Sudan talks end with progress on two safe aid routes

The talks in Switzerland were co-hosted by Saudi Arabia and the US. (AFP)
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Updated 24 August 2024
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Sudan talks end with progress on two safe aid routes

  • Fighting goes on but two humanitarian routes secured for vital deliveries

GENEVA: Talks on the devastating war in Sudan ended Friday without a ceasefire but with progress on securing aid access on two key routes into a country facing one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
War has raged since April 2023 between the Sudanese army under the country’s de facto ruler Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), led by his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.
The brutal conflict has forced one in five people to flee their homes, while tens of thousands have died. More than 25 million across Sudan — more than half its population — face acute hunger.
The United States opened talks in Switzerland on August 14 aimed at easing the human suffering and achieving a lasting ceasefire.
While an RSF delegation showed up, the Sudanese armed forces (SAF) were unhappy with the format and did not attend, though they were in telephone contact with the mediators.
The talks were co-hosted by Saudi Arabia and Switzerland, with the African Union, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and the UN completing the so-called Aligned for Advancing Lifesaving and Peace in Sudan Group (ALPS).
“The ALPS Group secured guarantees from both parties to the conflict to provide safe and unhindered humanitarian access through two key arteries — the Western border crossing in Darfur at Adre and the Dabbah Road with access through the north and west from Port Sudan,” a concluding statement said.
Aid trucks were driving toward the Zamzam displacement camp in Darfur, where famine has been declared, it added.
“These routes must remain open and safe so we can surge aid into Darfur and begin to turn the tide against famine. Food and starvation cannot be used as a weapon of war,” the group said.
The mediators said they were also making progress on opening an access route through the Sennar junction in the southeast.
The SAF’s no-show at the talks “limited our ability to make more substantial progress” toward a national ceasefire, the group said, adding that the door remained open to both parties in future rounds of talks.

The mediation group said the talks had focused on trying to improve the lot of civilians caught up in the conflict.
“We have urged both parties, and received the RSF’s commitment, to issue command directives to all fighters throughout their ranks to refrain from violations, including violence against women or children, the use of starvation or checkpoints for exploitation, and attacks on humanitarian operations,” plus attacks on agriculture, they said.
The RSF had also accepted a “streamlined notification system” to facilitate humanitarian aid delivery, the mediators said.
Meanwhile they presented both warring parties with a plan for ensuring compliance with agreements and resolving related disputes.

During the talks, the government agreed to reopen the Adre crossing from Chad into Sudan’s western Darfur region — something aid organizations had long been pressing for. The UN humanitarian agency OCHA said 15 trucks had made it over the border.
Tom Perriello, the US special envoy for Sudan who convened the Swiss talks, said it remained to be seen whether those first trucks were “the beginning of hundreds, or yet another loss of hope.”
OCHA spokesman Jens Laerke told reporters the opening of the crossings was “a step in the right direction.”
“However, fighting the deepening hunger crisis in Sudan means making sure that aid trucks can continue to cross there to secure a steady flow of food, nutrition, water, sanitation, hygiene, and medical supplies,” he said.
Laerke said more than 130 trucks were approved to cross, but logistical problems kicked in, while the rainy season could also see trucks get bogged down.
Sudan is dealing with outbreaks of measles, dengue fever, malaria, meningitis, polio and cholera.
The World Health Organization said it had secured 455,000 cholera vaccine doses to help fight a new wave of cases fueled by floods and poor sanitation.
The WHO said there were 658 cases and 28 deaths in the month since the first suspected cases were reported, with Kassala (473) and Gedaref (110) states hardest hit.


Syria’s Aleppo International Airport reopens for domestic, international flights

Updated 3 sec ago
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Syria’s Aleppo International Airport reopens for domestic, international flights

  • The first passenger flight from Damascus landed after the country’s second major hub reopened for air traffic on Tuesday

LONDON: The Syrian Arab Republic reopened the country’s second major airport for flights after nearly three months of closure.

The first passenger flight from Damascus landed at Aleppo International Airport after it reopened for air traffic on Tuesday, amid an official ceremony attended by representatives of Syria’s new interim government, the SANA news agency reported.

The airport was closed in November during the offensive by rebel groups against the regime of Bashar Assad in early December.

Syrian authorities have conducted maintenance and restoration work over the past three months to resume air traffic to and from Aleppo, the country’s second largest city after the capital and an important industrial and trade center.

Authorities announced that Aleppo will begin receiving international flights, facilitating the return of nearly 10 million Syrian refugees currently living in Turkey and Europe. It will also enable the visits of local and foreign investors to the city, SANA added.

Alaa Sallal, the director of relations at the Syrian Civil Aviation Authority, said efforts are underway to expand Aleppo International Airport’s services “to turn it into a key air gateway in Syria capable of handling more flights and connecting the country to the world.”

In January, international flights to and from Damascus resumed for the first time since the fall of Assad with a direct flight from Doha — the first in 13 years.


Netanyahu coalition jeopardized over ultra-Orthodox exemption from army

Updated 36 min 19 sec ago
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Netanyahu coalition jeopardized over ultra-Orthodox exemption from army

  • The government must pass the budget by the end of the month or call snap elections
  • United Torah Judaism holds seven seats in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament

BNEI BRAK, Israel: One of Israel’s most divisive domestic issues has reared itself again to challenge Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, after a group in the ruling coalition said it would bring the government down unless it exempts ultra-Orthodox Jews from army service.
Some members of United Torah Judaism, one of two ultra-Orthodox Jewish parties in the coalition, said in a letter that they would vote against the budget if the government did not pass a new law formalising exemptions for religious students.
“If this matter is once again sidelined or delayed for any reason, we will not be able to continue as partners in the coalition,” said the March 6 letter signed by Housing Minister and party chairman Yitzhak Goldknopf and two others.
The government must pass the budget by the end of the month or call snap elections. United Torah Judaism holds seven seats in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament.
It is too early to predict the consequences. Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, is a proven master at smoothing over disagreements in his coalitions. An ultra-nationalist group that quit the government over the ceasefire in Gaza in January announced on Tuesday it was returning.
But pollster Mitchell Barak, who worked for Netanyahu in the 1990s, said this time ultra-Orthodox politicians appeared unwilling to compromise, and the prime minister might have to look outside the coalition for support to pass the budget, an extraordinary step.
“He’s going to look for someone who can compromise, save him, and be that ‘freyer’,” he said, speaking before the ultra-nationalists announced their return to the coalition and using a Yiddish word for someone who lets others take advantage of him. “That’s how he operates.”
The prime minister’s office declined to comment on the ultra-Orthodox ultimatum and whether he believed the budget could pass without their support.

MILITARY STRAINED
In Israel, military service is mandatory at age 18, after which Israelis become reservists liable to be called up for training or deployment.
But dating back to Israel’s founding in 1948 it made an exemption for ultra-Orthodox communities, known as Haredim, whose young men mainly dedicate their lives to studying religious texts in academies known as yeshivot.
Those communities were initially small but have grown rapidly in the following decades. According to government data, there are now 1.4 million Haredim, accounting for about 14 percent of the population, deepening resentment among other Israelis who are conscripted.
In 2017, the Supreme Court ruled that the exemption was unconstitutional, and last year it ordered the military to conscript yeshiva students. Legal experts say the only way to restore the exemption would be to pass a new law enshrining it.
Members of the Haredi community say they would resist any attempt to conscript their children.
“They can put us in prison,” said Yehoshua Menuchin at his home in Bnei Brak, a densely populated city close to Tel Aviv where many Haredim live.
Menuchin, who has a 19-year-old son who is not serving, said the debate was driven by politics, rather than by genuine military need.
“If it’s a matter of survival, like an Arab invasion, then the Haredim will be the first to volunteer in order to save lives. But as long as it is political, it won’t ever happen.”
But 18 months into war in Gaza and major military operations in the West Bank and Lebanon, resentment is growing, and many lawmakers say the exemption is unjustifiable.
“They don’t know what 30 days of reserve duty a year is, and they don’t know what it is to dread that knock on the door,” centrist opposition lawmaker Elazar Stern, a former general, told Reuters, referring to the moment a parent learns of a child’s death in service.

DIVINE INTERVENTION
The Haredim live in insular neighborhoods centered around strict religious observance, with their own schools that largely eschew math and science. They have twice as many children as the national average, rely heavily on state welfare and charity, and those who work are often in low-paying jobs.
They believe that sending their children to the military is an existential threat, fearing that exposure to secular Israelis and outside influences could undermine their way of life.
“I know one thing: we must go the way the Torah instructs us,” said Meir Zvi Bergman, one of Israel’s most widely followed Haredi rabbis. “God does not want us to go, so we won’t go.”
The army says it is working to create conditions to make it easier for more Haredim to serve, such as dedicated battalions with strict religious practices, including regular prayer and gender segregation.
“The responsibility to defend the country must be shared fairly,” Eyal Zamir, Israel’s new chief of the military staff, said in a speech this month taking up his post. (Reporting by Alexander Cornwell, additional reporting by Maayan Lubell and Steven Scheer)


South Sudan party partially withdraws from peace process

Updated 18 March 2025
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South Sudan party partially withdraws from peace process

  • “The ongoing political witch-hunts continue to threaten the very essence and the existence of the (peace deal),” Pierino said
  • The fighting around Nasir in Upper Nile state has displaced 50,000 people since late February, according to the UN Humanitarian Coordinator

NAIROBI: A major party in South Sudan’s coalition government said on Tuesday it had suspended its role in a key element of a 2018 peace deal as relations between its leader Riek Machar and President Salva Kiir deteriorate amid clashes and arrests.
The agreement ended a five-year war between forces loyal to Kiir and his rival Machar, who now serves as First Vice President leading the SPLM-IO party. But the two men have a fractious relationship, which has worsened in recent weeks following clashes in the country’s east.
Earlier this month security forces rounded up several SPLM-IO officials, including the petroleum minister and the deputy head of the army, after the White Army ethnic militia forced troops to withdraw from the town of Nasir near the Ethiopian border.
The government has accused the SPLM-IO of links with the White Army, which mostly comprises armed ethnic Nuer youths who fought alongside Machar’s forces in the 2013-2018 war against predominantly ethnic Dinka troops loyal to Kiir. The party denies the allegations.
Oyet Nathaniel Pierino, deputy chairman of the SPLM-IO, said on Tuesday the party would not participate in security arrangements tied to the peace process until the detained officials were released.
“The ongoing political witch-hunts continue to threaten the very essence and the existence of the (peace deal),” Pierino said in a statement.
The fighting around Nasir in Upper Nile state has displaced 50,000 people since late February, of which 10,000 have fled to Ethiopia, according to Anita Kiki Gbeho, the United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator in South Sudan.

RAMPANT HATE SPEECH
South Sudan’s United Nations peacekeeping chief Nicholas Haysom said he was concerned the country was “on the brink of relapse into civil war.”
“With the proliferation of mis/disinformation in the public domain, hate speech is now rampant, raising concerns that the conflict could assume an ethnic dimension,” he said in a speech to the African Union.
Analysts say the war in neighboring Sudan has also spurred the breakdown of the peace process, with South Sudan’s oil revenues suspended, escalating regional tensions and arms flooding across the border.
“Already we are seeing the initial stages of spillover fighting in Upper Nile from the Sudan war. It will be difficult to prevent those tensions from spreading to (the capital) Juba,” said Alan Boswell from the International Crisis Group.


Families urge Israel PM to ‘stop the killing’ of Gaza hostages

Updated 18 March 2025
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Families urge Israel PM to ‘stop the killing’ of Gaza hostages

  • The Hostages and Missing Families Forum said it had received no response to its request to meet with Netanyahu
  • “Now it becomes clear — the public officials did not meet with them because they were planning the explosion of the ceasefire”

JERUSALEM: Relatives of Israeli hostages in Gaza accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Tuesday of sacrificing their loved ones by carrying out a wave of deadly strikes that threatened a fragile truce.
The Hostages and Missing Families Forum said it had received no response to its request to meet with Netanyahu and other officials to hear how the remaining hostages would be “protected from the military pressure.”
“Now it becomes clear — the public officials did not meet with them because they were planning the explosion of the ceasefire, which could sacrifice their family members,” the campaign group said.
Of the 251 hostages seized during Hamas’s unprecedented October 2023 attack which sparked the war, 58 are still held in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.
The overngith air strikes were by far the deadliest since a January ceasefire that largely halted the fighting and saw the handover of 33 hostages, both alive and dead, in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.
The health ministry in the Hamas-controlled territory said at least 413 people were killed in the strikes.
The forum called on supporters of the hostages to cemonstrate outside Netanyahu’s office in Jerusalem, warning that “military pressure could further endanger their lives and complicate efforts to bring them back safe and sound.”
“The families of the hostages will demand: Stop the killing and disappearance of the hostages now! First, return them — then everything else.”
The return of the hostages is a priority for the majority of Israelis.
“This morning, the moment we realized that we were going back to war, the first thing I thought about was: what about the hostages? This is a death sentence for the hostages, and it’s simply terrible,” said Muriel Aranov, a 62-year-old pensioner living in Tel Aviv.
As protesters headed to Jerusalem, Netanyahu took part in a security assessment with defense officials in Tel Aviv, including Defense Minister Israel Katz, his office said.
An earlier statement from Netanyahu’s office said the strikes were ordered after “Hamas’s repeated refusal to release our hostages, as well as its rejection of all of the proposals it has received from US Presidential Envoy Steve Witkoff and from the mediators.”
“We are at an impasse, we have said ‘yes’ more than once to concrete proposals from the US special envoy to extend the ceasefire, and Hamas has said ‘no’,” foreign ministry spokesperson Oren Marmorstein said in a briefing.
“From now on, Israel will act against Hamas with increased military intensity,” he added.


Rafah border crossing in Gaza is closed, EU spokesperson says

Updated 18 March 2025
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Rafah border crossing in Gaza is closed, EU spokesperson says

  • EUBAM mission of the European Union has started to put in place emergency procedures

BRUSSELS: The border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip in Rafah is closed, a spokesperson for the European Commission said on Tuesday.
“The crossing point is closed and the EUBAM mission of the European Union has started to put in place emergency procedures to deal with the situation as it develops,” the spokesperson told reporters in Brussels.