attack on police in province bordering Pakistan

Updated 05 November 2024
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Iran says killed eight militants since attack on police in province bordering Pakistan

  • Militants from the Jaish Al-Adl group killed 10 police officers during a raid in Sistan-Baluchistan province on October 26
  • Sistan-Baluchistan, which straddles border with Afghanistan and Pakistan, is one of Iran’s most impoverished provinces

TEHRAN: Iran’s military has killed eight militants in an operation in the restive southeast since a deadly attack last month on a police station, state media reported Tuesday.
Militants from the Pakistan-based Jaish Al-Adl group killed 10 police officers during a raid on October 26 in Sistan-Baluchistan province — one of the deadliest attacks in the region in recent months.
Sistan-Baluchistan, which straddles the border with Afghanistan and Pakistan, is one of Iran’s most impoverished provinces.
It has long been a flashpoint for cross-border attacks by separatists and extremists, opposed to the authorities in Iran.
Revolutionary Guards commander Ahmad Shafahi said “a total of eight terrorists have been killed” since the beginning of operations in the province, according to the official IRNA news agency on Tuesday.
“Fourteen other terrorists have been arrested,” including key figures involved in the attack, he said, adding security forces seized weapons and ammunition.
Shortly after the attack in Taftan county, some 1,200 kilometers (745 miles) southeast of the capital Tehran, a report on the Tasnim news agency said four militants had been killed and four others arrested.
Late on Monday, IRNA quoted Guards ground forces commander Mohammad Pakpour as saying the attackers “were not Iranian,” though he did not specify their nationalities.
In early October, at least six people including police officers were killed in two separate attacks in the province.
Jaish Al-Adl said on Telegram they had carried out the attacks.
Formed in 2012 by Baluch separatists, the group is proscribed as a “terrorist organization” by both Iran and the United States.
 
 


Over 100 patients to be evacuated from Gaza, WHO says

Updated 05 November 2024
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Over 100 patients to be evacuated from Gaza, WHO says

  • The patients will travel in a large convoy on Wednesday via the Kerem Shalom crossing

GENEVA: More than 100 patients including children suffering from trauma injuries and chronic diseases will be evacuated from Gaza on Wednesday in a rare transfer out of the war-ravaged enclave, a World Health Organization official said.
“These are ad hoc measures. What we have requested repeatedly is a sustained medevac (medical evacuation) outside of Gaza,” said Rik Peeperkorn, WHO representative for the Occupied Palestinian Territory, adding that 12,000 people were awaiting transfer.
The patients will travel in a large convoy on Wednesday via the Kerem Shalom crossing with Israel before flying to the United Arab Emirates, he added, and then a portion will travel to Romania.


Iran says two French detainees held in good conditions

Updated 05 November 2024
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Iran says two French detainees held in good conditions

  • In recent years, Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards have arrested dozens of dual nationals and foreigners, mostly on charges related to espionage and security

DUBAI: Two French citizens detained in Iran since May 2022 are in good health and being held in good detention conditions, Iran’s judiciary spokesperson Asghar Jahangir said on Tuesday, according to state media.
Last month, France’s foreign ministry said the conditions that three of its nationals were being held in by Iran were unacceptable.
“According to the relevant authorities, these two people have good conditions in the detention center and are in good health, so any claim regarding their conditions being abnormal is rejected,” Jahangir said.
The spokesperson was referring to Cecile Koehler and Jacques Paris, who he said were arrested on charges of espionage and will have their next court hearing on Nov. 24.
Jahangir did not mention the third French national detained in Iran. French media have disclosed only his first name, Olivier.
In recent years, Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards have arrested dozens of dual nationals and foreigners, mostly on charges related to espionage and security.
Rights groups have accused Iran of trying to extract concessions from other countries through such arrests.