CAIRO: Ahmed Abdalla sat on a sidewalk in downtown Cairo, waiting for a bus that will start him on his journey back to Sudan. He doesn’t know what he’ll find in his homeland, wrecked and still embroiled in a 2-year-old war.
His wife and son, who weren’t going with him, sat next to him to bid him goodbye. Abdalla plans to go back for a year, then decide whether it’s safe to bring his family.
“There is no clear vision. Until when do we have to wait?” Abdalla said, holding two bags of clothes. “These moments I’m separating from my family are really hard,” he said, as his wife broke down in tears.
Abdullah is among tens of thousands of Sudanese who were driven from their homes and are now going back. They are hoping for some stability after the military in recent months recaptured the capital, Khartoum, and other areas from its rival, the Rapid Support Forces.
But the war still rages in some parts of the country. In areas recaptured by the military, people are returning to find their neighborhoods shattered, often with no electricity and scarce food, water and services.
The battle for power between the military and the RSF has caused one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world. Famine is spreading. At least 20,000 people have been killed, according to the UN, though the figure is likely higher.
Nearly 13 million people fled their homes, some four million of whom streamed into neighboring countries while the rest sought shelter elsewhere in Sudan.
Those returning find few services
A relatively small portion of the displaced are returning so far, but the numbers are accelerating. Some 400,000 internally displaced Sudanese have gone back to homes in the Khartoum area, neighboring Gezira province and southeast Sennar province, the International Organization for Migration estimates.
Since Jan. 1, about 123,000 Sudanese returned from Egypt, including nearly 50,000 so far in April, double the month before, the IOM said. Some 1.5 million Sudanese fled to Egypt during the war, according to UNHCR.
Nfa Dre, who had fled to northern Sudan, moved back with his family to Khartoum North, a sister city of the capital, right after the military retook it in March.
They found decomposing bodies and unexploded ordnance in the streets. Their home had been looted.
“Thank God, we had no loss of lives, just material losses, which matter nothing compared to lives,” Dre said. Three days of work made their home inhabitable.
But conditions are hard. Not all markets have reopened and few medical services are available. Dre said residents rely on charity kitchens operated by a community activist group called the Emergency Response Rooms, or ERR. They haul water from the Nile River for cooking and drinking. His home has no electricity, so he charges his phone at a mosque with solar panels.
“We asked the authorities for generators, but they replied that they don’t have the budget to provide them,” Dre said. “There was nothing we could say.”
Aid is lacking
Salah Semsaya, an ERR volunteer, said he knew of displaced people who tried returning to Wad Madani, the capital of Gezira province, but found the basics of life so lacking that they went back to their displacement shelters.
Others are too wary to try. “They’re worried about services for their children. They’re worrying about their livelihoods,” said Sheldon Yett, UNICEF Representative to Sudan.
Throughout the war, there has been no functional government. A military-backed transitional administration was based in Port Sudan, on the Red Sea coast, but had little reach or resources. After retaking Khartoum, the military said it will establish a new interim government.
The UN is providing cash assistance to some. UNICEF managed to bring several trucks of supplies into Khartoum. But aid remains limited, “and the scale of needs far exceeds available resources,” said Assadullah Nasrullah, communications officer at UNHCR Sudan.
Darfur and other areas remain violent
Sudanese in Egypt wrestle with the question of whether to return. Mohamed Karaka, who has been in Cairo with his family for nearly two years, told The Associated Press he was packing up to head back to the Khartoum area. But at the last minute, his elder brother, also in Egypt, decided it was not yet safe and Karaka canceled the trip.
“I miss my house and the dreams I had about building a life in Sudan. My biggest problem are my children. I didn’t want to raise them outside Sudan, in a foreign country,” said Karaka.
Hundreds of Sudanese take the two or three buses each day for southern Egypt, the first leg in the journey home.
Abdalla was among a number of families waiting for the midnight bus earlier this month.
He’s going back to Sudan but not to his hometown of El-Fasher in North Darfur province. That area has been and remains a brutal war zone between RSF fighters and army troops. Abdalla and his family fled early in the war as fighting raged around them.
“We miss every corner of our house. We took nothing with us when we left except two changes of clothes, thinking that the war would be short,” Abdalla’s wife, Majda, said.
“We hear bad news about our area every single day,” she said. “It’s all death and starvation.”
Abdalla and his family first moved to El-Gadarif in southeast Sudan before moving to Egypt in June.
He was heading back to El-Gadarif to see if it’s livable. Many of the schools there are closed, sheltering displaced people. If stability doesn’t take hold and schooling doesn’t resume, he said, his children will remain in Egypt.
“This is an absurd war,” Abdalla said. He pointed out how the RSF and military were once allies who together repressed Sudan’s pro-democracy movement before they turned on each other. “Both sides were unified at some point and hit us. When they started to differ, they still hit us,” he said.
“We only want peace and security and stability.”
Sudan war refugees return to find their homeland still wrecked by conflict
https://arab.news/j37x5
Sudan war refugees return to find their homeland still wrecked by conflict
- Tens of thousands of Sudanese who were driven from their homes and are now going back
- Nearly 13 million people fled their homes, some four million of whom streamed into neighboring countries
Israel minister warns of more Lebanon strikes if Hezbollah not disarmed
- ‘There will be no calm in Beirut, and no order or stability in Lebanon, without security for the State of Israel’
- Iran meanwhile condemns Israeli ‘aggression’ against
JERUSALEM: Defense Minister Israel Katz warned Friday that Israel will keep striking Lebanon until it disarms Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah, a day after Israeli air strikes hit Beirut’s southern suburbs.
“There will be no calm in Beirut, and no order or stability in Lebanon, without security for the State of Israel. Agreements must be honored and if you do not do what is required, we will continue to act, and with great force,” Katz said in a statement.
Meanwhile, Iran has condemned the Israeli “aggression” against Lebanon on Friday.
Foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei described the Thursday evening strikes “as a blatant act of aggression against Lebanon’s territorial integrity and sovereignty.”
WHO urges ‘urgent protection’ of key Gaza hospitals
- The WHO said both hospitals are already operating “above their capacity,” with patients suffering life-threatening injuries arriving amid a “dire shortage of essential medicines and medical supplies”
GENEVA: The World Health Organization on Thursday called for the “urgent protection” of two of the last hospitals remaining in the Gaza Strip, warning that the territory’s health system is “collapsing.”
The WHO said the Nasser Medical Complex and Al-Amal Hospital risk becoming “non-functional” because of restrictions on aid and access routes, further damaging a health system already battered by months of war.
“There are already no hospitals functioning in the north of Gaza. Nasser and Amal are the last two functioning public hospitals in Khan Younis, where currently most of the population is living,” the UN agency said in a statement on X.
“Without them, people will lose access to critical health services,” it said.
The WHO added that closure of the two hospitals would eliminate 490 beds and reduce Gaza’s hospital capacity to less than 1,400 beds — 40 percent below pre-war levels — for a population of two million people.
The WHO said the hospitals have not been told to evacuate but lie within or just outside an Israeli-declared evacuation zone announced on June 2.
Israeli authorities have told Gaza’s health ministry that access routes to the two hospitals will be blocked, the WHO said.
As a result, it will be “difficult, if not impossible” for medical staff and new patients to reach them, it said.
“If the situation further deteriorates, both hospitals are at high risk of becoming non-functional, due to movement restrictions, insecurity, and the inability of WHO and partners to resupply or transfer patients,” the organization said.
The WHO said both hospitals are already operating “above their capacity,” with patients suffering life-threatening injuries arriving amid a “dire shortage of essential medicines and medical supplies.”
It warned the closure of Nasser and Al-Amal would have dire consequences for patients in need of surgical care, intensive care, blood bank and transfusion services, cancer care and dialysis.
After nearly 20 months of war triggered by Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, Gaza is mired in one of the world’s gravest humanitarian crises, with civilians enduring relentless bombardment, mass displacement and severe hunger.
Gaza aid logistics company funded by Chicago private equity firm
- Israel blocked almost all aid into Gaza for 11 weeks until May 19, and has since only allowed limited deliveries in, mostly managed by the new GHF operation
- SRS is run by a former CIA official named Phil Reilly, but its ownership has not previously been disclosed
WASHINGTON: A Chicago-based private equity firm - controlled by a member of the family that founded American publishing company Rand McNally - has an "economic interest" in the logistics company involved in a controversial new aid distribution operation in Gaza.
McNally Capital, founded in 2008 by Ward McNally, helped "support the establishment" of Safe Reach Solutions, a McNally Capital spokesperson told Reuters. SRS is a for-profit company established in Wyoming in November, state incorporation records show. It is in the spotlight for its involvement with the U.S.- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which last week started distributing aid in the war-torn Palestinian enclave. The foundation paused work on Wednesday after a series of deadly shootings close to its operations and has suffered from the departure of senior personnel.
HIGHLIGHTS
• McNally Capital has economic interest in Safe Reach Solutions
• GHF aid distribution halted after deadly shootings near operations
• U.N. and aid groups refuse to work with GHF, citing lack of neutrality
"McNally Capital has provided administrative advice to SRS and worked in collaboration with multiple parties to enable SRS to carry out its mission," the spokesperson said. "While McNally Capital has an economic interest in SRS, the firm does not actively manage SRS or have a day-to-day operating role."
SRS is run by a former CIA official named Phil Reilly, but its ownership has not previously been disclosed. Reuters has not been able to establish who funds the newly created foundation.
The spokesperson did not provide details of the scale of the investment in SRS by McNally Capital, which says it has $380 million under management.
McNally Capital founder Ward McNally is the great great great grandson of the co-founder of Rand McNally. The McNally family sold the publishing company in 1997.
A spokesperson for SRS confirmed it worked with the foundation, also known as GHF, but did not answer specific questions about ownership.
GHF, which resumed aid distribution on Thursday, did not respond to a request for comment
While Israel and the United States have both said they don't finance the operation, they have pushed the United Nations and international aid groups to work with it, arguing that aid distributed by a long-established U.N. aid network was diverted to Hamas. Hamas has denied that.
Israel blocked almost all aid into Gaza for 11 weeks until May 19, and has since only allowed limited deliveries in, mostly managed by the new GHF operation. This week GHF pressed Israel to boost civilian safety beyond the perimeter of its distribution sites after Gazan health officials said at least 27 Palestinians were killed and dozens wounded by Israeli fire near one of the food distribution sites on Tuesday, the third consecutive day of chaos and bloodshed to blight the aid operation.
The Israeli military said its forces on Tuesday had opened fire on a group of people they viewed as a threat after they left a designated access route near the distribution center in Rafah. It said it was investigating what had happened.
The U.N and most other aid groups have refused to work with GHF because they say it is not neutral and that the distribution model militarizes aid and forces displacement.
The SRS spokesperson said in a statement that under Reilly's leadership, "SRS brings together a multidisciplinary team of experts in security, supply chain management, and humanitarian affairs."
McNally Capital has investments in defense contracting companies. Among the firms it acquired was Orbis Operations, a firm that specializes in hiring former CIA officers. Orbis did not return calls for comment. Reilly used to work for Orbis.
Without meat, families in Gaza struggle to celebrate Islam’s Eid Al-Adha holiday
- The UN says 96 percent of the livestock and 99 percent of the poultry are dead
MUWASI, Gaza Strip: With the Gaza Strip devastated by war and siege, Palestinians struggled Thursday to celebrate one of the most important Islamic holidays.
To mark Eid Al-Adha – Arabic for the Festival of Sacrifice — Muslims traditionally slaughter a sheep or cow and give away part of the meat to the poor as an act of charity. Then they have a big family meal with sweets. Children get gifts of new clothes.
But no fresh meat has entered Gaza for three months. Israel has blocked shipments of food and other aid to pressure Hamas to release hostages taken in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that started the war. And nearly all the territory’s homegrown sheep, cattle and goats are dead after 20 months of Israeli bombardment and ground offensives.
Some of the little livestock left was on sale at a makeshift pen set up in the vast tent camp of Muwasi in the southern part of Gaza’s Mediterranean coast.
But no one could afford to buy. A few people came to look at the sheep and goats, along with a cow and a camel. Some kids laughed watching the animals and called out the prayers connected to the holiday.
“I can’t even buy bread. No meat, no vegetables,” said Abdel Rahman Madi. “The prices are astronomical.”
The Eid commemorates the test of faith of the Prophet Ibrahim – Abraham in the Bible – and his willingness to sacrifice his son as an act of submission to God. The day is usually one of joy for children – and a day when businesses boom a bit as people buy up food and gifts.
But prices for everything have soared amid the blockade, which was only slightly eased two weeks ago. Meat and most fresh fruits and vegetables disappeared from the markets weeks ago.
At a street market in the nearby city of Khan Younis, some stalls had stuffed sheep toys and other holiday knickknacks and old clothes. But most people left without buying any gifts after seeing the prices.
“Before, there was an Eid atmosphere, the children were happy … Now with the blockade, there’s no flour, no clothes, no joy,” said Hala Abu Nqeira, a woman looking through the market. “We just go to find flour for our children. We go out every day looking for flour at a reasonable price, but we find it at unbelievable prices.”
Israel’s campaign against Hamas has almost entirely destroyed Gaza’s ability to feed itself. The UN says 96 percent of the livestock and 99 percent of the poultry are dead. More than 95 percent of Gaza’s prewar cropland is unusable, either too damaged or inaccessible inside Israeli military zones, according to a land survey published this week by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization.
Israel barred all food and other supplies from entering Gaza for more than two months. It eased the blockade two weeks ago to allow a trickle of aid trucks in for the UN to distribute. The trucks have brought in some food items, mainly flour. But the UN says it has struggled to delivery much of the incoming aid because of looting or Israeli military restrictions.
Almost the entire population of more than 2 million people have been driven from their homes, and most have had to move multiple times to escape Israeli offensives.
Rasha Abu Souleyma said she recently slipped back to her home in Rafah — from which her family had fled to take refuge in Khan Younis — to find some possessions she’d left behind.
She came back with some clothes, pink plastic sunglasses and bracelets that she gave to her two daughters as Eid gifts.
“I can’t buy them clothes or anything,” the 38-year-old said. “I used to bring meat in Eid so they would be happy, but now we can’t bring meat, and I can’t even feed the girls with bread.”
Near her, a group of children played on makeshift swings made of knotted and looped ropes.
Karima Nejelli, a displaced woman from Rafah, pointed out that people in Gaza had now marked both Eid Al-Adha and the other main Islamic holiday, Eid Al-Fitr, two times each under the war. “During these four Eids, we as Palestinians did not see any kind of joy, no sacrifice, no cookies, no buying Eid clothes or anything.”
Media groups urge Israel to allow Gaza access for foreign journalists
- An open letter shared by the Committee to Protect Journalists and Reporters Without Borders called the restrictions “a situation that is without precedent in modern warfare.”
NEW YORK: More than 130 news outlets and press freedom groups called Thursday for Israel to immediately lift a near-total ban on international media entering Gaza, while calling for greater protections for Palestinian journalists in the territory.
Israel has blocked most foreign correspondents from independently accessing Gaza since it began its war there following the unprecedented October 7, 2023 attack by militant group Hamas.
An open letter shared by the Committee to Protect Journalists and Reporters Without Borders called the restrictions “a situation that is without precedent in modern warfare.”
Signees included AFP’s global news director Phil Chetwynd, The Associated Press executive editor Julie Pace, and the editor of Israeli newspaper Haaretz Aluf Benn.
The letter added that many Palestinian journalists — whom news outlets have relied on to report from inside Gaza — face a litany of threats.
“Local journalists, those best positioned to tell the truth, face displacement and starvation,” it said.
“To date, nearly 200 journalists have been killed by the Israeli military. Many more have been injured and face constant threats to their lives for doing their jobs: bearing witness.
“This is a direct attack on press freedom and the right to information.”
The letter added that it was a “pivotal moment” in Israel’s war — with renewed military actions and efforts to boost humanitarian aid to Gaza.
This, it said, makes it “vital that Israel open Gaza’s borders for international journalists to be able to report freely and that Israel abides by its international obligations to protect journalists as civilians.”
Jodie Ginsberg, CEO of the Committee to Protect Journalists, said in a separate statement that Israel must grant journalists access and allow them to work in Gaza “without fear for their lives.”
“When journalists are killed in such unprecedented numbers and independent international media is barred from entering, the world loses its ability to see clearly, to understand fully, and to respond effectively to what is happening,” she said.
Reporters Without Borders head Thibaut Bruttin said the media blockade on Gaza “is enabling the total destruction and erasure of the blockaded territory.”
“This is a methodical attempt to silence the facts, suppress the truth, and isolate the Palestinian press and population,” he said in a statement.
Thursday’s letter was issued the same day the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate said three reporters were killed by a strike close to a hospital in Gaza City.
Israel’s military said the strike had targeted “an Islamic Jihad terrorist who was operating in a command and control center” in the yard of the hospital.
