How Syrians can pursue justice, fast-track peace in post-conflict era

Over the course of Syria's 13-year civil war, countless people were killed, displaced, or disappeared by the Assad regime and its militia allies, fueling impatient calls for justice. (AFP photos)
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Updated 16 February 2025
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How Syrians can pursue justice, fast-track peace in post-conflict era

  • Violence in rural Homs, Hama and coastal provinces flares as new authorities target “Assad regime remnants” in security sweeps
  • Experts urge a transitional justice process, modeled on South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, going forward

LONDON: While thousands across the Syrian Arab Republic celebrated the fall of Bashar Assad on Dec. 8, others were fearful of the retribution they would likely face for their ties to the ousted regime. For many, those fears are quickly realized.

The Syrian people endured immense suffering over the course of the nation’s 13-year civil war, with countless killed, displaced, or disappeared by the regime and its militia allies, fueling impatient calls for justice.

As a result, areas of rural Homs and the Mediterranean coast with high densities of Alawites — the ethno-religious group from which the Assad family traced its roots and drew much of its support — have seen mounting instability.

Reports of sectarian killings began to emerge as the interim government carried out security sweeps, while armed men, reportedly seeking revenge against those they deemed responsible for the years of bloodshed, have taken the law into their own hands.

Karam Shaar, a senior fellow at the Newlines Institute for Strategy and Policy, believes the interim government in Damascus faces a significant challenge of balancing accountability with social cohesion and stability.




 Surge in revenge attacks and criminality since Assad’s overthrow prompts call for transitional justice effort. (AFP)

The new leaders “fully understand that pursuing accountability head-on at this point, given the fragile security situation, could lead to a resurgence of extremist groups, paramilitary militias, and territorial factions,” Shaar told Arab News.

In early December, as rebel forces led by the militant group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham advanced into Homs before going on to topple the Assad regime, tens of thousands of Alawites fled the central province to the Syrian coast, fearing reprisals.

Camille Otrakji, a Syrian-Canadian analyst, says the exodus of Alawites to their heartland on the Mediterranean coast “has led many to question whether this phase constitutes a low-intensity ethnic cleansing project aimed at relocating Alawites exclusively to the coastal region.”

“While Christians in Aleppo and Alawites in the coastal region of Syria are less frequently subjected to human rights abuses, those in central Syria (Homs and Hama governorates) are the ones who bear the brunt of the punishment,” Otrakji told Arab News.




Syrian Christians attend mass at the Saint Mary Church of the Holy Belt in Homs on December 20, 2024. (AFP)

As fear of retribution and sectarian violence spread through the Alawite community and other ethnoreligious groups, Syrian President Ahmad Al-Sharaa pledged in late December that his administration would protect the country’s diverse sects and minority groups.

However, as of Feb. 7, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based war monitor, has documented 128 retaliatory killings across 11 provinces since the start of 2025 alone — with Homs leading the toll, followed by Hama.

Alawites, a Muslim sect who constitute around 10 percent of Syria’s population, are at particular risk of collective punishment — including for those who opposed Assad.

During the 50-year rule of Bashar and his father Hafez, Alawites formed the backbone of the regime, with around 80 percent of them working for the state — many in intelligence, security, or the military, according to the Washington Institute.

After Assad’s ouster and the rebel coalition’s capture of Damascus in December, interim authorities moved to curb the spread of arms, urging former conscripts and soldiers to surrender their weapons.




Soldiers and police officers of the fallen Assad regime line up on December 17, 2024, to register at a center in Daraa created by victorious opposition forces to settle their status and surrender their weapons. (AFP)

However, many have chosen to hold on to these weapons — in many cases for self defense. In response, security forces launched an operation in Homs in January to capture “remnants of Assad’s militias.”

The operation followed clashes in Alawite neighborhoods, sparked by an old video that resurfaced in December, showing rebels burning the shrine of the Alawite sect’s founder.

Quoting a security official, state news agency SANA said on Jan. 2 that the security campaign targeted “war criminals and those involved in crimes who refused to hand over their weapons.”




Fighters affiliated with Syria's new administration check people's identification at a makeshift checkpoint after closing a road leading to the Alawite-majority Mazzeh 86 neighbourhood in western Damascus on December 26, 2024. (AFP)

While security forces were conducting raids in rural Homs, members of the Alawite community shared videos on social media showing militants, reportedly linked to HTS, beating and abusing Alawites in Homs and in coastal areas while hurling sectarian insults.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights estimated that within a month of Assad’s ouster, at least 160 Alawites were killed in raids and sectarian attacks.

In a recent incident documented by the war monitor, “unidentified gunmen” opened fire on civilians at the Baniyas-Jabaleh junction in the coastal region, killing a former officer and a worker.




A fighter affiliated with Syria's new administration bayonets a portrait of toppled president Bashar al-Assad at the defunct Mezzeh military prison in Damascus on January 2, 2025. (AFP)

Similarly, in rural Homs, factions linked to the new administration reportedly raided the village of Al-Dabin, attacked a civilian home and killed a young man.

Joshua Landis, director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma, said that as social media and word of mouth spread reports of killings, robberies, and kidnappings, “lawlessness, particularly in the Alawite villages around Homs and Hama, is causing near hysteria within the community.”

“Many Alawites are demanding justice,” he told Arab News. “They understand that the Assad regime committed terrible atrocities, particularly in the prisons, but they fear that the wrong people are being killed in random attacks and revenge killings.”




An Alawite Syrian, who had fled to Lebanon, sits with a neighbor and family members in front of his severely damaged home, after returning to the Baba Amr neighbourhood in Homs, on Jan. 8, 2025. (AFP)

He added: “One of the primary reasons for animosity toward the new government of President Al-Sharaa within the Alawite community is the lawlessness now overtaking the coastal region.”

Shaar of the New Lines Institute says the perceived delay in tackling this lawlessness might be due to the need to first establish the state’s monopoly on the use of force during this transitional period.

“I think the caretaker government is prioritizing stabilizing security, consolidating power, and establishing a monopoly on force, as any state should, before addressing these violations,” he said.

Referring to the new authorities, he added: “I still don’t see their vision, and maybe we shouldn’t expect one this early. Perhaps it does take time.

“In that sense, it’s understandable for them to wait before developing a vision for accountability, given the magnitude and sheer scale of the violations that occurred during the conflict.”

However, the situation is likely to escalate as Alawites are pushed out of key state roles and public sector jobs under the new government’s plan to cut a third of its workforce. With lost livelihoods, hunger is already widespread in Alawite areas.

“Many Alawites have lost their jobs or fear being pushed out of their jobs as purges are being carried out in government ministries,” said Landis. “Of course, the military, police force, and intelligence services were packed with Alawites.”

Fighters affiliated with the interim government have allegedly carried out summary executions in Homs. In late January, Syrian authorities accused members of a “criminal group” of “posing as members of the security services” and abusing residents, according to SANA.




Fighters affiliated with Syria's new administration take part in an operation to track down members of ousted president Bashar Assad's paramilitary forces in the central city of Homs on January 2, 2025. (Photo by SANA / AFP) 

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says the new authorities have arrested “dozens of members of local armed groups” who participated in the security operations in Homs.

Their arrest came after 35 people, mostly Assad-era officers, were summarily executed within 72 hours, according to the war monitor.

These groups “carried out reprisals and settled old scores with members of the Alawite minority … taking advantage of the state of chaos, the proliferation of arms and their ties to the new authorities,” it said.

In addition, the war monitor listed “mass arbitrary arrests, atrocious abuse, attacks against religious symbols, mutilations of corpses, summary and brutal executions targeting civilians” among the “unprecedented level of cruelty and violence.”




A local guides journalists visiting the ruins of the "French" Tadmor Prison, formerly used by the Assad government and destroyed by Daesh group militants in 2015, in Syria's central city of Palmyra on February 7, 2025. After the fall of the regime, members of Assad's Alawite sect are bearing the brunt of reprisals. (AFP)

These crimes demand an urgent transitional justice process to help prevent further bloodshed and division. However, unless the various armed groups are integrated into the Syrian Ministry of Defense, the security situation will likely continue to escalate.

“The new government must get control of the many militias that are not directly under government control,” said Landis. “They must also build their police forces so that they can bring some accountability to the countryside and stop crime.”

He added: “Even more important than a proper police force is a justice system that can provide the equality and accountability that President Al-Sharaa has been so eloquent in proclaiming will define the new Syria.”




Syria's interim leader Ahmed al-Sharaa visits locals at a camp sheltering people displaced by the country's civil war in the northwestern city of Idlib on February 15, 2025. (Photo by Syrian Presidency Telegram Page / AFP)

On Jan. 30, in his first state address as president, Al-Sharaa vowed to “pursue the criminals who shed Syrian blood and committed massacres and crimes,” in addition to working to form an inclusive transitional government.

As Syria’s new leader “seeks historical recognition as the architect of a transformed and improved Syria,” he “must demonstrate his ability to curtail the influence of his armed militias,” said analyst Otrakji.

Al-Sharaa “recognizes that establishing and maintaining favorable relations with influential global powers and moderate Arab nations is crucial for achieving success,” he said.




Syrian Arab Republic's new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa (center R) speaking with Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan, before their meeting in Damascus on January 24, 20. (SANA photo via REUTERS)

“These nations have expressed their hope that Syria under his leadership will provide a secure environment for its minorities and uphold their rights as equal citizens.”

Al-Sharaa’s main challenge, however, “is that tens of thousands of armed men wielding significant power in the new Syria are not necessarily motivated by the same goals as their leader,” said Otrakji.

“Their objectives vary widely. Some are driven by a desire to purge Syria of ‘heretic’ sects. Others aim to impose strict moral codes, including regulating women’s attire. Some seek to seize the property — whether homes or mobile phones — of Alawite villagers, while others revel in the daily opportunity to humiliate them.”

The international community warns that peace and lasting security in post-Assad Syria requires the adoption of transitional justice, strengthening the rule of law, and holding free, fair elections to form a legitimate government.

“It’s not easy to have a genuine accountability process that is fair and inclusive, but that also ignores their own violations,” said Syrian analyst Shaar, referring to the new authorities.

“Someone might say: ‘It’s good we’re talking about this, but tell me about the disappeared in HTS areas, or about extrajudicial killings.’ If you open that door, where do you stop?”

Although transitional justice would be a very complex process, it is likely the only path to stabilizing Syria.

“Transitional justice seeks to help societies recover from widespread abuse and systematic repression, prioritizing victims and their interests while ensuring that perpetrators are held accountable through a fair and transparent process — without it becoming a tool for revenge or perpetuating new injustices,” Harout Ekmanian, a public international lawyer at Foley Hoag LLP in New York, told Arab News. 

“Post-conflict Syria has a range of transitional justice mechanisms it can implement,” Ekmanian added, citing criminal trials, truth commissions, security sector reforms, reparations, and memorial initiatives for victims.

Implementing these mechanisms successfully “requires the active leadership of the state, working in close collaboration with the legal community, human rights organizations, and victims or their representatives,” he said.




Representatives of Syrian civil society brainstorm in the courtyard of a traditional house in Old Damascus on January 6, 2025, on strategies to ensure their country does not return to authoritarianism. (AFP)

Ekmanian, who is originally from Aleppo, added: “Community awareness campaigns should accompany these efforts to educate the public on the concept of transitional justice and its role in fostering reconciliation and building a stable future.

“This would help manage public expectations. These campaigns should promote a discourse that encourages cooperation among all parties rather than fostering division or demonizing any group.”

The international community has called for the creation of a national transitional justice committee to document violations, offer psychological and social support to victims, and promote social reconciliation.

This committee could model the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a proven conflict resolution model that followed the end of apartheid, to help Syria confront its past and build a future of justice and accountability.

Ekmanian said such commissions investigate past human rights violations and recommend pathways to justice.




Pictures of 23 local Syrians who died in Saydnaya and other Assad-regime prisons are displayed during a memorial service for them in Jaramana in the Damascus countryside on the city's outskirts on December 21, 2024. (AFP)

“However, they go a step further by actively fostering reconciliation between victims and perpetrators,” he said. “They often incorporate restorative justice elements, such as public apologies, amnesty provisions, and dialogue processes, to help heal societal divisions.”

Truth and reconciliation commissions “could play a crucial role in gathering the narratives of victims and society, helping to establish the truth about a range of mass abuses,” including “the atrocities committed in Assad’s prisons, the torture, the sieges and indiscriminate bombings of civilian areas, chemical massacres, corruption, and last but not least, the fate of thousands of forcibly disappeared individuals.

“However, as with any transitional justice mechanism, the work of truth and reconciliation committees must be balanced with the need to maintain communal peace and stability,” he added. 

The new government’s appointment of leaders from a single political, religious, and sectarian group has raised skepticism among Syrians about its ability to pursue an inclusive transition.

Moreover, a history of deep sectarian divides and vengeance across the region presents a significant challenge to a truth and reconciliation process.

Otrakji said: “Regrettably, the pervasive sentiment of revenge deeply ingrained in the collective psyche of the Middle East and the Mediterranean poses a significant challenge to the possibility of a South African-inspired truth and reconciliation process in healing the deep-seated wounds of Syria’s protracted history of conflict.”
 

 


Gaza rescuers say children among 8 killed in Israeli strike

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Gaza rescuers say children among 8 killed in Israeli strike

Gaza City, Palestinian Territories: Gaza’s civil defense agency reported that an Israeli air strike on Sunday on a house and a tent sheltering displaced people killed at least eight, including five children, as Palestinians observed the first day of Eid Al-Fitr.
The strike occurred as both Hamas and Israel acknowledged receiving a new truce proposal from mediators aimed at halting hostilities in Gaza during the holiday.
“There are eight martyrs, including five children, following a pre-dawn Israeli air strike on a house and a tent sheltering displaced people in Khan Yunis,” Mahmud Bassal, spokesman for the civil defense agency, told AFP.
A fragile truce that had provided weeks of relative calm in the Gaza Strip collapsed on March 18 when Israel resumed its aerial bombardment and ground offensive in the Palestinian territory.
Sunday’s air strike came as mediators — Egypt, Qatar, and the United States — continued efforts to broker a ceasefire and secure the release of Israeli hostages still held in Gaza.
A senior Hamas official stated on Saturday that the group had approved a new ceasefire proposal put forward by mediators and urged Israel to support it.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office confirmed receipt of the proposal and stated that Israel had submitted a counterproposal in response.
However, the details of the latest mediation efforts remain undisclosed.
The ongoing war in Gaza was triggered by Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
During the attack, militants also abducted 251 individuals, 58 of whom remain in captivity -including 34 whom the Israeli military says are deceased.
Since the Hamas attack, Israel’s military campaign against the Palestinian group has killed at least 50,277 people in Gaza, the majority of them civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.

Nostalgia, relief and loss as some Syrians mark their first Ramadan back home in years

Updated 30 March 2025
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Nostalgia, relief and loss as some Syrians mark their first Ramadan back home in years

  • They enjoy family reunions but many also face challenges as they adjust to a country ravaged by a prolonged civil war and now grappling with a complex transition
  • Aabour – one of the more than 370,000 Syrians the United Nations’ refugee agency, UNHCR, says have returned to the country since Assad’s ouster – delights in hearing the call to prayer from mosques signaling the end of the daily fast

DARAYA, Syria: When Mariam Aabour learned of the ouster of Syrian leader Bashar Assad, she shed tears of joy. But as the time came to return to her homeland from Lebanon – where she fled years earlier – Aabour felt torn.
She was happy about the homecoming, but sad to leave behind a son and a stepson who remained in Lebanon to work and pay off family debts. Months before her return, Aabour’s father died in Syria without her seeing him. Her Syrian home has been destroyed and there’s no money to rebuild, she said.
Thus it’s been bittersweet experiencing her first Ramadan – the Muslim holy month – since her return.

Mahmoud al-Hamoud, 35, stands inside his damaged house with his neighbours, as returning Syrians prepare to celebrate Eid al-Fitr, in Idlib, Syria March 28, 2025. (REUTERS)

“We’ve all lost dear ones,” she said. “Even after our return, we still cry over the tragedies that we’ve lived through.”
As they spend their first Ramadan in years in their homeland, many Syrians who’ve recently trickled back in from abroad have been celebrating the end of the Assad family’s rule in December after a fast-paced rebel offensive. They are relishing some new freedoms and savoring some old traces of the lives they once knew.
They enjoy family reunions but many also face challenges as they adjust to a country ravaged by a prolonged civil war and now grappling with a complex transition. As they do, they grieve personal and communal losses: Killed and missing loved ones, their absence amplified during Ramadan. Destroyed or damaged homes. And family gatherings shattered by the exodus of millions.
A time for daily fasting and heightened worship, Ramadan also often sees joyous get-togethers with relatives over food and juices.

Laundry hangs on a damaged apartment building in Daraya, Syria, Monday March 17, 2025. (AP)

Aabour – one of the more than 370,000 Syrians the United Nations’ refugee agency, UNHCR, says have returned to the country since Assad’s ouster – delights in hearing the call to prayer from mosques signaling the end of the daily fast. In her Lebanon neighborhood, she said, there were no nearby mosques and she relied on phones to know when to break the fast.
The hardest part, she added, is sitting for the fast-breaking meal known as “iftar” without some loved ones, including her father and a son, who she said was killed before the family fled Syria.
She bitterly recalled how her child, who she said was about 10 when killed, liked a rice and peas dish for iftar and would energetically help her, carrying dishes from the kitchen.

Workers rebuild a damaged house in Daraya, Syria, Monday, March 17, 2025. (AP)

“I used to tell him, ‘You’re too young,’ but he would say, ‘No, I want to help you,’” she said, sitting on the floor in her in-laws’ house which her family now shares with relatives.
Faraj Al-Mashash, her husband, said he’s not currently working, accumulating more debt and caring for an ill father.
The family borrowed money to fix his father’s home in Daraya. It was damaged and looted, but still standing.
Many Daraya homes aren’t.
Part of Rural Damascus and known for its grapes and its furniture workshops, Daraya was one of the centers of the uprising against Assad. The conflict devolved into armed insurgency and civil war after Assad crushed what started as largely peaceful protests; this Ramadan, Syrians marked the 14th anniversary of the civil war’s start.
Daraya suffered killings and saw massive damage during fighting. It endured years of government besiegement and aerial campaigns before a deal was struck between the government and rebels in 2016 that resulted in the evacuation of fighters and civilians and control ceded to the government.
Today, in parts of Daraya, children and others walk past walls with gaping holes in crumbling buildings. In some areas, a clothesline or bright-colored water tank provides glimpses of lives unfolding among ruins or charred walls.
Despite it all, Al-Mashash said, it’s home.
“Isn’t Daraya destroyed? But I feel like I am in heaven.”
Still, “there’s sadness,” he added. “A place is only beautiful with its people in it. Buildings can be rebuilt, but when a person is gone, they don’t come back.”
In Lebanon, Al-Mashash struggled financially and was homesick for Daraya, for the familiar faces that used to greet him on its streets. Shortly after Assad’s ouster, he returned.
This Ramadan, he’s re-lived some traditions, inviting people for iftar and getting invited, and praying at a mosque where he has cherished memories.
Some of those who had left Daraya, and now returned to Syria, say their homes have been obliterated or are in no condition for them to stay there. Some of them are living elsewhere in an apartment complex that had previously housed Assad-era military officers and is now sheltering some families, mostly ones who’ve returned from internal displacement.
The majority of those who’ve returned to Syria since Assad’s removal came from countries in the region, including Lebanon, Jordan and Turkiye, said Celine Schmitt, UNHCR’s spokesperson in Syria.
A main security fear for returnees is unexploded mines, Schmitt said, adding UNHCR provides “mine awareness sessions” in its community centers. It also offers legal awareness for those needing IDs, birth certificates or property documents and has provided free transportation for some who came from Jordan and Turkiye, she said.
The needs of returnees, so far a fraction of those who’ve left, are varied and big – from work and basic services to house repairs or construction. Many, Schmitt said, hope for financial help to start a small business or rebuild, adding that more funding is needed.
“We’re calling on all of our donors,” she said. “There’s an opportunity now to solve one of the biggest displacement crises in the world, because people want to go back.”
Many of those who haven’t returned cite economic challenges and “the huge challenges they see in Syria” as some of the reasons, she said.
In January, UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said living conditions in the country must improve for the return of Syrians to be sustainable.
Umaya Moussa, also from Daraya, said she fled Syria to Lebanon in 2013, returning recently as a mother of four, two of whom had never seen Syria before.
Moussa, 38, recalls, at one point, fleeing an area while pregnant and terrified, carrying her daughter and clutching her husband’s hand. The horrors have haunted her.
“I’d remember so many events that would leave me unable to sleep,” she said. “Whenever I closed my eyes, I would scream and cry and have nightmares.”
In Lebanon, she lived for a while in a camp, where she shared the kitchen and bathroom with others. “We were humiliated ..., but it was still better than the fear we’ve lived through.”
She’d yearned for the usual Ramadan family gatherings.
For the first iftar this year, she broke her fast with her family, including brothers who, she said, as fighters against the Assad government, had previously moved to then rebel-controlled Idlib province.
Missing from the Ramadan meal was her father who died while Moussa was away.
Like Moussa, Saeed Kamel is intimately familiar with the pain of a joy incomplete. This Ramadan, he visited the grave of his mother who had died when he was in Lebanon.
“I told her that we’ve returned but we didn’t find her,” he said, wiping away tears.
And it wasn’t just her. Kamel had been hopeful that with Assad gone, they would find a missing brother in his prisons; they didn’t.
Kamel had vowed never to return to a Syria ruled by Assad, saying he felt like a stranger in his country. His home, he said, was damaged and looted.
But despite any difficulties, he held out hope. At least, he said, “the next generation will live with dignity, God willing.”
Kamel fondly recalled how – before their worlds changed – his family would exchange visits with others for most of Ramadan and neighbors would send each other iftar dishes.
“Ramadan is not nice without the family gatherings,” he said. “Now, one can barely manage.”
He can’t feel the same Ramadan spirit as before.
“The good thing,” he said, “is that Ramadan came while we’re liberated.”
 

 

 


Syria’s president Al-Sharaa forms new transitional government

Updated 30 March 2025
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Syria’s president Al-Sharaa forms new transitional government

  • The cabinet included Yarub Badr, an Alawite who was named transportation minister, while Amgad Badr, who belongs to the Druze community, will lead the agriculture ministry

Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa announced a transitional government on Saturday, appointing 23 ministers in a broadened cabinet seen as a key milestone in the transition from decades of Assad family rule and to improving Syria’s ties with the West.
Syria’s new Sunni Islamist-led authorities have been under pressure from the West and Arab countries to form a government that is more inclusive of the country’s diverse ethnic and religious communities.
That pressure increased following the killings of hundreds of Alawite civilians — the minority sect from which toppled leader Bashar Assad hails — in violence along Syria’s western coast this month.
The cabinet included Yarub Badr, an Alawite who was named transportation minister, while Amgad Badr, who belongs to the Druze community, will lead the agriculture ministry.
Hind Kabawat, a Christian woman and part of the previous opposition to Assad who worked for interfaith tolerance and women’s empowerment, was appointed as social affairs and labor minister.
Mohammed Yosr Bernieh was named finance minister.
It kept Murhaf Abu Qasra and Asaad Al-Shibani, who were already serving as defense and foreign ministers respectively in the previous caretaker cabinet that has governed Syria since Assad was toppled in December by a lightning rebel offensive.
Sharaa also said he established for the first time a ministry for sports and another for emergencies, with the head of a rescue group known as the White Helmets, Raed Al-Saleh, appointed as the minister of emergencies.
In January, Sharaa was named as interim president and pledged to form an inclusive transitional government that would build up Syria’s gutted public institutions and run the country until elections, which he said could take up to five years to hold.
The government will not have a prime minister, with Sharaa expected to lead the executive branch.
Earlier this month, Syria issued a constitutional declaration, designed to serve as the foundation for the interim period led by Sharaa. The declaration kept a central role for Islamic law and guaranteed women’s rights and freedom of expression.


Does military’s recapture of Khartoum mark a crossroads in Sudan’s conflict?

Updated 30 March 2025
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Does military’s recapture of Khartoum mark a crossroads in Sudan’s conflict?

  • General Al-Burhan’s forces control key sites in the capital, including the airport, which will be critical for humanitarian relief
  • Despite the losses in Khartoum, his foes have entrenched themselves in Darfur, maintaining a power base and foreign backing

LONDON: Sudan’s de-facto military ruler visited the presidential palace in Khartoum on Wednesday after his forces recaptured the city from a rival paramilitary group. Whether the development will prove to be a decisive moment in the conflict that has devastated the country since April 2023 remains to be seen.

Khartoum, once one of East Africa’s fastest-growing capitals, is today a ghost city, its residents displaced and its basic infrastructure in ruins. “It’s heartbreaking to see people dying in huge numbers from hunger in Sudan, once the breadbasket of East Africa,” Mathilde Vu, a Sudan-based aid worker with the Norwegian Refugee Council, told Arab News.

Displaced Sudanese, who fled the Zamzam camp, gather near the town of Tawila in North Darfur on February 14, 2025. (AFP)

According to Vu, the humanitarian response in the capital depends heavily on grassroots efforts. “Local responders are the one hope of Sudan,” she said. “They operate without logos, without any resources, and yet they’ve organized evacuations, run soup kitchens, offered psychosocial support, even repaired water systems.”

People wait to collect food at a location set up by a local humanitarian organization in Meroe in the country's Northern State, on January 9, 2025. (AFP)

But these efforts are fragile and increasingly under threat, with at least 10 local responders killed during intensified fighting in March. “If one local responder dies, one kitchen is closed. And with that, entire families are left without food,” Vu said.

The Sudanese Armed Forces have in recent days consolidated control not just over the presidential palace, but also the central bank, the airport and the strategic Al-Yarmouk weapons manufacturing complex, having dislodged its adversary, the Rapid Support Forces.

Damage is seen at Khartoum international airport a day after it was recaptured from the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) on March 27, 2025. (AP Photo)

These are symbolic gains. But whether they will translate into stability or reconstruction is far from certain.

Abiol Lual Deng, a South Sudanese-American political scientist, cautions against assuming that the SAF’s return to the city signals a new era. “This is a city where people died from starvation and infectious disease — not just bullets,” she told Arab News.

“The fighting disrupted every part of urban life. Shops closed, fuel ran out, water became contaminated, and no one could move because of snipers and shelling.”

People walk past shuttered shops down a street in a southern neighbourhood of Khartoum on March 29, 2025, after the military recaptured the capital. (AFP)

She added: “Now that SAF has retaken key areas like the airport, we might see some humanitarian aid trickling back in, especially for the wounded and those in critical need. But the scale of need is just unfathomable. Two-thirds of Sudan’s population requires assistance. This is not something a few aid flights can solve.”

The destruction of Khartoum’s civilian infrastructure has been especially devastating because of the city’s role in the national economy. Once home to the country’s key financial institutions, markets, and trade corridors, Khartoum’s paralysis has sent ripples across Sudan and beyond.

The SAF’s ability to maintain control over the capital will depend not just on military gains, but also on whether it can stabilize these essential services.

Sudanese army members walk next to wreckage of destroyed planes wreckage at Khartoum Airport on March 27, 2025. (REUTERS)

Dallia Abdelmoniem, a Sudanese analyst with deep experience in civil society networks, points out that many displaced civilians are already planning to return — despite the lack of security guarantees.

“For many Sudanese, they don’t have the privilege to wait for full reconstruction,” she told Arab News. “They’re returning to neighborhoods where there’s no running water, no banks, no healthcare. Civil society will be forced to fill the vacuum again.”

Yet any suggestion that the war is winding down would be premature. Having withdrawn from Khartoum, the RSF has entrenched itself in Darfur and other regions. There, it continues to function as a parallel authority, with reports of its leader, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, making diplomatic overtures to regional leaders.

Sudan's paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) Mohamed Daglo (L) on a visit to South African President Cyril Ramaphosa in Pretoria on January 4, 2024. (Handout photo via AFP

“The RSF has already established a parallel government,” said Deng. “They’re not disappearing. They have a base of power in Darfur, strong cross-border supply networks, and deep-rooted ethnic and regional dynamics backing them.”

She reminds observers that the RSF originated as a paramilitary force — evolving from the Janjaweed militias once backed by the central government — and has long been used to destabilize peripheries under the guise of counterinsurgency.

Abdelmoniem warns the SAF’s territorial gains may embolden it to pursue an outright military solution to the conflict. “Negotiations appear dead in the water,” she said. “SAF has political momentum now, and it would be naive to think that pushing the RSF into Darfur means an end to hostilities. We’re more likely to see Darfur become a sustained war zone again.”

An image grab taken from a handout video posted on the Sudanese paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) page on X, on July 28, 2023 shows its commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo addressing RSF fighters at an undisclosed location. (AFP)

Even as the geography of the conflict shifts, the consequences remain grim for civilians. In Darfur’s Al-Fasher and Zamzam camp, where thousands are trapped in siege-like conditions, Vu describes haunting scenes of families trying to escape on donkeys under the cover of night — leaving everything behind.

“They’re too scared to take cars during the day because they could be arrested or attacked,” she said.

Access to these areas remains severely limited. “We must be realistic about the fact that both sides have obstructed aid,” said Deng. “But RSF-controlled areas are among the worst-hit. Famine conditions are spreading, and aid blockades are used as a weapon of war.”

Still, she says, international humanitarian organizations like the International Committee of the Red Cross and Medecins Sans Frontieres continue to engage with non-state actors.

“Groups like the ICRC or MSF operate based on neutrality, and the RSF knows that,” said Deng. “Sometimes access is possible — but it requires pressure, not just on the ground, but also on the states backing these groups with arms and logistics.”

Sudanese wait outside a hospital for medical check-up in Tokar in the Red Sea State in eastern Sudan on October 10, 2024. (AFP)
Patients are pictured in one of the rooms of the Saudi hospital in Khartoum's twin-city Omdurman on March 20, 2025 as most hospitals and schools no longer function in the Sudanese capital and its environs due to the ongoing war which broke out in April 2023. (AFP)

That pressure, so far, has been uneven. The international response to Sudan’s war has been widely criticized as inadequate, both in scale and in coherence. Vu underlines that while the world debates political solutions, people are starving.

“Humanitarian access must prevail, whether there is peace or not,” she said. “Aid should have no side.”

Meanwhile, SAF’s internal cohesion remains uncertain. Analysts have long warned of leadership fractures within the army and its allied militias. Deng points out that the SAF and RSF were not always rivals — they once operated in concert, often carrying out atrocities in Darfur and the south together.

Sudan's Army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan (C-R) and paramilitary commander Mohamed Hamdan Daglo (C L) once worked together alongside civilian leaders, even signing on Dec. 5, 2022, a deal aimed at ending a deep crisis that hit Sudan. (AFP)

“Now they’ve turned those tactics on each other,” she said. “That a power vacuum would emerge inside the SAF is no surprise. Everyone wants to be seen as the legitimate inheritor of military authority.”

In the background looms a larger question: How much of Sudan’s war is about Sudan at all? “We’re entering an era where global geopolitics is less about rules and more about resources,” said Deng.

“Sudan manufactures its own weapons. It’s geographically pivotal. And it’s being drawn into the gravitational pull of multiple regional powers. That changes how this war plays out — and how it ends.”

Burned documents are left on shelves inside a charred room at the Republican Palace, following its recapture by Sudan's army from the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary group, in Khartoum, on March 24, 2025. (AP Photo)
Vandalized vintage luxury cars are parked in a hangar at the Republican Palace on March 24, 2025. (AP Photo)

For now, Khartoum remains in limbo. The SAF may have reclaimed the city, but it has not yet won the peace.

Displaced civilians are navigating shattered neighborhoods. Aid might be trickling in, but it is far from sufficient. Across the country, war rages on in new theatres. And a political resolution, however desirable, feels no closer.

“The international community must increase pressure on the warring parties and their backers,” said Vu. “Without strong engagement, especially from countries with influence over SAF and RSF, aid will remain politicized and civilians will keep paying the price.”
 

 


Hamas says it accepts a new Gaza ceasefire proposal but Israel makes a counter-offer

Updated 30 March 2025
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Hamas says it accepts a new Gaza ceasefire proposal but Israel makes a counter-offer

  • It was not immediately clear whether the proposal changed before Khalil Al-Hayyah, the leader of Hamas in Gaza, announced it had been accepted
  • Frustrated by the threat to remaining hostages in Gaza, families and others rallied again Saturday evening to call for a deal that would bring everyone home

CAIRO: The Hamas militant group said Saturday it has accepted a new Gaza ceasefire proposal from mediators Egypt and Qatar, but Israel said it has made a counter-proposal in “full coordination” with the third mediator, the United States.
Egypt early in the week made a proposal to get the troubled ceasefire back on track, following Israel’s surprise resumption of fighting.
It was not immediately clear whether the proposal changed before Khalil Al-Hayyah, the leader of Hamas in Gaza, announced it had been accepted.
Early in the week, an Egyptian official described the proposal to The Associated Press, saying Hamas would release five living hostages, including an American-Israeli, from Gaza in return for Israel allowing aid into the territory and a weekslong pause in fighting. Israel would release hundreds of Palestinian prisoners. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief media on the closed-door talks.
On Saturday, the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave no details about Israel’s counter-proposal, which it said was offered after Netanyahu held consultations on Friday.
Israel a week and a half ago ended its ceasefire with Hamas by launching a surprise wave of strikes that killed hundreds of people. The White House blamed Hamas for the renewed fighting.
Israel has vowed to escalate the war until Hamas returns the 59 hostages it still holds — 24 of them believed to be alive. Israel also wants Hamas to give up power, disarm and send its leaders into exile. On Saturday, Israel widened its ground operations in Gaza’s southern city of Rafah near the border with Egypt.
Hamas has said it will only release the remaining captives in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, a lasting ceasefire and an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.
Frustrated by the threat to remaining hostages in Gaza, families and others rallied again Saturday evening to call for a deal that would bring everyone home.
“The price of your war is the life of the hostages!” some protesters chanted in Tel Aviv. Minor scuffles broke out with police.
“War will not bring our hostages home, it will kill them,” Naama Weinberg, cousin of deceased hostage Itay Svirsky, told a weekly gathering of families in Tel Aviv.
The war in Gaza was triggered by Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack into Israel, in which Palestinian militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted 251.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed over 50,000 people, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not say how many were civilians or combatants. Israel’s bombardment and ground operations have caused vast destruction and at their height displaced some 90 percent of Gaza’s population of over 2 million people.
Early this month, Israel again cut off all supplies to Gaza to pressure Hamas to accept new terms to the ceasefire that started in mid-January.
Israel had balked at entering negotiations over the truce’s second phase, which were meant to begin in early February. Under the agreement, phase two was meant to bring the release of the remaining 24 living hostages, an end to the war and full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.