CAIRO: Refugees from Sudan’s civil war who fled into neighboring Ethiopia say they have been forced to move on again and take shelter in a forest and on roadsides after repeated attacks by gunmen left their tents pock-marked with bullet holes.
About 8,000 people have left the Kumer and Awlala refugee camps, set up by the United Nations in Ethiopia’s northern Amhara region, since repeated assaults last month, mostly by bandits, camp representatives told Reuters this week.
They had originally fled fighting that broke out between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in April 2023 that has led to extreme hunger in parts of that country and accusations of ethnic cleansing in Darfur.
“We left our country because we were scared of the stray bullets from the army and RSF,” one young man told Reuters by phone.
“We sought refuge in Ethiopia to save our lives, and now we are facing the same danger.”
He said he had originally left Sudan’s capital Khartoum, then the camps, and was now sheltering in a forest with fellow refugees in the Amhara region — where militias have been battling Ethiopian federal government troops in a separate conflict.
Images sent via WhatsApp and Telegram showed makeshift dwellings made out of branches and tarp, and scores of people, including many children, sitting outside along a roadside. Reuters confirmed the date and location of the photographs.
Like others there, the young man spoke on condition of anonymity, saying he feared reprisals. Their accounts highlighted the lack of options facing Sudan’s refugees as they look for shelter in countries with their own conflicts and shortages.
The Ethiopian government’s Refugee and Returnee Service did not respond to requests for comment. In early May it said it was engaged with refugees to address safety and service concerns, despite limited resources.
The UN refugee agency UNHCR referred Reuters to a statement from last week that acknowledged security incidents and a “deeply challenging” security environment, without going into further details.
In the statement it said Ethiopian police had increased patrols, and that it continued to provide services inside the two camps and to encourage what it said were around 1,000 people outside Awlala to return. There was no-one immediately available to comment on the different estimate of the numbers involved.
Sudan’s war has created the world’s largest displacement crisis, with more than 8.9 million people fleeing their homes. Of the 2.1 million who left the country, more than 122,000 have gone to Ethiopia, according to the International Organization for Migration.
The aid group Medical Teams International, which has run a clinic near the camps in Ethiopia, said last week one of its staff was killed after armed men fired on a convoy.
’CATASTROPHE AFTER CATASTROPHE’
Refugees who were now sheltering outside the camps told Reuters people faced regular violence.
“People have to go to the valley to bathe and wash clothes. But they are either robbed, beaten up, or kidnapped daily,” said one member of a camp leadership committee.
“We are facing catastrophe after catastrophe,” they said.
Cholera has spread in Kumer, where there was at most one doctor available to see patients, several refugees and an aid worker, who asked not to be named, said. Monthly food deliveries by the UN World Food Programme last less than two weeks, two refugees told Reuters.
Three refugees told Reuters that about 6,000 people from Kumer and Awlala had set off together on May 1 to walk 170 km (105 miles) to the UNHCR’s headquarters in Amhara’s main city of Gondar to protest about their conditions.
They were stopped by police and sought shelter in a forest near the Awlala camp, the three refugees said.
Many of them began a 10-day hunger strike over conditions as supplies ran low, which they stopped after donations came in from Sudanese abroad, the only assistance received so far, the three said.
About 2,000 who remained at Kumer fled onto a main road after armed men began firing at the camp on May 1, the committee member and another refugee said. Those who later returned found gunshots had pierced the tents, they said, convincing them that the men aimed to drive them out.
Aid workers, who asked not to be named, say insecurity and a lack of funds have severely hampered relief efforts.
The UN says just $400,000 in funding for Sudanese refugees in Ethiopia has been delivered, out of an appeal for more than $175 million.
Attacks leave Sudanese refugees stranded in Ethiopian forest
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Attacks leave Sudanese refugees stranded in Ethiopian forest
- About 8,000 people have left the Kumer and Awlala refugee camps, set up by the United Nations in Ethiopia’s northern Amhara region, since repeated assaults last month
- “We left our country because we were scared of the stray bullets from the army and RSF,” one young man told Reuters
Israel says it’s moving toward Lebanon ceasefire
- Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, said of a ceasefire: “We haven’t finalized it yet, but we are moving forward”
JERUSALEM/BEIRUT: Israel is moving toward a ceasefire in the war with Hezbollah but there are still issues to address, its government said on Monday, while two senior Lebanese officials voiced guarded optimism of a deal soon even as Israeli strikes pounded Lebanon.
Axios, citing an unnamed senior US official, said Israel and Lebanon had agreed to the terms of a deal, and that Israel’s security cabinet was expected to approve the deal on Tuesday.
Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, said of a ceasefire: “We haven’t finalized it yet, but we are moving forward.” Asked for comment, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said it had nothing to say about the report.
Hostilities have intensified in parallel with the diplomatic flurry: Over the weekend, Israel carried out powerful airstrikes, one of which killed at least 29 people in central Beirut — while the Iran-backed Hezbollah unleashed one of its biggest rocket salvoes yet on Sunday, firing 250 missiles.
In Beirut, Israeli airstrikes levelled more of the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs on Monday, sending clouds of debris billowing over the Lebanese capital.
Efforts to clinch a truce appeared to advance last week when US mediator Amos Hochstein declared significant progress after talks in Beirut before holding meetings in Israel and then returning to Washington.
“We are moving in the direction toward a deal, but there are still some issues to address,” Israeli government spokesperson David Mencer said, without elaborating.
Michael Herzog, the Israeli ambassador in Washington, told Israel’s GLZ radio an agreement was close and “it could happen within days ... We just need to close the last corners,” according to a post on X by GLZ senior anchorman Efi Triger.
In Beirut, Deputy Parliament Speaker Elias Bou Saab said a decisive moment was approaching and expressed cautious optimism. “The balance is slightly tilted toward there being (an agreement), but by a very small degree, because a person like Netanyahu cannot be trusted,” he said in a news conference.
A second senior Lebanese official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Beirut had not received any new Israeli demands from US mediators, who were describing the atmosphere as positive and saying “things are in progress.”
The official told Reuters a ceasefire could be clinched this week.
The conflict between Israel and Hezbollah spiralled into full-scale war in September when Israel went on the offensive, pounding wide areas of Lebanon with airstrikes and sending troops into the south.
Israel has dealt major blows to Hezbollah, killing its leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and other top commanders and inflicting massive destruction in areas of Lebanon where the group holds sway.
Diplomacy has focused on restoring a ceasefire based on UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended a 2006 Hezbollah-Israel war. It requires Hezbollah to pull its fighters back around 30 km (19 miles) from the Israeli border.
ENFORCEMENT
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said the test for any agreement would be in the enforcement of two main points.
“The first is preventing Hezbollah from moving southward beyond the Litani (River), and the second, preventing Hezbollah from rebuilding its force and rearming in all of Lebanon,” Saar said in broadcast remarks to the Israeli parliament.
Far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said Israel must press on with the war until “absolute victory.” Addressing Netanyahu on X, he said “it is not too late to stop this agreement!“
But Agriculture Minister Avi Dichter said Israel should reach an agreement in Lebanon. “If we say ‘no’ to Hezbollah being south of the Litani, we mean it,” he told journalists.
Hezbollah leader Sheikh Naim Qassem said last week that the group had reviewed and given feedback on the US ceasefire proposal, and any truce was now in Israel’s hands.
Branded a terrorist group by the United States, the heavily armed, Shiite Muslim Hezbollah has endorsed Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri of the Shiite Amal movement to negotiate.
Israel says its aim is to secure the return home of tens of thousands of people evacuated from its north due to rocket attacks by Hezbollah, which opened fire in support of Hamas at the start of the Gaza war in October 2023.
Israel’s offensive has forced more than 1 million people from their homes in Lebanon.
Diplomacy has focused on restoring a ceasefire based on UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended a 2006 Hezbollah-Israel war. It requires Hezbollah to pull its fighters back around 30 km (19 miles) from the Israeli border, and the regular Lebanese army to deploy into the frontier region.
Arrest Warrant: UK would follow ‘due process’ if Netanyahu were to visit – foreign minister
- ICC issued arrest warrants on Thursday against Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu
- Several EU states have said they will meet commitments under the statute if needed
FIUGGI: Britain would follow due process if Benjamin Netanyahu visited the UK, foreign minister David Lammy said on Monday, when asked if London would fulfil the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant against the Israeli prime minister.
“We are signatories to the Rome Statute, we have always been committed to our obligations under international law and international humanitarian law,” Lammy told reporters at a G7 meeting in Italy.
“Of course, if there were to be such a visit to the UK, there would be a court process and due process would be followed in relation to those issues.”
The ICC issued the warrants on Thursday against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his former defense minister Yoav Gallant, and Hamas leader Ibrahim Al-Masri for alleged crimes against humanity.
Several EU states have said they will meet their commitments under the statute if needed, but Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has invited Netanyahu to visit his country, assuring him he would face no risks if he did so.
“The states that signed the Rome convention must implement the court’s decision. It’s not optional,” Josep Borrell, the EU’s top diplomat, said during a visit to Cyprus for a workshop of Israeli and Palestinian peace activists.
Those same obligations were also binding on countries aspiring to join the EU, he said.
Turkiye man kills seven before taking his own life
Istanbul: A 33-year-old Turkish man shot dead seven people in Istanbul on Sunday, including his parents, his wife and his 10-year-old son, before taking his own life, the authorities reported on Monday.
The man, who was found dead in his car shortly after the shooting, is also accused of wounding two other family members, one of them seriously, the Istanbul governor’s office said in a statement.
The authorities, who had put the death toll at four on Sunday evening, announced on Monday the discovery near a lake on Istanbul’s European shore of the bodies of the killer’s wife and son, as well as the lifeless body of his mother-in-law.
According to the Small Arms Survey (SAS), a Swiss research program, over 13.2 million firearms are in circulation in Turkiye, most of them illegally, for a population of around 85 million.
2 Palestinians killed in Israeli raid in West Bank: PA
- The official Palestinian news agency Wafa said Israeli forces entered the village on Sunday night
Yabad: The Palestinian Authority said two Palestinians, including a teenage boy, were killed during an Israeli raid in the occupied West Bank village of Yabad.
The official Palestinian news agency Wafa said Israeli forces entered the village on Sunday night, leading to clashes during which soldiers shot dead two Palestinians.
The two dead were identified by the Palestinian health ministry as Muhammad Rabie Hamarsheh, 13, and Ahmad Mahmud Zaid, 20.
“Overnight, during an IDF (Israeli army) counterterrorism activity in the area of Yabad, two terrorists hurled explosives at IDF soldiers. The soldiers responded with fire and hits were identified,” an Israeli military source told AFP.
Last week, the Israeli army launched several raids in the West Bank city of Jenin, killing nine people, most of them Palestinian militants.
Violence in the West Bank has soared since the war in Gaza erupted on October 7 last year after Hamas’s attack on Israel.
Israeli troops or settlers have killed at least 777 Palestinians in the West Bank since the start of the Gaza war, according to the Ramallah-based health ministry.
Palestinian attacks on Israelis have also killed at least 24 people in the West Bank in the same period, according to Israeli official figures.
Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967.
Israel says hit Hezbollah command center in deadly weekend strike
- The strike hit a residential building in the heart of Beirut before dawn Saturday
- Since September 23, Israel has intensified its Lebanon air campaign
JERUSALEM: The Israeli army on Monday said it had struck a Hezbollah command center in the downtown Beirut neighborhood of Basta in a deadly air strike at the weekend.
“The IDF (Israeli military) struck a Hezbollah command center,” the army said regarding the strike that the Lebanese health ministry said killed 29 people and wounded 67 on Saturday.
The strike hit a residential building in the heart of Beirut before dawn Saturday, leaving a large crater, AFP journalists at the scene reported.
A senior Lebanese security source said that “a high-ranking Hezbollah officer was targeted” in the strike, without confirming whether or not the official had been killed.
Hezbollah official Amin Cherri said no leader of the Lebanese movement was targeted in Basta.
Since September 23, Israel has intensified its Lebanon air campaign, later sending in ground troops against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.
The war followed nearly a year of limited exchanges of fire initiated by Hezbollah in support of its ally Hamas after the Palestinian group’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which sparked the Gaza war.
The conflict has killed at least 3,754 people in Lebanon since October 2023, according to the health ministry, most of them since September this year.
On the Israeli side, authorities say at least 82 soldiers and 47 civilians have been killed.
