Scorching summer traps people of Sudan between conflict and deadly heat

Sudanese refugees and ethnic South Sudanese families who have fled from the war in Sudan gather after crossing the border while waiting to be registered by the authorities at the Joda Border Crossing Point, near Renk. (AFP)
Short Url
Updated 26 June 2024
Follow

Scorching summer traps people of Sudan between conflict and deadly heat

  • Dozens attempting to illegally cross the border into Egypt have died amid a severe summer heatwave
  • Worsening climatic conditions may be placing millions at risk of food insecurity and, consequently, malnutrition

LONDON: Desperate to escape the violence raging across Sudan, thousands of people are setting off on the perilous journey to neighboring states. On the way, however, many are confronted by another hazard — deadly heat.

Dozens of people attempting to illegally cross the border into Egypt have died as the region reels from a severe summer heatwave. Earlier this month, temperatures in Egypt’s southern governorate of Aswan rose to a record 49.6 degrees Celsius in the shade.

The Refugee Platform, an independent Egyptian rights organization, said on June 17 that Aswan locals had found vehicles on remote desert roads filled with the bodies of migrants who had perished.




About 500,000 people from Sudan have fled to Egypt alone since the beginning of the conflict. (AFP)

It reported that 51 people died, presumably on their way to Egypt, as a result of dehydration, heat stroke or road accidents, compounded by lack of medical care. Survivors hospitalized in Aswan informed the Refugee Platform that the number of missing migrants exceeds those who have been found.

Many families have reported their loved ones missing. “My aunt lost contact with her 34-year-old son for two weeks earlier this month, only to later hear from a friend who had reached Egypt that he died of heat stroke before they crossed the border,” said Manal, a UK-based Sudanese nurse, whose name has been changed to protect her anonymity.

She told Arab News that her cousin, who was uprooted from his home in the capital Khartoum, had previously sent his mother, wife and their five-year-old son to Egypt when Sudanese women and minors were exempt from visa requirements.

The conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, which erupted on April 15 last year, has displaced 9.1 million people, with 2.1 million having fled abroad, according to UN figures.

According to the International Organization for Migration, about 500,000 people from Sudan have fled to Egypt alone since the beginning of the conflict.

This year's Global Peace Index, produced by the Sydney-headquartered Institute for Economics and Peace, classified Sudan as the second least peaceful country in the world, preceded only by Yemen.

Before its descent into horror, Sudan was Africa’s second-largest refugee host, accommodating over 1 million refugees from Syria, Ethiopia, South Sudan, Eritrea, the Central African Republic, Chad and Yemen.

Today, Sudanese refugees form the largest exile community in Egypt, with more than 300,000 registered with the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR, in the neighboring country.




Many families have reported their loved ones missing. (AFP)

Nairobi-based World Food Program communications officer Alessandro Abbonizio described Sudan’s refugee crisis as “the world’s largest displacement crisis,” with hundreds of thousands of Sudanese people also fleeing to other neighboring countries, including Chad and South Sudan.

He said that while the WFP “has mobilized massive responses” in neighboring countries to support families fleeing Sudan, many of these nations already grapple with “high levels of food insecurity.”

“The arrival of Sudanese refugees in those countries is stretching WFP’s already underfunded refugee and humanitarian operations across the region,” he told Arab News. “In South Sudan, WFP has already had to reduce humanitarian assistance, and vulnerable families are only receiving half rations.”

An estimated 7.1 million people in South Sudan already face acute or worse food insecurity, as per UN figures, with the number of those facing starvation and death projected to almost double between April and July 2024, compared with the same period last year.

Abbonizio pointed out that thousands of people from Sudan continue to cross the border into South Sudan every week, adding that “families are arriving with stories of long journeys with little food or water and citing violence and lack of food as the main reasons that they left Sudan.”

South Sudan too has been experiencing extreme heat since March when authorities ordered schools to shut across the country. The country, which gained independence from Sudan in 2011, is highly exposed to climatic events such as droughts, floods and rising temperatures, which have led to further displacement, food insecurity and religious and ethnic unrest.

In Chad, “piecemeal funding has forced WFP to operate month-by-month, falling short of meeting the needs of refugees (including those from Sudan) and crisis-affected host communities,” Abbonizio said.

In the absence of preventive measures, worsening climatic conditions spell doom for the region, placing millions at greater risk of food insecurity and, consequently, malnutrition.




Long waiting times and lack of basic amenities at the Sudan-Egypt border are pushing increasing numbers of people in Sudan to take illegal routes into Egypt. (AFP)

A UN Food and Agriculture Organization report cautioned that extreme climatic events “could have major implications for several hotspots, including risk of floods in parts of South Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia, Haiti, Chad, Mali and Nigeria, as well as Sudan.”

The Hunger Hotspots report, published on June 5, highlighted that “Mali, Palestine, South Sudan and Sudan remain at the highest alert level and require the most urgent attention.”

WFP’s Abbonizio warned that as the rainy season arrives in the coming weeks, access to parts of Eastern Chad will be cut off, potentially worsening the food insecurity crisis in the region.

Noting that 3.4 million people in Chad are projected to face acute food insecurity during the current lean season from June to August, he said: “This year is becoming a race against time as the rainy season is expected to begin in the coming weeks and could cut off access to parts of Eastern Chad.”

INNUMBERS

• 700,000+ Refugees and returnees who have fled from Sudan into South Sudan since April 2023.

• 900,000+ People projected to flee from Sudan into Chad by 2024 end.

• 300,000+ Sudanese refugees registered with UNHCR in Egypt.

Abbonizio called for urgent funding “to preposition food supplies for its refugee response ahead of the start of the rains,” adding that “WFP is also supporting hundreds of thousands of Sudanese refugees in Ethiopia, Uganda and Egypt with food, cash, and nutrition assistance.”

Meanwhile, long waiting times and lack of basic amenities at the Sudan-Egypt border are pushing increasing numbers of people in Sudan to take illegal routes into Egypt in hopes of finding sanctuary.




The conflict has displaced 9.1 million people, with 2.1 million having fled abroad. (AFP)

“Some of the bodies arrived with their skin peeled off and suffering from dehydration,” a medical source at a hospital in Aswan told the Mada Masr news outlet.

Survivors of the ordeal said that “dozens in the desert have no water,” and “entire families died because of the high temperatures and were left there.”

The precise number of people who have died in the process is difficult to ascertain. The Refugee Platform said that, between June 7 and June 9, 40 people, including children, women and entire families, lost their lives. The number is expected to rise as more bodies are uncovered.

In June last year, Cairo announced that all Sudanese people must hold valid visas prior to entering Egypt, scrapping a law that only required Sudanese men aged 16 to 50 to have a visa.

As Egypt has further tightened entry and residency requirements, at least 120,000 people, lacking travel documents, remain in limbo on the Sudan side of the border, according to an AFP news agency report.

Since September, Egyptian authorities have also carried out arrests of Sudanese refugees “based on their migration status.” The decision was made after authorities detected “unlawful activities,” including visa forgery, an Egyptian foreign ministry spokesperson told the Reuters news agency.




Cairo announced that all Sudanese people must hold valid visas prior to entering Egypt. (AFP)

In March, the Sudanese Dabanga Radio cited a thriving trade in forged Egyptian visas at the Argeen border crossing between the two countries.

In a condolence message to the families of those who have died trying to reach Egypt, Abdelgadir Abdallah, Sudan’s consul general in Aswan, warned of the dangers of using irregular means to enter Egypt. “Avoid using this method. Some areas in Sudan are safe; remain there,” he said.


’Strong likelihood’ famine imminent in north Gaza, say food security experts

Updated 4 sec ago
Follow

’Strong likelihood’ famine imminent in north Gaza, say food security experts

The warning comes just days ahead of a US deadline for Israel to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza

LONDON: There is a “strong likelihood that famine is imminent in areas” of the northern Gaza Strip, a committee of global food security experts warned on Friday, as Israel pursues a military offensive against Palestinian militants Hamas in the area.
“Immediate action, within days not weeks, is required from all actors who are directly taking part in the conflict, or have influence on its conduct, to avert and alleviate this catastrophic situation,” the independent Famine Review Committee (FRC) said in a rare alert.
The warning comes just days ahead of a US deadline for Israel to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza or face potential restrictions on US military aid.

Israeli army discovers ‘Hezbollah training center’ near UNIFIL outpost as raids continue in Lebanon

Updated 28 min 22 sec ago
Follow

Israeli army discovers ‘Hezbollah training center’ near UNIFIL outpost as raids continue in Lebanon

  • Several videos showed residential houses and tourist, social and religious facilities being set with explosives and blown up remotely
  • Adraee also accused Hezbollah of “using ambulances to transport saboteurs and arms” and called on “medical personnel to avoid dealing and cooperating with Hezbollah members”

BEIRUT: The Israeli army on Friday continued to destroy houses in Lebanon’s southern border villages to establish a buffer zone. The latest bombing targeted the areas of Yaroun, Aitaroun and Maroun Al-Ras in Bint Jbeil.
Several videos showed residential houses and tourist, social and religious facilities being set with explosives and blown up remotely.
In parallel with the deliberate destruction, Israeli army spokesperson Avichay Adraee issued “a new urgent warning to the residents of southern Lebanon,” instructing them “to refrain from returning to the south, or to their houses or olive fields,” describing the region as “a dangerous combat zone.”
Adraee also accused Hezbollah of “using ambulances to transport saboteurs and arms” and called on “medical personnel to avoid dealing and cooperating with Hezbollah members.”
The army will take the “necessary measures against any vehicle transporting armed members regardless of its type,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Israeli army claimed that “surveillance cameras of the Oded Brigade reservists captured a Hezbollah training center just 200 meters from a UNIFIL outpost.”
The army claimed that “the forces discovered the training facility, which was used by Hezbollah for training, studying, and storing large quantities of weapons.”
It said that “the facility contained missile launchers used for firing at Israeli settlements, as well as documents and instructional books detailing Hezbollah’s operational methods, maps of Israel, explanations of the Israeli army’s equipment, and additional weapons.” The army said “the weapons were confiscated and the compound was dismantled.”
The Israeli army resumed raids on the Baalbek-Hermel area, killing and injuring people and causing further destruction.
The Ministerial Emergency Committee estimated that, as of Thursday evening, Israel had conducted 121 raids, including 56 on Nabatieh, 24 on Baalbek and 23 in the south.
The committee said the number of people killed so far in Israeli attacks on Lebanon exceed 3,100, while 14,000 people have been injured.
More than 1.2 million people have been displaced, with close to 200,000 staying in shelters, it added.
Lebanese observers believe this transitional phase, from now until US President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration, is the most dangerous period for Lebanon.
Raids on Kfar Tebnit killed two people after a building comprising residential apartments and commercial shops was destroyed.
A raid on Zebdine in Nabatieh killed Mohammed Fayez Mokaddam and his sons, Fayez and Hadi Mokaddem, after their building was destroyed.
Zaher Ibrahim Ataya, a medic with Hezbollah’s Islamic Health Committee from the southern town of Tair Harfa, was killed when Israeli forces struck a newly established medical center.
The strike was part of a broader Israeli aerial campaign that targeted more than 50 towns across the Tyre and Bint Jbeil districts in the past 48 hours.
The Lebanese Red Cross chief Georges Kettaneh announced that rescue teams have returned to Wata Al-Khiyam to complete the recovery of victims from an incident on Oct. 27.
Working alongside UNIFIL forces and the Lebanese Army, teams recovered four bodies and remains, with efforts continuing to ensure the mission’s completion.
Earlier the Red Cross retrieved 17 bodies from the site where civilians, who had been tending to livestock, sought shelter in a building during an Israeli incursion.
The Israeli military initially stalled permission for the Lebanese Red Cross to recover the victims, eventually granting only a four-hour window for the operation.
The Israeli air campaign extended to Lebanon’s Bekaa region, with strikes hitting Hrabta town west of Baalbek and Hosh Al-Sayyed Ali near the Syrian border north of Hermel.
Sirens sounded across northern Israel, including Haifa, Nazareth, Kiryat Shmona and surrounding areas, as well as the Ramat Trump settlement in the Golan Heights and Israeli media reported approximately 30 rockets launched from Lebanon toward northern Israel and Haifa’s suburbs.
The Israeli military confirmed detecting about 20 rockets, with some being intercepted, and reported drone incursions in northern airspace, including one near Caesarea.
The Israeli military announced the death of a soldier from Battalion 8207, Alon Brigade (228), who succumbed to wounds sustained in southern Lebanon on Oct. 26, while Israeli army radio detailed a fierce battle in the border village of Aitaroun that claimed the lives of six Israeli soldiers.
Hezbollah said on Friday it had launched “dozens of rockets reaching as far as Haifa and south of Nazareth.”
The group claimed strikes on several targets, including the Stella Maris naval base and Ramat David air base, northwest and southeast of Haifa, respectively, Kiryat Shmona settlement, and military gatherings in Misgav Am and Margaliot settlements.
In response to Israeli infiltration attempts, Hezbollah reported targeting Israeli forces south of Adaisseh with artillery fire. The group also claimed to have destroyed a military bulldozer and inflicting casualties on accompanying infantry forces trying to advance northwest of Kfarkila.


Buried for 14 hours after Israeli strike, Lebanese toddler makes recovery

Updated 23 min 6 sec ago
Follow

Buried for 14 hours after Israeli strike, Lebanese toddler makes recovery

  • Two-year-old Ali Khalifeh is the only survivor of his family after Israel blew up the apartment block where they lived
  • The toddler’s parents, sister and two grandmothers all perished in the strike that killed 15

SIDON, Lebanon: Rescuers did not expect to find two-year-old Ali Khalifeh alive after an Israeli strike on southern Lebanon killed his entire family and left him trapped under the rubble for 14 hours.
Amputated, bandaged and hooked to a respirator in a hospital bed that was way too big for him, “Ali is the sole survivor of his family,” said Hussein Khalifeh, his father’s uncle.
The toddler’s parents, sister and two grandmothers all perished in the strike on September 29, days after Israel intensified its attacks on Hezbollah militants.
The strike on Sarafand, some 15 kilometers (nine miles) south of the coastal city of Sidon, flattened an apartment complex and killed 15 people, many of them relatives, according to residents.
“Rescue workers had almost lost hope of finding anyone alive under the rubble,” 45-year-old Khalifeh told AFP from the hospital in Sidon where his two-year-old relative was being treated.
But then “Ali appeared among debris in the shovel of the bulldozer, after we all thought he had died,” he said.
“He emerged from the rubble, barely breathing, after 14 hours.”
Israel has been at war with Hezbollah since late September, when it broadened its war focus from fighting Hamas militants in Gaza to securing its northern border with Lebanon.
An escalating Israeli air campaign, after nearly a year of low intensity cross-border fire, has killed more than 2,600 people across Lebanon since September 23, according to health ministry figures.
Signs of the violence were apparent even at the hospital in Sidon where Ali was rushed to following the strike on Sarafand.
The toddler, under a medically induced coma after doctors amputated his right hand, has since been transferred to a medical facility in the capital Beirut where he is due to undergo pre-prosthetic surgery.
“Ali was sleeping on the couch at home when the strike hit. He is still asleep today... were are waiting to complete his surgeries before waking him up,” said the relative Hussein Khalifeh.
Other family members were also fighting to stay alive after the Sarafand strike.
One of Khalifeh’s nieces, 32-year-old Zainab, was trapped under the rubble for two hours before being rescued and transferred to the nearest hospital, said the man.
It was there that she was later informed that her parents, her husband and three children, aged between three and seven, had all been killed.
The strike left her with only one, severely injured eye.
Zainab said she “did not hear the sounds of the missiles that rained down on her family’s home,” according to Khalifeh.
“She only saw darkness and heard deafening screams,” he said.
Ali Alaa El-Din, a doctor treating her, said that “the psychological scars that Zainab suffered are much greater than her physical injury.”
He has also tended Zainab’s sister Fatima, 30, who was wounded in the same strike.
Both had injuries “throughout their bodies, with fractures in the feet and damage to the lungs,” said the doctor.
Medically, he added, “Zainab and Fatima’s cases are not among the most difficult cases we have faced during the war, but they are the most severe from a psychological and human perspective.”


UN accuses Israel of ‘deliberate’ attack on peacekeeping position in Lebanon

Updated 12 min 58 sec ago
Follow

UN accuses Israel of ‘deliberate’ attack on peacekeeping position in Lebanon

  • UN Interim Force in Lebanon cites ‘seven other similar incidents’
  • Accuses Israel of ‘flagrant violation of international law and resolution 1701’

NEW YORK: The UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon on Friday said two Israeli excavators and a bulldozer destroyed part of a fence and a concrete structure in one of its positions in Ras Naqoura in southern Lebanon.

The UN Interim Force in Lebanon added that in response to its “urgent protest,” the Israel Defense Forces denied any activity was taking place inside its position.

UNIFIL is stationed in southern Lebanon to monitor hostilities along the demarcation line with Israel, an area that has seen more than a year of fighting that turned into fierce clashes since last month between Israeli soldiers and Hezbollah fighters.

Israel claims that UN forces provide cover for Hezbollah, and has told UNIFIL to evacuate peacekeepers from southern Lebanon for their own safety.

But UNIFIL said the incident, which took place on Thursday, “like seven other similar incidents, is not a matter of peacekeepers getting caught in the crossfire, but of deliberate and direct actions by the IDF.”

UNIFIL issued a statement warning that “the IDF’s deliberate and direct destruction of clearly identifiable UNIFIL property is a flagrant violation of international law and resolution 1701.”

It called on the IDF and all other actors to honor “their obligation to ensure the safety and security of UN personnel and property and respect the inviolability of UN premises at all times.”

UNIFIL also expressed concern over the destruction and removal this week of two of the blue barrels that mark the UN-delineated line of withdrawal between Lebanon and Israel (the Blue Line). Peacekeepers said they directly observed the IDF removing one of them.

“Despite the unacceptable pressures being exerted on the mission through various channels, peacekeepers will continue to undertake our mandated monitoring and reporting tasks under resolution 1701,” UNIFIL said.


Netanyahu appoints Yechiel Leiter as new ambassador to US

Updated 53 min 44 sec ago
Follow

Netanyahu appoints Yechiel Leiter as new ambassador to US

  • His son was killed last year in Gaza war against Hamas
  • Leiter’s appointment came three days after Trump’s election to second term as US president

JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appointed US-born Yechiel Leiter, an official who previously served as chief of staff in the finance ministry, as the next Israeli ambassador to the United States.
“Yechiel Leiter is a highly capable diplomat, an eloquent speaker, and possesses a deep understanding of American culture and politics,” Netanyahu said in a statement.
His appointment was also welcomed by Yisrael Ganz, the head of the Yesha Council, an umbrella organization representing councils of Jewish settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, a territory Palestinians want as part of a future state.
Ganz said Leiter, who lives in the Gush Etzion settlement area, as “a key partner in English-language advocacy for Judea and Samaria,” a name used by many Israelis for the West Bank, which Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war.
Leiter’s appointment came three days after Donald Trump’s election to a second term as US president, celebrated by many Israelis because of his strong support for Israel.
As well as serving in the finance ministry, Leiter also held positions as deputy director general in the Education Ministry and acting chairman of the Israel Ports Company.
His son was killed last year in the Gaza war against Palestinian militant group Hamas while serving with the Israeli military.