Barbara Plett Usher BBC News, Port Sudan Sudan's military leader, Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, has visited the presidential palace in Khartoum, after landing at the city's international airport, just hours after it was recaptured by the army. Surrounded by cheering soldiers at the venue - a significant symbol of absolute power and sovereignty - Burhan declared the capital "free" of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. "Khartoum is free, it's done," he said. This is believed to be the first time Burhan has set foot in the presidential palace since the start of the war almost two years ago. The military-led government was forced to move to Port Sudan on the Red Sea after the RSF seized control of the capital early in the war. Earlier, an army commander told the BBC that his troops had fully secured the airport and expected to be able to clear the rest of the RSF fighters by the end of day. The army has been moving swiftly since recapturing the presidential palace on Friday and seizing state institutions taken by the RSF. The RSF had controlled most of Khartoum since the war began in April 2023. Nationwide, hundreds of thousands have been killed, and millions have been forced to flee their homes. A army spokesperson also said that troops had recaptured all the bridges over the River Nile that connect the three cities which make up Greater Khartoum, along with a military camp in Jebel Awliya, the group's stronghold in southern Khartoum. Residents have been reporting this week that RSF fighters were retreating southwards, apparently towards Jebel Awliya, the only exit route left to them. Drone footage released by the army showed people crossing a bridge over the dam there. The BBC wasn't able to verify who they were, but the military said it was RSF fighters fleeing Khartoum. Videos posted on social media appeared to show some people in central Khartoum celebrating the army's advance after what many have described as a brutal RSF occupation. Those unwilling or unable to leave have consistently reported mass looting by the RSF, whose fighters took over civilian homes. Khartoum is one of the areas of the country the UN said was nearing famine conditions, because of looted markets and restrictions on aid by both sides. Rights groups have also documented sexual violence and other abuses. Both the RSF and the army have also been accused of indiscriminately shelling civilian areas. Earlier this week, the air force bombed a market and eyewitnesses said dozens of civilians were killed. Recapturing Khartoum is an enormous achievement for the army, which could give it a strategic advantage in the war. But the war is far from over. The RSF still holds almost all the Darfur region in western Sudan. Both sides are backed by foreign powers who have poured weapons into the country, and international efforts to broker peace have failed. Copyright 2025 BBC. All rights reserved.    The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.

The Case for a CPC Designation By Nina Shea March 12, 2025 The Hudson Institute (Screenshot via YouTube) Nina Shea testifies before the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa on the persecution of Christian farming communities by militant Fulani Muslim herders. Testimony Transcript This transcription is automatically generated and edited lightly for accuracy. Please excuse any errors. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Rep. Jacobs and Members of the Africa Subcommittee for holding this important hearing on conflict and persecution in Nigeria and for prioritizing this issue as the Africa Subcommittee’s very first hearing of the current congressional session. Chairman Smith, for decades, you have been a congressional hero to legions of victims of persecution and conflict throughout the world. Congratulations on your chairmanship of this subcommittee!  Summary: My testimony will focus on the persecution of Christian farming communities by militant Fulani Muslim herders. In the interest of time, I will not address the Islamist terror groups that are already designated as terrorists and sanctioned by the U.S. Government. They include Boko Haram and the Islamic State of West Africa, which attack Nigerians of all faith backgrounds. Nigeria now ranks 6 out of 66 on the 2025 Global Terrorism Index and the index does not even take into account the violence by militant Fulani herders.  Nigeria is a country of superlatives -- Africa’s most populous country, its largest economy and, alarmingly, the entire world’s deadliest country for Christians. In recent years, more Christians have been killed for their faith in Nigeria than in all other places combined, reports the respected research group Open Doors.  Currently, militant groups of nomadic Fulani Muslim herders are reported to be the greatest threat to Nigeria’s Christians, particularly those in Middle Belt farming communities. That central area is the intersection of Nigeria’s mostly Muslim North with its mostly Christian South. In Benue, Plateau, Kaduna, and other Middle Belt states, thousands of Christians have been killed, maimed, and raped and millions of them have been driven from their lands and are now homeless, due to Fulani attacks. This is the heart of Nigeria’s breadbasket, and, as their farming families are slaughtered or forced to flee, the region’s suffering is compounded by growing mass hunger.  The Federal Government in Abuja remains passive in the face of desperate cries for help and detailed reports of relentless horrific violence coming from Middle Belt citizens and their elected officials, church leaders, journalists, and Nigerian and international human rights groups.  The government allows Fulani violence to continue with impunity.  There is a broader concern that this resolute inaction evidences a plan to forcibly Islamize Nigeria, in violation of its constitution, in which the government is complicit.  Just last week, on March 3, 2025, the Nigerian Catholic Bishops Conference released a letter expressing “deep concern” that some of the 12 northern states that impose sharia law had ordered the closure of Catholic and other Christian schools for five weeks in forced observance of Ramadan, and citing the constitution’s guarantee of a secular state. The targeted indigenous people of the Middle Belt Christian communities are said to be facing two devastating challenges: constant attacks by Fulani militants and the Nigerian government’s decision to tolerate this persecution. I am, therefore, urging Congress to adopt legislation calling for the State Department, as a first step, to designate Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern (CPC) under the International Religious Freedom Act, as it did under the first Trump administration. Placing Nigeria on the U.S.’s short list of the world’s most egregious religious freedom violators is warranted under the Act and would be a foundation for further human rights initiatives by the new administration. Militant Fulani Aggression against Defenseless Christians: The Fulani are an ethnic group that is largely Muslim and Fulfulde-speaking, numbering in the tens of millions across 20 countries in West Africa. For four years in the early 19th century, Fulani warrior Usman dan Fodio established a caliphate in Nigeria’s north.In recent decades, nomadic Fulani herders have migrated along Nigeria’s approved cattle routes and grazing reserves covering four and a quarter million hectares, which run through various ethnic areas. Over the past generation, a portion of the Fulani nomadic herder population has become well-armed with automatic weapons and aggressive in targeting undefended Christians in Nigeria’s Middle Belt farming areas.  Nigeria’s government has not undertaken a thorough, objective and transparent investigation of the militant Fulani herders’ organization, leadership, motives or intent in these attacks. Numerous attacks over many years indicate that they are coordinated, systematic and growing. Survivor accounts, collected by churches and journalists on the ground, frequently report that their attackers spoke Fulfulde and shouted “Allahu Akbar” or expressed other religious sentiments as they killed, as USCIRF noted in its reports. Some, including notably two Nigerian Methodist bishops held hostage, related that their captors told them that “Nigeria belongs to the Fulani” and some let their hostages know that they singled out “infidels” for capture. On March 8, 2025, TruthNigeria’s Douglas Burton interviewed a Kaduna father, whose five children were ransomed and released after being kidnapped on January 7, who said that their Fulani captors were all Muslims and contemptuously referred to the family as “infidels.” It is also well known that the militant Fulanis invade from encampments in specific forested areas within Nigeria, or cross Nigeria’s porous borders from the neighboring Sahel, among the world’s most terror ridden regions, without significant or systematic government interference.  Observers on the ground assert that the Fulani militants are not attacking to graze cattle, as some maintain, but to take control of farms, villages and larger geographic areas and drive out the Christian residents from their ancestral lands.  A recent UNHCR report states about survivors of Fulani attacks in hard-hit Benue state: “Nearly all the 3,790 registered residents of Ichwa [IDP] camp, and of many other camps dotted around Benue State, were smallholder farmers …, forced here by violent land grabs .” A Benue Catholic priest told reporters: “It is all about seizing the lands and changing the demography of Benue State. The Fulani terrorists want to seize the fertile lands of Benue, chase away the people from the land, and occupy the lands for themselves,” he said.  A 202 3 study by Nigerian scholars on the herder-farmer conflict in Plateau state found that the great majority of indigenous people from non-Fulani ethnic groups believe that the motives for violence by Fulani herders are land grabbing, jihad and Fulanization; compared with smaller percentages, who say  the motive for conflict is in reprisal for “cattle rustling.” Cattle rustling does occur but by whom is unknown since that too goes uninvestigated by the government; whereas, Fulani attacks are indiscriminate and devastate entire Christian farming communities. In Nigeria, Fulani interests are represented by two main organizations, often referred to collectively as the Miyetti: Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association and Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore. They are organizations run by elites within the Fulani cattle sector.  Their businesses rely on the nomadic Fulani herders and, beginning in the 1980s,they started supplying the herders with AK 47s and other sophisticated weapons. Some experts report that the northern-based Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association, supports reestablishing a Fulani empire, modeled on the 19th century Fulani caliphate in northern Nigeria.Increasingly heard from concerned Middle Belt community leaders, who watch helplessly as millions of their people are killed or forcibly displaced,  is that the Miyetti are behind the Fulani militant attacks, in order to take control of Christian lands and extend sharia or Islamist rule throughout Nigeria.  In January 2022, citing the “mayhe m” in his state, then Benue state Governor Samuel Ortom appealed to Nigeria federal officials to declare as terrorist organizations the two Miyetti groups and the Fulani Nationality Movement, reported a Nigerian legal press .  Last year, the leader of the Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore, Bello Bodejo, was arrested twice, including on a terrorism accusation, but was ultimately cleared and released from detention by Nigeria’s High Court. In 2021, the chairman of the Nigerian Indigenous Nationalities Alliance for Self-Determination, Professor Banji Akintoye, urged the United Nations to declare Miyetti Allah a terrorist group. He accused the herders, whom, he said are government-backed, of aiming to take over “our ancestral lands for their Fulani people.”  Nigerian press reports on the two Miyetti groups state that the leadership of both say they stand for peace yet both have been quoted fomenting or threatening violence. A 2023 article gives the following example: Both  Miyetti Allah groups  said  any state governor who opposed a federal plan of establishing   exclusive communities for herders “wanted crisis to continue” and should be “held responsible for any further bloodshed,” and, it notes, both later denied this.   The article also cited a 2018 report of a MACBAN chief in Plateau State who denied  justifying a violent attack by herders as a reaction to cattle rustling and noted that “the reporter stood by his story” that he did justify such attacks. Recent Examples of Attacks: The following examples of recent attacks against Nigeria’s Christians are only a small sample of the persecution in Nigeria.  The attackers’ identities are not confirmed since the government fails to investigate complaints and bring justice in such cases. On Christmas Eve, December 24, 2023, it was widely reported by the international Christian press that over 200 Christians were killed and 300 wounded in a series of terrorist attacks that destroyed churches and homes and displaced 32,000 residents, impacting 21 villages in Nigeria’s Plateau state. On February 2, it was reported that armed Fulani militants stormed a village in southern Ebonyi state, killing 16 Christians belonging to The Lord Chosen Charismatic Revival Ministry and burning homes, reported International Christian Concern. Amnesty International appealed to federal authorities for an investigation. On February 26, the outlet TruthNigeria broke the story that over 200 Christians are being held hostage, starved and tortured in a hidden terrorist camp in Kaduna state, in proximity to an army base. The existence of the camp, located near the Kaduna-Abuja expressway, came to light, when, three months after being abducted from their homes, eight hostages, in dire condition, were released in exchange for a ransom payment of $27,000 to Fulani militants. The former hostages told TruthNigeria that they were chained, whipped and starved by Fulfulde-speaking captives for 85 days.   They said they witnessed others dying from starvation or shot dead when ransoms were withheld. Churches and their leaders are a favorite target of the Fulani militias: As of this writing, the most recent example is Father Sylvester Okechukwu, a 45-year-old Catholic priest in Kaura county, Kaduna, who was abducted and slain by unknown gunmen at his rectory at St. Mary’s Church, on March 4, 2025,  and his remains were found the next day.   Over six other Catholic priests have been abducted so far this year. At least two priests and a seminarian remained captive as of March 9: Father Moses Gyang Jah of St. Mary Maijuju church, Shendam Diocese, in Plateau state, was abducted on February 19, along with his niece and the parish council chairman, Nyam Ajiji, who was killed; and, in Auchi Diocese in Edo state Father Philip Ekweli and a seminarian were abducted from a parish rectory by gunmen on March 3. On January 30, 2025, Rev. Ezekiel of the Evangelical Church Winning All and two other Christians were killed by suspected  Fulani militants in a rural village in Kauru LGA, Kaduna state. In mid-February,  Fulani militants sought out the home of Reverend Bala Galadima, the lead pastor of a church of the Evangelical Church Winning All in Lubo, Gombe state, and, firing three shots , killed him. In September 2024, scores of Fulani militants, in Kaduna, raided two churches during worship services, one Catholic and one evangelical, murdering three worshipers, abducting 30 and robbing the congregations.  Nigeria Federal Government’s Failure to Act:  “When a particular community is under attack by Fulani terrorists, the military always arrives after the terrorists have attacked and left,” a Benue Christian leader told TruthNigeria. He added that “the military seems uninterested in stopping the Fulanis.”This is a problem cited repeatedly in Fulani attacks across Nigeria.  It was a problem under former President Buhari, who was the son of a Fulani chieftain, and continues to be a problem, since 2023, under President Tinubu, who is a Muslim and, breaking the country’s tradition of having a religiously mixed ticket, has a Muslim vice president.  In Kaduna, Plateau, Benue and elsewhere, there are numerous examples of farming communities contacting federal authorities and appealing for help during or immediately before militant attacks, to no avail. An ongoing example involves Benue, where in recent months a Catholic priest and other Christians have been abducted and held for ransom after Fulani raids on their villages.  A priest identified to the press three key areas along the Benue river -- Gidan-Pepa, Achukpa, and Ogbaji -- where Fulani terrorists cross from Nasarawa State to attack and displace locals. The government ignores church pleas to place military posts near these known hotspots and neglects to have naval patrols on the river there, as I was told by another priest from Benue, a state where attacks are surging. Even the large city Catholic church in Ondo that suffered a massacre in a June 2022 mass shooting in broad daylight by an extremist militia, killing 40 or more during a Pentecost worship service, has seen no justice.  Prompted partly by this atrocity and the government’s failure to prosecute, Nigeria Catholic bishops issued a statement of concern in September 2022.It urged the state and national governments to stand up to their “primary responsibility of safeguarding the lives and property of Nigerians.”  The pontifical group, Aid to the Church in Need, counts scores of priest kidnappings in Nigeria with over 20 ending in murder in recent years. These attacks continue unabated. At leastseven Catholic priests have been kidnapped since the beginning of this year, alone, Catholic News Agency reports. The federal government has shown little to no interest in prosecuting or punishing the frequent attacks against the country’s churches, whether Catholic or evangelical. Abuja’s Catholic Archbishop Ignatius Ayau Kaigama “strongly criticized” the escalating kidnappings of Catholic priests, as well as “those training for the priesthood [who] have also been targeted,” reported Crux this month; the Archbishop cited “poor leadership at all levels – local government, state government and federal government.” As a Nigerian woman explained last week in answer to my question about the dearth of outcry about these alarming developments, “we have to carefully manage our relationship with government authorities.” Yet, a few Nigerian leaders have dared to speak out against the government’s apparent policy of tolerating attempts to forcibly Islamize Nigeria. On March 3, 2025, the Nigerian Catholic Bishops Conference released a letter expressing “deep concern” that some of the 12 northern states that impose sharia law had ordered the closure of Catholic and other Christian schools for five weeks in forced observance of Ramadan, and citing the constitution’s guarantee of a secular state.   Others have spoken out demanding government action in response to specific violence. A prominent voice is Bishop Matthew Kukah of Sokoto, who criticized the government for “not being more decisive in getting results” in the Plateau torture camp case reported last month. Bishop Kukah, himself, was threatened with death by a Nigerian Muslim influencer in a viral YouTube video after the bishop denounced the 2022 murder of Christian student Deborah Samuels for alleged blasphemy. The Sultan of Sokoto, a Muslim leader descended from the 19th century Fulani caliphate founder Usman dan Fodio, also condemned Deborah’s murder and in reprisal a mob set fires around his home. There was no justice in these cases either. While some concerned leaders urge the federal government to take action to stop the suffering, others conclude that its passivity, including failing even to collect data on the attacks, shows that the federal government leadership is complicit.  Emeka Umeagbalasi, the Board Chair of the Nigerian private group, International Society for Civil Liberties and the Rule of Law, is among those who draw the conclusion that government inaction in the face of relentless Christian persecution -- now mostly by militant Fulani herdsmen -- indicates government complicity in forced Islamization. “The government we have in Nigeria is for radical Islamism,” he told  Crux , in a March 8, 2025, article. U.S. Government Response: The U.S. government has not acknowledged the horrific persecution of millions of Nigeria’s Middle Belt Christians reportedly by Fulani herder militants.  The Biden administration removed the first Trump administration’s designation of Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern (CPC). Secretary of State Antony Blinken explained this in testimony to the House Appropriations Committee, stating that the violent attacks against Nigerian Christians have “nothing to do with religion.” He overlooked all evidence to the contrary, some of which was included in his own State Department’s International Religious Freedom Report.  The 2023 State Department’s international religious freedom report, the most recent one, solely gives a neo-Marxian, materialistic theory for Fulani aggression.  It described the relentless attacks against Christian farming families on their own farms and violence against priests and pastors in their churches or homes as “clashes” between two rural socio-economic groups fighting over scarce natural resources, a result of climate change.  This conclusion ignores the two groups’ religious identities, the pattern of aggression by the Fulanis throughout the years, the shouts of “Allahu Akbar” and other religious sentiments expressed by the Fulanis as they attack, the repeated attacks on churches and their leaders, and the survivors’ own reports.  It overlooks any possibility of radicalization of nomadic Fulani herdsmen as they travel across porous borders from the Sahel and Northeastern Nigeria, both regions recognized by the U.S. government as hotbeds of Islamist terror. It shows no concern for the automatic weapons widely distributed, reportedly by the Miyetti groups, to thousands of herders who use them to attack defenseless farming communities. The State Department reports the revealing finding ofthe Observatory for Religious Freedom in Africa that terror groups killed Christians proportionately in much greater numbers than Muslims but discounts the finding by disingenuously remarking that it “did not draw conclusions regarding whether Christians were targeted based on their religious identity.” It does not focus on the fact that the Nigerian government “tolerates” the violence, that is, allows it to continue with impunity, which meets the criteria for CPC designation, as stated in the International Religious Freedom Act. Instead, the Biden administration stated that Abuja isn’t itself “engaged” in the attacks and on that basis removed Nigeria from the CPC list. State’s theory that Fulani attacks on Christians are due solely to climate change is echoed throughout the foreign affairs community.  Neither the State Department nor the United Nations attempts to examine militant Fulani herders’ intent and motives nor questions the Nigerian government’s apparent grant of impunity to them.  The UN High Commissioner for Refugees website now posts an article , dated November 2024, featuring Mimi, one of some two million IDPs in Benue state, alone.  Like many of the others there, she survived a horrific Fulani herder attack three years ago, while her family was tending the yam fields on their farm about 30 miles from her displacement camp. Neither her Christian faith (Benue is 98 percent Christian), nor her Fulani attackers’ Muslim faith is mentioned. It reports:  When they looked up, they saw armed men. There was no time to run. The men raped and killed Mimi’s [11-year-old] daughter. Mimi herself was raped and her husband was killed. A hunter later found her injured and unconscious and helped her into the bush. They hid there for two days before it was safe enough for him to bring her to the camp. There, she received medical treatment and reunited with her two sons, now aged 12 and 15. “I lost everything,” says Mimi. “If you go to my village, everything has been burned down; I cannot farm any longer. And it’s not only me … we all went through these things.”  The UNHCR author then concludes the report on Mimi with the astonishing finding that climate change was to blame, not the attackers.  It quotes as authority for this none other than the head of the Fulani herders lobby, who casts the Fulani herders as the real victims: “’Climate change is a new challenge that we didn’t experience 20 or 30 years ago; it’s really impacting us,’” says Ibrahim Galma, Secretary of the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association,” it relates. This explanation is accepted without question by that pivotal UN body, as it has been by the State Department. Conclusion:  There is lawlessness and mayhem throughout Nigeria, nevertheless, within this context it is apparent that, for their faith, Christian clergy and pastors, their churches and congregations, and their villages and lands are being specifically targeted by various Islamist militant and terrorist groups operating in Nigeria -- especially at this time the Fulani herder militants in the country’s Middle Belt.  Nigerian Middle Belt Christians continue to be killed, maimed, raped, abducted, and enslaved in brutal attacks. Their farmlands have been confiscated and destroyed or taken over by Fulani herder aggressors, rendering millions of Middle Belt Christians homeless and stripped of their livelihoods, and living in IDP camps, without hospitals or schools. Heavy ransoms are demanded of rural village churches and communities, leaving them impoverished. These attacks are so systematic and uniform that it has led church observers on the ground and others to conclude they are a coordinated land grab to push the Christian population from the Middle Belt and Islamize it. After years of such attacks, Nigeria’s federal government, at the highest level, has failed to take effective action to stop the Fulani violence. It is amply apparent that Abuja is tolerating this horrific violence that egregiously violates the religious freedom of Nigerian Christians.  Therefore, I urge Congress to recommend CPC re-designation for Nigeria.

Development follows the recapture of presidential palace last week, in key victory for armed forces. Members of the Sudanese army gather next to a destroyed military vehicles after a battle with Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in the capital Khartoum, Sudan March 25, 2025. [File: Reuters] Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan has declared, “Khartoum is free” hours after his forces recaptured Khartoum airport from the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). Al-Burhan was speaking Wednesday from the presidential palace that government forces took control of Friday in a key victory. It was his first time inside the presidential palace for nearly two years. Earlier, soldiers also encircled areas surrounding the airport in the Sudanese capital on Wednesday, a pivotal development in a two-year-old conflict between the SAF and rival RSF, with the paramilitary’s forces fleeing across a bridge out of that part of the capital. SAF troops “surrounded the strategic Jebel Awliya area” south of central Khartoum, the last large RSF stronghold in the area, a military source told the AFP news agency, requesting anonymity because he is not authorised to brief the media. The army also secured both sides of the Manshiya Bridge, which crosses the Blue Nile River in Khartoum, leaving the Jebel Awliya Bridge just south of the capital as the only crossing out of the area still under RSF control. The military, at war with the RSF since April 2023, launched a campaign this week to push the paramilitary forces out of central Khartoum. RSF fighters had been stationed inside the airport, just east of central Khartoum’s government and business district, since the war began. Across the city, witnesses and activists reported that RSF fighters have been retreating southwards from neighbourhoods they previously controlled, ostensibly towards Jebel Awliya. Witnesses said that RSF had mainly stationed its forces in southern Khartoum to secure their withdrawal from the capital via bridges to the neighbouring city of Omdurman. After battle for Khartoum, Darfur “With the statement from the army chief [al-Burhan], it’s clear that the war is not over. After seeing the end of the battle here in Khartoum, we’re likely to see more and more fighting this time around the western region of Darfur and southwest Sudan”, .said Al Jazeera’s Hiba Morgan, reporting from Khartoum. “It is clear that the army has been making rapid progress, and rapid gains, especially when you look at where they’re located in the capital. So the advance from the army is coming from regions where they’re not only able to retake the bases. But also to take on the bases that used to belong to the RSF,”  Morgan added. “The RSF’s power up until five months ago was quite high and now has been greatly reduced”, she said. However, she explained that the paramilitary force still has fighters in other parts of the country. ‘The war continues’ Amgad Fareid Eltayeb from Fikra for Studies and Development in Cairo told Al Jazeera that the army’s advancement does not mean the conflict is finished. “The end of the war means a political settlement that dismantles the RSF political institutions. The RSF is retreating towards West Sudan, towards Darfur, where they hold a significant amount of land, and this means the war continues, especially in the light of the continuous support of certain foreign powers, particularly the UAE [United Arab Emirates], who continue the supply of weapons and support to the RSF,” he said. Elbashir Idris, an independent Sudan analyst and activist, told Al Jazeera: “The RSF’s collapse has been quicker than the army’s ability to deploy itself.” In Khartoum, “we have seen videos yesterday of many residents, and even prisoners who were under RSF-controlled territory, freeing themselves and running with full jubilation in the streets – without seeing an RSF militiaman in sight,” he noted. “This news [about the army retaking the airport] is very welcome to a lot of Sudanese people who have lost their homes within the capital city two years ago, and this win has come at the RSF’s collapse,” Idris added. In nearly two years, the war has killed tens of thousands of people, uprooted more than 12 million and created the world’s largest hunger and displacement crises. © 2025 Al Jazeera Media Network

Press Freedom groups condemn Israel's targeted killing of two journalists. Israel Defense Forces has confirmed it killed Hossam Shabat and Mohammed Mansour, claiming they were terrorists Mohammed Mansour’s father and other relatives mourn after the journalist was killed in an airstrike on his home in Khan Younis. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images Press freedom organisations have condemned the killing of two journalists in Gaza on Monday, who died in separate targeted airstrikes by the Israeli armed forces. Hossam Shabat, a 23-year-old correspondent for the Al Jazeera Mubasher channel, was killed by an Israeli airstrike on his car in the eastern part of Beit Lahiya. Hossam Shabat, 23, an Al Jazeera correspondent, was killed by an airstrike on his car near Beit Lahiya. Photograph: Handout Video reportedly from minutes after the airstrike, which has not been verified by the Guardian, shows people gathering around the shattered and smoking car and pulling a body out of the wreckage. Mohammed Mansour, a correspondent for Palestine Today, was also killed on Monday, reportedly along with his wife and son, in an Israeli airstrike on his home in south Khan Younis. In the hours after the deaths, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and Palestinian press freedom organisations released statements condemning the attacks. Mohammed Mansour, a correspondent for Palestine Today, who was killed on Monday in an airstrike on his home. Photograph: Handout “CPJ is appalled that we are once again seeing Palestinians weeping over the bodies of dead journalists in Gaza ,” said Carlos Martínez de la Serna, CPJ’s program director. “This nightmare in Gaza has to end. The international community must act fast to ensure that journalists are kept safe and hold Israel to account for the deaths of Hossam Shabat and Mohammed Mansour. Journalists are civilians and it is illegal to attack them in a war zone.” In a statement, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) confirmed it had targeted and killed Shabat and Mansour and labelled them as terrorists. The IDF said it had “eliminated the terrorist Hossam Basel Abdul Karim Shabat, a sniper terrorist from the Beit Hanoun Battalion of the Hamas terrorist organisation, who cynically posed as an Al Jazeera journalist.” The IDF said it had documentation exposing Shabat’s “direct affiliation with the military wing of the Hamas terrorist organisation”. The IDF also said that it had struck Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists in Khan Younis, where Mohammed Mansour was killed. In October 2024, the IDF had accused Shabat and five other Palestinian journalists working for Al Jazeera in Gaza of being members of the militant arm of Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Al Jazeera and Shabat denied Israel’s claims, with Shabat stating in an interview with the CPJ that “we are civilians … Our only crime is that we convey the image and the truth.” The CPJ has previously denounced the Israeli authorities for the “smearing of killed Palestinian journalists with unsubstantiated ‘terrorist’ labels”. In its statement condemning the deaths of Shabat and Mansour, the CPJ again called on Israel to “stop making unsubstantiated allegations to justify its killing and mistreatment of members of the press”. The CPJ estimates that more than 170 journalists have been killed in Gaza since the war began in October 2023, making it the deadliest period for journalists since the organisation began gathering data in 1992. The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate says it believes the number is higher and, with the deaths of Shabat and Mansour, 208 journalists and other members of the press have been killed over the course of the conflict. Under international law, journalists are protected civilians who must not be targeted by warring parties. Mourners at a ceremony for Hossam Shabat. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images Hours after his death, Shabat’s team posted a message on X, written by the journalist to be published in the event of his death. “I documented the horrors in northern Gaza minute by minute, determined to show the world the truth they tried to bury. I slept on pavements, in schools, in tents – anywhere I could. Each day was a battle for survival,” he wrote. “I endured hunger for months, yet I never left my people’s side … I fulfilled my duty as a journalist. I risked everything to report the truth, and now, I am finally at rest – something I haven’t known in the past 18 months … for the last time, Hossam Shabat, from northern Gaza.” © 2025 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. (dcr)

Authorities have blamed the deadly attack in the town of Kokorou on the Islamic State in the Great Sahara, an ISIL affiliate. The military-run government of Niger frequently fights armed groups in the region, and civilians are often victims of the violence [File: Zohra Bensemra/Reuters] The government of Niger has declared three days of mourning following an attack on a mosque in the country’s southwest that killed at least 44 people. The victims were killed in a “savage” armed assault in the Fambita quarter of the rural border town of Kokorou, the interior ministry said in a statement broadcast on state television on Friday. The ministry said another 13 people were wounded. West Africa’s Sahel region has seen an uptick in violence in recent years following the rise of armed fighters linked to the al-Qaeda and ISIL (ISIS) armed groups that took over territory in north Mali after the 2012 Tuareg rebellion. Since then, it has spread into neighbouring Niger and Burkina Faso, and more recently into the north of coastal West African countries such as Togo and Ghana. Niger’s interior ministry said the latest attack occurred early in the afternoon as people were attending a prayer service at the mosque during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. “The heavily armed terrorists surrounded the mosque to carry out their massacre with unusual cruelty,” it said, adding that the attackers also set fire to a local market and homes. The defence ministry blamed the attack on the Islamic State in the Great Sahara, or EIGS, an affiliate of ISIL, in a statement late on Friday. EIGS had no immediate reaction to the allegation. Previous attacks in Niger were claimed by al-Qaeda affiliate groups. The government has promised to hunt down the perpetrators and put them on trial. The military-run government of Niger frequently fights armed groups in the region, and civilians are often victims of the violence. Since July 2023, at least 2,400 people have been killed in Niger, according to the database of ACLED, a non-governmental organisation that gives armed conflict location and event data. Across the greater Sahel region that encompasses several countries, hundreds of thousands more have been killed and millions displaced as armed groups attack towns and villages as well as government security outposts. The failure of governments to restore security contributed to two coups in Mali, two in Burkina Faso and one in Niger between 2020 and 2023. All three remain under military rule despite regional and international pressure to hold elections. Since the coups, authorities have turned away from traditional Western allies and have sought military support from Russia instead. SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES

The revocation means nearly half a million people could be potentially deported A sign for the US Department of Homeland Security in Washington, DC, on 24 March 2025 (AFP) The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has said it will revoke temporary legal pathways for more than half a million people, setting them up for potential deportation in about a month. The order, announced on Friday, applies to about 532,000 people from four countries - Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela - who have arrived in the United States since October 2022. All of the people impacted arrived with financial sponsors and were given two-year permits to live and work in the US under the humanitarian parole programme known as CHNV, an acronym for the four countries, set up under the Biden administration. On 20 January, former Department of Homeland Security secretary Benjamine Huffman issued a directive to end “the broad abuse of humanitarian parole and return the program to a case-by-case basis".   Current DHS secretary, Kristi Noem, said on Friday that impacted people will lose their legal status 30 days after the publication of the notice in the Federal Register on 25 March, which would mean that parolees without a lawful basis to stay in the US would need to leave before their parole termination date.   Humanitarian parole is a long-standing legal tool that presidents have used to allow people from countries experiencing war or political instability to enter and temporarily live in the US. During his presidential campaign, US President Donald Trump promised to get tough on illegal immigration. However, since reentering office, he has also been cracking down on legal pathways for people already inside the US and those planning to come from outside. Before the new order, the beneficiaries of the programme could stay in the US until their parole expires, although the administration had stopped processing their applications for asylum, visas and other requests that might allow them to remain longer. The administration’s decision has already been challenged in federal courts. A group of US citizens and immigrants sued the Trump administration for ending humanitarian parole and are seeking to reinstate the programmes for the four nationalities. 'Suddenly revoking the lawful status of hundreds of thousands of CHNV humanitarian parole recipients is going to cause needless chaos and heartbreak for families across the country' - Karen Tumlin, Justice Action Center Lawyers and activists have denounced the government's decision. Karen Tumlin, founder and director at Justice Action Center, said in a press release , “Suddenly revoking the lawful status of hundreds of thousands of CHNV humanitarian parole recipients is going to cause needless chaos and heartbreak for families and communities across the country. The Administration’s targeting of this successful and popular process - one of the last remaining safe and lawful pathways - is reckless, cruel and counterproductive.” The Biden administration allowed up to 30,000 people a month from the four countries to come to the US for two years with the eligibility to work. It was part of the Biden administration's approach to encouraging people to come through new legal channels while cracking down on those who crossed the border illegally. The programme was said to reduce the number of migrants crossing the border illegally. Advocates for the federal government said that migrants admitted through the policy helped with a farm labour shortage in the US. The Biden administration decided  last fall  not to allow CHNV beneficiaries to renew their two-year work permits under the programme, saying they could apply for other benefits, like asylum and Temporary Protected Status.  Copyright © 2014 - 2025. Middle East Eye. All rights reserved.

Local groups reported that bodies were left 'charred beyond recognition' following the attack Images shared by local groups appeared to show charred bodies scattered among the smoking remains of the market (X) A Sudanese Armed Forces  (SAF) attack on a busy market in western Darfur on Monday resulted in a "horrific massacre", a war monitor said on Wednesday. The military's shelling of the Tur'rah market, located 80km north of el-Fasher, left hundreds dead, according to Emergency Lawyers, a group of lawyers who monitor the war in Sudan. While an official death toll has yet to be confirmed, Sudanese aid groups reported that at least 54 people were killed in the attack. Darfur Victims Support (DVS), a local group that supports victims of the conflict, cited eyewitnesses who reported that some 126 civilians were killed in the attack, with many bodies "burnt beyond recognition".  The group noted that the market serves as a commercial hub for the surrounding areas and that it would have been thronging with people at the time of the attack, at approximately 2pm. DVS condemned the strike as "deliberate and systematic," reporting that approximately 10 barrel bombs were dropped on the market. It further cited one witness who said that white phosphorous was used in the attack. Images shared by the group appeared to show charred bodies scattered among the smouldering ruins of the market stalls. According to a list compiled by Adam Rejal, a spokesperson for the General Coordination, a local group helping displaced people in Darfur, over half the fatalities were women. The 'deadliest single bombing' The Darfur Initiative for Justice and Peace (DIJP) condemned the attack as the "deadliest single bombing since the beginning of the war". An SAF spokesperson denied the allegations, insisting that civilians had not been targeted. He added that such accusations are levelled at the military "whenever our forces exercise their constitutional and legal right to deal with hostile targets”.  The UN secretary-general's spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the body was "gravely alarmed by the continued attacks on civilians". In recent months, the civilian death toll in Sudan has surged as fighting has intensified in the nearly two-year-long conflict between the SAF and the paramilitary  Rapid Support Forces  (RSF), with artillery shelling, air strikes and drone attacks pounding civilian areas. In February, the UN human rights office, OHCHR,  reported  that at least 275 people had been killed between 31 January and 5 February, representing a three-fold increase from the previous week. At least 80 civilians were reported to have been killed in South Kordofan's captal Kadugli - where there were also reports of women and children being used as human shields. Also in February, the RSF killed 433 people in a three-day attack in the White Nile state. Some 150,000 people are estimated to have been killed in the conflict so far, which has been marked by war crimes and crimes against humanity, including mass rape and ethnically motivated killings. Some 12 million have been forced to flee, and over half the population is currently facing "high levels of acute food insecurity" according to the UN. Copyright © 2014 - 2025. Middle East Eye. All rights reserved.

Conflict monitors say Wagner fighters have intensified combat and widened their operation areas since 2023. An undated photograph provided by the French military shows three Russian mercenaries in northern Mali [File: French Army via AP] By Shola Lawal Grainy camera footage showed them lying still in the blistering heat of the desert – six or seven bodies, maybe more. Wet, red spots in the sand and belongings scattered across the landscape were signs of what had happened. As the camera shifted back and forth, it caught a dirtied pair of jeans in the sand, curiously without its owner. It was February in northern Mali. The group lying dead in the sand were reportedly returning from a wedding in the Gao region when they were attacked, not by armed groups, but allegedly by the Malian army and allied Russian mercenaries of the Wagner group. At least 20 people who had been travelling in two vehicles were killed, including children and old people. Mali’s military government, in a rare move, promised to “investigate” soldiers alleged to have been involved in the deaths as an outcry from rights groups mounted. Weeks later, there aren’t yet any results. Analysts were not surprised – saying the incident was only one of several reported killings of civilians by state forces in the insecure West African country. The Malian army has long been accused of abuses against civilians, and now Russian fighters, who have made inroads in the country in the wake of declining French military presence, are fast building a similar reputation. “The most striking difference with France’s former military presence has been Wagner’s callous strategy, characterised by wanton violence against civilians,” Constantin Gouvy, a Sahel researcher with the international affairs think tank, Clingendael Institute, told Al Jazeera, comparing the Russian fighters with French troops who were once Mali’s main support against invading armed groups before they exited the country in 2021 when Bamako and Paris fell out. Mali has since sacked an 11,000-man United Nations peacekeeping mission, as well, and turned exclusively to Russian paramilitaries . Wagner troops were almost immediately spotted deep in enemy territory upon their deployment in 2022 and were accused by rights groups of collaborating in civilian “massacres” alongside state forces and pro-government ethnic fighter groups. However, analysts say that since August 2023, after the death of Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin, the fighters appear to have intensified their involvement in Mali and expanded their scope of operations – at the cost of civilian lives. Bamako is eager to weaken armed groups linked to al-Qaeda and ISIL (ISIS) and has targeted villagers in the north that it sees as sympathetic to them. But battles with Tuareg groups, some of whom are fighting for a secessionist state of “Azawad”, have become a key focus, and have reawakened a decades-long independence war in the north. The travellers in the Gao convoy from February are believed to have been Tuareg. Mali’s troubled past Between 1,000 and 1,500 Russian Wagner fighters are on the Malian front lines, which is the group’s main active battleground in the region. Wagner soldiers are similarly present in the Central African Republic and Sudan. Since 2023, Russia has sought to control the group more directly. Some experts say Moscow is eager to avoid Wagner getting as powerful as it was under Progozhin , who staged a rebellion that embarrassed Russian President Vladimir Putin and senior defence officials just months before his death. Russian defence authorities have since rebranded Wagner’s Africa operations as Africa Corps. But in Mali, the fighters have continued to identify themselves as “Wagner”, analysts who monitor their Telegram channels say. Mali’s crisis began in 2012, when coalitions of Tuareg secessionists known collectively as the Coordination of Azawad Movements (CMA) took control of three northern cities – Timbuktu, Kidal and Gao, proclaimed an independent Azawad state, and split Mali into two. The then-civilian government sought help from the French military and the UN. The two forces were able to retake some rebel territory. In 2015, the rebels and Bamako signed a fragile peace deal that granted Tuareg separatists some autonomy. However, low-level attacks by the CMA continued. Armed groups such as the al-Qaeda-backed Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) and the ISIL affiliate in the Greater Sahara (ISGS), which the CMA sometimes cooperates with, grew in power, attacking and taxing civilians, and seizing territory. In 2020 , the military, riding a wave of popular anger at the France-backed government, seized power. France condemned the coup, pledging not to work with a military government. Analysts also note that Paris was unwilling to tamper with the Tuareg deal they’d helped secure, a deal the military was especially keen on discarding because they perceived it as threatening. The fighter groups were then forced to look elsewhere for support. “It was only Wagner troops that were willing to help take back the north,” said Antonio Giustozzi, a researcher at the United Kingdom think tank, Royal United Service Institute (RUSI). The group, he said, is especially known among global mercenary outfits for having an appetite for high-risk warfare, such as the fighter tactics needed in remote Sahelian territory. “The priority for the Malian government was always the north because they felt those guys got too much autonomy, and they didn’t like how cozy they were getting with the French,” he said. Proving their worth Fighting was ongoing in Mali when Prigozhin died in a plane crash in late 2023. Some analysts predicted that Wagner would significantly reduce its operations in West Africa as the Russian government re-arranged the unit. Some 100 fighters were recalled from Burkina Faso to Ukraine in late 2023, raising those speculations. Giustozzi said Wagner’s future was unclear for some months. Mali was unwilling to deal with a military force that was essentially under Russian government control. Moscow was also torn: On the one hand, it was wary of the group and did not want it to return to its former strength; on the other, shutting it down would mean Moscow lost access to the Sahel where it has gained significant influence, not to mention the millions of dollars in security payments. Eventually, a compromise was reached, the RUSI expert said: Wagner would stay on for the fighting, and Russian military officials would oversee noncombat deployments, such as training and maintaining equipment. The Russian military is deployed in similar roles in Burkina Faso and Niger. Wagner, now led by Ivan Aleksandrovich Maslov, has been pressured to prove to Bamako it can deliver despite the internal turmoil, analysts say, pointing to its doubled combat activities since then. In the last quarter of 2023, after Russia’s direct takeover of the group, Wagner’s activities in Mali doubled compared with the previous quarter, according to analysis by conflict monitor ACLED. That trend continued in 2024. “What Wagner is willing to do, no one else is,” Giustozzi said. Russian fighters are active in remote parts of northern Mali, close to the Algerian border, where there is little air support or possibilities for medical evacuation. It’s a situation most mercenary groups would baulk at, he said, but Wagner fighters are especially rugged and, like other mercenaries, violent. Mounting abuses With Wagner’s help, Mali’s army made significant gains against the rebels. In late 2023, the government coalition took back control of Kidal. In February 2024, government forces also retook the Inathaka gold mine, the largest artisanal gold mine in the north which had been controlled jointly by armed groups and Azawad rebels. Government air attacks have also killed high-ranking rebel leaders. That success has come at the expense of civilian lives as the military, Wagner troops, and pro-government fighter groups step up military operations. Where armed groups killed about 400 people in total in 2024, Wagner and the Malian military killed more than 900 people, according to ACLED. Civilians fleeing Mali’s north to Mauritania arrive with horror tales of “white men in masks”, according to reporting by The Washington Post. Experts tell of women strip-searched and abused, men decapitated, people burned alive, and entire communities razed. Human Rights Watch, in a December report, revealed that between May and December, the Malian army and Russian forces “deliberately killed at least 32 civilians, including 7 in a drone strike, forcibly disappeared 4 others, and burned at least 100 homes in military operations in towns and villages in central and northern Mali”. The rights groups also accused JNIM and ISGS of dozens of civilian deaths in the same timeframe. French troops, when they were in Mali, were not without their faults. A French air raid in January 2021 killed 19 civilians taking part in a wedding. And Mali’s army is routinely implicated in civilian deaths. Wagner and the Malian military too have been badly hit. Last July, the coalition suffered its biggest defeat yet, when a unit was ambushed by a joint force of CMA fighters and armed groups in northern Tinzouaten. Dozens of Wagner soldiers died or were taken captive. Mali, in the aftermath, blamed Ukraine for providing intelligence support to the Tuareg in order to get back at Russia. It also cut ties with Kyiv. Despite its military setbacks, Wagner for now appears intent on keeping both Moscow and Bamako happy, experts say. “They are a relatively low-cost involvement which brings in money, minerals, and geopolitical sway,” Gouvy, the Clingendael Institute researcher said, painting Moscow’s likely calculations with Wagner at a time when Western sanctions have hobbled revenue. © 2025 Al Jazeera Media Network

‘I can’t describe all of it… Those drunk, stinking men, tearing my clothes, treating me like I was a rubber doll… It was unbearable,’ one survivor revealed There have been multiple witness accounts of rape, torture, and physical violence towards women by Russian authorities. Image used for representative purpose/AP (Trigger warning: Please note that the report contains graphical details of abuse, which could be distressing to some. Reader discretion is advised) When Russian forces began their full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, they unleashed not only missiles and troops but also a campaign of systematic brutality that extended far beyond the battlefield. Reports of war crimes surfaced early: executions of prisoners of war (PoWs), forced deportations, indiscriminate shelling of civilian infrastructure. Yet among the most harrowing, and often the most silenced, were accounts of sexual violence. A recent report by the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine has unearthed deeply unsettling evidence of systematic rape and torture committed by Russian security forces against Ukrainian prisoners and civilians. “The Commission has now documented new cases of rape and sexual violence, used as forms of torture against female detainees, who were subjected to humiliating and degrading treatment,” said Erik Møse, Chair of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine. “Some women were raped during interrogation as a means to coerce, intimidate or punish them; others were subjected to forced nudity in the presence of male guards,” he added. These are not isolated incidents. Rather, they appear to be part of a methodical campaign of terror– one that uses sexual violence as a weapon of war. ‘You do not deserve to live’ The advance unedited version of the report mentioned the account of a 40-year-old civilian woman who had walked into a Russian commandant’s office in Kherson in April 2022. She had come to ask about a missing relative. A Federal Security Service (FSB) officer questioned her, and deemed her uncooperative. He then ordered three Russian soldiers to “talk to her normally, maybe she will remember something.” What followed was an act of unspeakable cruelty. The soldiers took her into another room, where they took turns raping her, and then did it again using a rubber baton. One of the members of the panel, Vrinda Grover, while speaking at the release of the report in Geneva last week, told journalists of the account of a civilian woman who had been raped during confinement in a detention facility held by Russian authorities. This woman “stated that she pleaded with the perpetrators, telling them she could be their mother’s age, but they dismissed her saying, ‘B***h, don’t even compare yourself to my mother. You are not even a human. You do not deserve to live.’” Sexual violence against women has been used as a weapon of war in nearly every modern conflict, from West Asia to Africa to Europe. Image used for representative purpose/UN ‘I couldn’t even breathe’ In Russian-controlled detention facilities, such atrocities were routine. A 26-year-old Ukrainian prisoner of war, captured after her surrender in May 2022, was detained for more than two years. The Federal Penitentiary Service subjected her to relentless torture– beatings that lasted for hours, forced nudity, and eventually, rape with a rubber baton. “It was just pain. I couldn’t even breathe. I couldn’t understand why they would do that to me, how they could do that to someone.” She bled profusely. She lost consciousness. When she finally came to, she could no longer stand or walk. As punishment, she was placed in solitary confinement for eight months. The silent wounds of war The systematic use of rape as torture is not new in war, but in Ukraine, it has taken on an especially insidious form– one that is often hidden from view due to the stigma surrounding sexual violence in the country. In a deeply religious and conservative society like Ukraine, survivors of sexual violence often face profound shame, isolation, and even suicidal despair. Many do not report their abuse, fearing judgment from their communities or even their own families, according to a report by the New York Times . According to SEMA Ukraine, a network providing support to survivors of wartime sexual violence, many women have remained silent– alone in their suffering. Some have taken their own lives. Others have retreated into isolation, unwilling or unable to confront the horrors they endured. Torture as a crime against humanity The Commission’s report makes it clear: this was not the work of rogue soldiers acting on their own impulses. The Federal Security Service– the powerful intelligence agency at the heart of the Russian state– exercised the highest authority in detention facilities. The agency’s operatives routinely tortured detainees, using electric shocks, suffocation, and brutal beatings. They also used sexual violence to break their victims psychologically. In one case, officers threatened a female prisoner, who had been subjected to multiple electric shocks, unless she confessed. “If you will continue to deny, your brother will suffer, […] and do not forget that we can also bring your daughters here,” they stated, according to Erik Møse. A crime beyond the battlefield The testimonies from survivors bear chilling resemblance to past conflicts, where rape was deployed as a calculated means of terrorizing populations. From the Balkans to Rwanda, from Syria to Ukraine, the pattern is hauntingly familiar. What makes this war particularly insidious is that Russian authorities have refused to acknowledge these crimes, let alone investigate them. The Commission has sent 31 communications to the Russian government regarding war crimes, including incidents where the alleged victims were Russian. None have been answered. Meanwhile, survivors in Ukraine have been left to grapple with their trauma alone. Some have turned to underground support networks, whispering their stories to psychologists and aid workers. Others, too shattered to speak, have retreated into silence. The need for justice As the war grinds on, the international community faces a critical question: Will these crimes go unanswered? Sexual violence as a weapon of war is a crime against humanity—one that demands justice. Yet justice remains elusive. While Ukraine has vowed to prosecute Russian war criminals, holding perpetrators accountable is an uphill battle. The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for key Russian figures, but these prosecutions take years—sometimes decades. For survivors, justice cannot come soon enough. In the words of one rape victim: “I can’t describe all of it… Those drunk, stinking men, tearing my clothes, treating me like I was a rubber doll… It was unbearable.” Her words are a stark reminder that war crimes are not only about destroyed buildings and military losses. They are about lives shattered in ways that can never be repaired. They are about what happens when the world looks away. Will it? Copyright @ 2024. Firstpost - All Rights Reserved

A woman walks through a dark street in Kyiv during power cuts following a Russian attack on Ukrainian energy facilities. (Reuters: Thomas Peter) At night, the streets are often pitch-black. Damage to Ukraine's energy infrastructure over the past year has led to frequent power cuts. Women have reported being followed through the darkness and abused by men, with no way of identifying who they are. "It's dangerous everywhere," a woman in Kharkiv said. "There are no streetlights, so it's dangerous." Other women refuse to leave their homes after 9pm over fears for their safety. "I'm afraid," a caregiver in a rural area in Kharkiv said. "There's a lot of our military. Yeah, our guys. But I don't know what they've experienced, what kind of trauma and what can be expected." Women have reported feeling increasingly unsafe in public areas because blackouts are so common. (Reuters: Shannon Stapleton) The ongoing war, now in its fourth year, has significantly intensified gender-based violence in Ukraine, according to a new study by UNFPA, the United Nations sexual and reproductive health agency. Hundreds of women and girls across the country shared their experiences, describing how violence had increased inside and outside the home. Ulla Muller, the UN agency's representative to Ukraine, said the conflict was contributing to new forms of gender-based violence and "greatly exacerbating" pre-existing ones. "We've come to understand that even during continued shelling, home can be the most dangerous place for women due to growing stress related to the ongoing war," she told the ABC. "Continued shelling fosters an environment of emotional exhaustion, prolonged stress and displacement, all of which contribute to increased gender-based violence." The conflict in Ukraine has led to widespread insecurity and displacement. (Reuters: Thomas Peter) WARNING: This story contains details about domestic violence and conflict-related sexual violence that may distress some readers. Ms Muller said the study was "grounded in listening closely to women and girls". The aim was to amplify survivors' voices and capture the daily realities and risks faced by women, girls and vulnerable communities throughout Ukraine. This is what they said. Feeling unsafe at home Last year, the situation in Ukraine continued to deteriorate, with widespread insecurity and displacement throughout the country. The 2024 Voices of Ukraine report heard from more than 360 participants and 56 experts to understand how women and girls were being affected. Many reported feeling less safe and facing greater violence over the past year. In particular, women described growing levels of intimate partner and domestic violence within the household. "He gets drunk, comes over, beats her up, and what is she supposed to do about it?" - Displaced woman with a disability/caregiver in a rural area, Lviv . "It exists, of course, but within the family it is tolerated" - Older woman in rural area, Kharkiv . "There have been more cases of physical violence, sometimes with hospitalisation, severe beatings. Aggression has increased and brutality in society." - Gender-based violence expert, Lviv . "We have a girl who gets constantly beaten up by her own boyfriends. Her children see this." - Older woman in a rural area, Kharkiv . Stress and substance abuse Women said there were higher levels of stress within families and communities, and more people were turning to alcohol. The report found women were often experiencing violence from partners and husbands who returned from the war zone. Violence towards older women by their children was also reported to be rising. "We are concerned ... the situation is worsening in the community as most people have lost their jobs, abuse alcohol or drugs. - Woman, Kharkiv. "A real situation from life: a man comes back from war on leave, beats up a woman, neighbours call the police, and the woman refuses to write a report because it's her husband, who's fighting in the war. The romanticisation of the military." - Older woman in a rural area, Kharkiv . "The situation with boys and men, in general, is that during the occupation and after de-occupation many lost their jobs and just, as they say, went downhill, started to drink alcohol and not only." - Woman caregiver, Kherson. Ms Muller said it was common for women to feel disrespectful reporting abuse by men who had served in the military. Many felt forced into silence. "Across Ukraine, women and girls have reported difficulty in speaking out against intimate partner violence, including when men returning from war are hailed as heroes within their communities," she said. The war has separated families and made women the heads of households. (AP: Markus Schreiber) Displacement and crowded living The report said people were spending more time at home because of curfews, electricity cuts, and security risks, which could lead to greater exposure to violence from family members. And displaced families were often living in crowded shared housing. Out of Ukraine's 37.9 million population, more than 4 million are internally displaced, according to the report. Waves of evacuations from dangerous regions continued throughout 2024, and some areas were hosting large numbers of displaced populations. Crowding and a lack of privacy in collective living situations for displaced families contributed to domestic violence and increased the risk of sexual abuse, the report said. The lack of housing made it difficult for survivors to leave. Women also described sexual violence taking place along their displacement route during evacuations, particularly on trains and when arriving at stations. "For internally displaced peolpe, the situation has been exacerbated by the lack of housing for mothers with children who have to live in a shared space, and sometimes in the same room, with other families." - Displaced adolescent girl, Lviv . "The property issue encourages domestic violence. People don't have the money to distance themselves, rent or buy their own separate accommodation." - LGBTQIA+ person . "There are several dysfunctional families in the hostel. The partner committed physical violence against his woman, even when she was pregnant ... Also, the abuser poses a risk to the other residents of the hostel." - Displaced woman in a collective site, Lviv . Jacqui True is a professor of international relations at Monash University and the director of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the Elimination of Violence Against Women (CEVAW). She said being displaced was a huge risk factor for gender-based violence. "You're vulnerable. Often, there's less access to water, to shelter, to food, and the situations people are in are precarious," she told the ABC. "That makes them vulnerable to those people who use violence." Prolonged displacement can put women at risk of violence. (Reuters: Kai Pfaffenbach) Dark raises risks in public spaces In both urban and rural areas, women and girls were feeling increasingly unsafe walking and navigating outside the home, according to the study. Blackouts were common due to attacks on energy infrastructure, and some public lighting was reportedly turned off at night for security reasons. Ukraine is currently operating with about one-third of its pre-war energy capacity. In November, power was down 40 per cent of the time in some urban areas, according to the country's energy grid operator. Ukraine's energy grid was once robust, now it operates at one-third of its pre-war capacity. (Reuters: Thomas Peter) The report said electricity cuts and the resulting lack of public lighting was one of the main risk factors contributing to and exacerbating violence. And it was frequently cited as a reason for women's growing sense of insecurity. They felt unsafe without lighting spaces such as stairwells and hallways. And many were afraid to be in underground shelters and parking areas, particularly in collective living situations. "You know, what scares us more is the lack of street light in the village." - Older woman in a rural area, Kherson . "It is dark out in the streets, creepy." - Woman in a rural area, Kharkiv . "We are afraid. Well, when the man was walking behind me, you don't know what he wanted" - Displaced adolescent girl in a rural area, Kherson . "There is no street lighting at all in the village. It used to be on 'till 10pm, but now there is none at all." - Woman in a rural area, Kharkiv . A global issue Professor True said it was also important to address the use of conflict-related sexual violence as a weapon of war in Ukraine. Severe types of violence carried out by Russian forces have been documented by human rights organisations and Ukrainian prosecutors. Last week, a UN commission of inquiry on Ukraine concluded that Russian authorities "committed the war crimes of rape and sexual violence as a form of torture" against women in detention. "It's a very big and very significant issue in this conflict," Professor True said. "It's not something we hear on the news every day, but that is what's going on." Moscow has repeatedly denied accusations its forces have committed human rights violations during the invasion. Professor True said gender-based and sexual violence was an increasing issue in conflicts globally and it was largely under-reported. "It was positive to see that so many survivors in Ukraine were coming out and speaking about their experiences," she added. The report noted that it was crucial to listen to the voices of women and girls to inform actions, policies, and humanitarian interventions moving forward. The UN agency is calling for increased and targeted investment in gender-based violence programs and specialised services for survivors. But Ms Muller said only so much could be done while the country was still at war. Russian President Vladimir Putin last week rejected a US-proposed 30-day ceasefire plan, but agreed to suspend attacks on Ukrainian power infrastructure while talks continued. "A ceasefire is a critical initial step toward a just peace, but what we truly need is lasting peace," Ms Muller said. "Supporting women's mental and emotional healing is essential to achieving justice — and true justice depends upon lasting peace." © 2025 ABC

The arrest of Dr. Mahrang Baloch, the leader of the peaceful Baloch protest movement, has set the entire province aflame. By Dilshad Baluch March 24, 2025 Protesters join a sit-in with the bodies of demonstrators killed by police in Quetta, Balochistan, March 22, 2025. Source: Special arrangement/ The Diplomat Balochistan is burning once again. The Pakistani state, long accused of waging a silent war against the Baloch people, has unleashed an unprecedented wave of brutality against unarmed protesters. In Quetta, Turbat, Panjgur, and beyond, Pakistan’s security forces have turned peaceful demonstrations into bloodbaths, indiscriminately killing, arresting, and disappearing activists. This state-led terror also came for Dr. Mahrang Baloch, a prominent human rights defender and leader of the Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC). On March 22, she was violently arrested during a pre-dawn raid on a peaceful sit-in. Her only crime was demanding the release of forcibly disappeared persons. In a move that reeks of state-sponsored deception, she is now being falsely charged with terrorism, sedition, and even murder– a cruel irony, given that it was the Pakistani police who shot and killed three unarmed Baloch protesters. Her arrest is not just an attack on an individual; it is an attack on an entire movement. It is a desperate attempt by the Pakistani state to criminalize Baloch activism and suppress the growing resistance against state oppression. But as history has shown, repression only fuels the fire. Quetta: A City Under Siege Dr. Mahrand Baloch (left, in black) attends a sit-in with the bodies of demonstrators killed by police in Quetta, Balochistan, March 22, 2025. Source: Special arrangement/ The Diplomat On March 21, thousands of Baloch protesters gathered in Quetta to demand the release of Bebarg Zehri, Dr. Hammal Baloch, Dr Ilyas Baloch, and other victims of enforced disappearances. The state’s response was swift and ruthless: police opened fire, killing three protesters on the spot, including a 12-year-old boy. Dozens were injured, yet ambulances were deliberately blocked from reaching the wounded. The situation escalated on March 22, when the BYC staged a sit-in with the bodies of the slain protesters at Saryab Road. Just before dawn, Pakistani security forces stormed the protest camp, arrested dozens, and forcefully seized the dead bodies. Among those arrested was Dr. Mahrang Baloch, who was dragged away alongside her sister and fellow activists. Their whereabouts remain unknown. As if the crackdown wasn’t enough, Pakistan imposed a total communication blackout across Quetta. Internet services and mobile networks were shut down, preventing any documentation of the ongoing violence. The goal was clear: to erase evidence of the state’s crimes and silence the voices of the oppressed. This is not just state repression. This is an act of war. The Fabrication of Terror Charges The Pakistani state has now escalated its crackdown by filing bogus terrorism and murder charges against Dr. Mahrang Baloch and other BYC leaders. In a grim display of authoritarianism, the very activists who were peacefully protesting against enforced disappearances are now being labeled as “terrorists” and “murderers.” Mahrang has been charged with terrorism, sedition, and murder under the draconian Maintenance of Public Order (MPO) Ordinance, 1960, section 3 (3MPO), which permits preventative detention in the name of “maintenance of public order.” To make matters worse, she has been sentenced to a month in jail – an attempt to break the spirit of the BYC movement and discourage further activism. The FIRs filed against the BYC claim that Dr. Mahrang and others led an armed mob that fired at security forces. This is a blatant lie. Video evidence and eyewitness reports confirm that only the police fired live rounds at unarmed protesters. Yet, instead of holding security forces accountable for the murders, the Pakistani state has criminalized the victims. This is not an isolated tactic. Pakistan has a long history of blaming peaceful activists for state-led violence. By branding human rights defenders as terrorists, the government seeks to justify more crackdowns, mass arrests, and enforced disappearances. The international community must not fall for this deception. These charges are not about justice – they are about silencing dissent. A Nationwide Uprising: Protests Erupt Across Pakistan Despite the brutal repression, the Baloch resistance is not backing down. The arrest of Dr. Mahrang and the mass killings in Quetta have triggered widespread protests across Balochistan and beyond. Demonstrations have erupted in Turbat, Panjgur, Khuzdar, Dalbandin, Mastung, Noshki, Naseerabad, and in other regions of Balochistan, where protesters are demanding the immediate release of detained activists and an end to state violence. In Karachi and even Islamabad, students, activists, and members of civil society are speaking out and doing protests and demonstrations.  The situation in Panjgur escalated when security forces opened fire on protesters again, injuring multiple people. In Lasbela, the police attacked a BYC protest camp with tear gas and live ammunition. The crackdown is no longer just confined to a few regions – Pakistan has turned the entire Balochistan province into a war zone. Pakistan’s government is miscalculating if it believes that mass arrests and murder will stop the Baloch resistance. For decades, Pakistan has underestimated the resilience of the Baloch people, and today, it is witnessing an unprecedented uprising. A Colonial War Against Balochistan The events of March 21-23 are not isolated incidents. They are part of a decades-long war that Pakistan has waged against Balochistan. For years, the Pakistani state has treated Balochistan as a colony, exploiting its gold, gas, and coastline while systematically eliminating its people. Enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings, and mass graves have become the norm. The burial of 13 unidentified bodies in Quetta’s Kasi graveyard days before the protests, without any identification or investigation, is just another reminder of Pakistan’s policy of state-led genocide. But this war is no longer confined to rural Balochistan. With each passing day, the Pakistani state is bringing its violence into urban centers, targeting students, women, and human rights defenders. The surge in brutality is Pakistan’s way of coping with the embarrassment of back-to-back   major attacks  staged by the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), after which the authorities pledged a merciless “sanitization operation.” The arrest of Dr. Mahrang Baloch proves that Pakistan is now willing to label even non-violent activists as “terrorists” in its desperation.  The International Community Must Intervene Pakistan’s war crimes in Balochistan are no longer a regional issue – they are a global human rights emergency. The international community can no longer afford to turn a blind eye to Pakistan’s atrocities. Amnesty International and Front Line Defenders have already condemned the violence, but statements are not enough. The world must act. The United Nations, the European Union, the United States, and international human rights organizations must demand the immediate release of Dr. Mahrang Baloch and all detained protesters. They must send independent observers to Balochistan to document Pakistan’s war crimes. They must hold Pakistan accountable at the United Nations and impose sanctions on military officials involved in human rights violations. Most importantly, they must break Pakistan’s information blockade by ensuring international media coverage of the crisis. Pakistan’s reckless use of force against peaceful protesters, its false labeling of activists as terrorists, and its reliance on mass killings to silence dissent are clear violations of international law. If left unchecked, this state-sponsored violence will only escalate. Balochistan Will Not Surrender Pakistan is using every weapon in its arsenal to crush the Baloch movement: bullets, enforced disappearances, digital blackouts, and fabricated terrorism charges. But repression has never defeated resistance. The Baloch people have withstood genocide for decades. They have lost thousands to enforced disappearances, seen their villages burned, and their activists jailed. Yet, they continue to resist. Pakistan has taken its brutality to a new level, in a move that is sure to backfire. Because history is clear – no empire lasts forever. Guest Author Dilshad Baluch Dilshad Baluch is a journalist from Pakistan’s Balochistan Province. A recent graduate of Quaid-i-Azam University Islamabad. his work has been published in national platforms, particularly at The Friday Times. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) @DilshadBaluch. © 2025 Diplomat Media Inc. All Rights Reserved.

As territory is won and lost by opposing military forces, people grasp at scraps of normality. But the country is undergoing the world’s most severe humanitarian catastrophe and global announcements of help have amounted to nothing. Mark Townsend ‘I miss my mother so much. I want this to stop’: Awadin Mohammed, 10, in hospital. The rest of her family died in the explosion that nearly killed her.Photograph: Mark Townsend/The Observer A friend had gone missing. Nothing unusual in Sudan’s ruinous war , but Hitham Mohund knew it was vital to act quickly. However, in an abandoned home near the Nile River he stopped searching after making a grisly discovery: wedged inside a bathroom were three bodies. Hands tied, eyes staring upwards. “They were shot in the chest,” said the 28-year-old, as he walked towards Maigoma Street, a dusty thoroughfare in north Khartoum, Sudan’s capital. It had been less than 24 hours since Mohund had found the bodies and his friend’s whereabouts were still unknown. Around him, shoppers were chatting, some were even dancing, as the street staged its first Friday market for nearly two years, since the civil war erupted between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). Three days earlier, the RSF had finally been pushed out of the Maigoma neighbourhood by the Sudanese army, and residents were in the mood to celebrate. But even now, safety was an ­illusion. A shell suddenly exploded on the street. Black smoke belched across the market. Moments later a donkey pulled a cart into the thoroughfare, carrying a wounded man lying face down. “There was another random shelling yesterday,” Mohund said, as the smoke cleared. “A home was hit.” The house belonged to the Mohammeds. At 7pm the day before, the family were preparing “mullah”, the main meal of the day. Awadin Mohammed was especially excited. Schools were starting to reopen. She remembers nothing of the moment an RSF projectile fell from the dark sky, flattening her home. Dr Ahmed Ibrahim, senior ­consultant at Omdurman’s teaching hospital, recalls the 10-year-old arriving. “She had been hit with shrapnel and was bleeding heavily.” Normally a child arrives escorted by anguished family. Awadin had no one. The hospital director, Prof Abdul Moneim, said that initially they waited for a relative. Still, no one came. So they began operating. A shard of metal 10cm square was removed from her colon. No one turned up for Awadin. Her entire family – mother, father, brother and sister – were found dead in the rubble of their home. “I miss my mother so much, my father,” she says, blinking back tears from her hospital bed. She wonders if anyone will adopt her. “I want this to stop.” But no one seems able to stop the slaughter. Hours after the Mohammeds were killed, Sudan’s unrelenting conflict claimed more people from Maigoma Street. The injured man on the cart died halfway to hospital, bleeding out on the five-mile journey. Other tragedies on Maigoma Street are less clear cut. The three bodies Mohund found have, at the time of writing, still not been identified. His friend remains missing. The dead, bound by a single street on a single day, are a microcosm of Sudan’s agony, replicated countless times during this war. In an era of rolling crises, Sudan stands supreme. By some margin it is the world’s largest, most devastating humanitarian catastrophe. Every metric confirms it is worsening. Thirty million Sudanese need aid to survive; half of them are children. Fighting has precipitated the worst famines in decades. Atrocities mount daily. More than 12 million Sudanese are at risk of sexual violence . Such statistics are not cutting through. As Africa’s third-largest country implodes, the west looks away. “International donors are fiddling as Sudan burns,” says a senior UN official. This is not donor apathy, but a tale of outrageous chicanery; of high-profile global announcements that were always untrue. At least £500m promised by the west 12 months ago to help Sudan cope with its suffering has not been paid. Like Awadin, Sudan is waiting for an intervention that might never happen. Among the shattered remains of central Khartoum North is a modernist house with a blue-tiled swimming pool, a throwback to when the middle classes thronged to one of Africa’s leading centres of commerce and culture. The imposing three-storey property belongs to Abdelrahim Hamdan Dagalo, second in command of the RSF. Last month the Guardian was allowed inside his home. At the time, television screens across Africa carried footage of a beaming Dagalo 1,050 miles (1,700km) away in Nairobi as he announced a ­breakaway Sudanese government. He may have presented himself as the consummate politician, but Dagalo was sanctioned for commanding soldiers responsible for the “massacre of civilians, ethnic killings, and use of sexual violence”. Inside his home was evidence of a cosseted life: a sophisticated gym, designer furniture. In the kitchen, cans of whipped cream, a tub of Maxtella chocolate spread, luxuries in a country where more than 26 million face acute hunger. There were clues also as to the central driver of Sudan’s conflict – gold. Display cases for gold jewellery lined the master bedroom. Dagalo and his brother, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo – known as Hemedti – built their army on the proceeds of the precious metal, which is found across Sudan. Elsewhere in the dining room: three immaculate copies of a local newspaper, dated October 2022, months before the civil war erupted. Its front page read: “No disagreement with Burhan: Hemedti.” The headline was wrong. Relations between rival generals Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, head of Sudan’s military, and Hemedti were beyond tense. Six months later, gunfire reverberated in central Khartoum. Within days, hundreds lay dead on its streets. Hastily, the UK and US embassy evacuated staff. More than two years later there is no sign either country will reopen their diplomatic missions, even in Port Sudan, which has escaped the fighting. “Once the UK packed its bags it never really looked back,” says a senior diplomat. Yet much was expected of Britain. Not only Sudan’s former colonial power but, as penholder of the UN security council on the country, it was responsible for galvanising the international response. “On the most fundamental issue – ­protecting civilians – the UK has failed abysmally,” said a Sudanese aid official. Both warring sides have committed myriad crimes against humanity: repeated, deliberate attacks against its people. Eleven million people have fled their homes, the world’s biggest displacement crisis. At least 200,000 are dead. Asked to sum up UK leadership on Sudan, one official answers: “Total bollocks.” Pinned to David Lammy’s X account is the message: “We must not forget Sudan.” Some wonder if it is a reminder to himself. The UK’s foreign secretary has yet to visit Sudan. No date is in the diary. Of 38 Foreign Office ministerial trips abroad during the first three months of the Labour government, none chose to witness the world’s most pressing humanitarian crisis. Two years of war have left many parts of Khartoum, and much of its infrastructure, in ruins. Photograph: Mark Townsend/The Observer Sudan’s military-led government – increasingly confident of outright victory after Friday’s symbolic seizure of Khartoum’s presidential palace from the RSF – feels abandoned by Britain. During last month’s Munich Security Conference, Sudan’s foreign minister attempted repeatedly and unsuccessfully to meet Lammy. “Why won’t the UK engage?” asked a source. Sections of Sudanese civil society feel similarly spurned. One group approached Lammy’s office to discuss human rights abuses. They never heard back. Disquiet simmers over the UK’s reluctance to follow the US and accuse the RSF of genocide . “It’s confusing. The UK receives the same intelligence as the US,” says another diplomat. Five days after Awadin’s home was flattened, senior RSF officials were allegedly spotted in the UK parliament. “How did it happen?” says Abdallah Abugarda, head of a Sudanese diaspora group. He is among those who believe the answer lies with the provenance of the gold found in Dagalo’s bedroom. Their display cases indicate it came from the UAE, where practically all most of Sudan’s gold is exported. In return for this gold, the UAE is accused of backing the RSF , sending it state-of-the-art drones and weaponry. At the same time, the UK is attempting to seduce the UAE for investment. Lammy describes the Emirates as “central to driving [UK] economic growth”. Some wonder if the UK is compromised. Has the UK, they ask, put its economic needs above ­helping Sudan? “Any discussion about the UK’s approach to Sudan cannot ignore its relationship with the UAE,” says a senior diplomat, requesting anonymity. Members of the Sudanese community and supporters march to call for a stop to the escalating brutality and violence in Sudan. Photograph: Mark Kerrison/In Pictures/Getty Images Certainly the UK has not been sluggish to court the UAE, owner of the world’s biggest sovereign wealth fund. Lammy chose to visitvisited Abu Dhabi before Ukraine. His first call to an Arab official was to his UAE counterpart. UK officials would not say if Lammy ever asked the UAE to stop arming the RSF. Unlike with the Sudanese, sources describe “constant chatter” between the UK and Emirati officials. Throughout Sudan’s war, the UK has remained a steadfast arms supplier to the UAE while receiving intelligence indicating that the Emiratis, in turn, have armed the RSF. In 2023 the UK government licensed £56.4m of arms exports to the UAE, more than the development funding it gave to Sudan last year. In the first nine months of 2024 another £19m was licensed, roughly the amount Lammy recently announced to help Sudanese refugees. The UK government says Lammy is “committed to pushing for peace in Sudan” while it pursues “all diplomatic avenues” to end the war. Across the Atlantic, efforts to help Sudan have drained away. The US has dismissed its special envoy with no plans to rehire. Troy Fitrell, lead state department official for Africa, has yet to mention Sudan. The abrupt dismantling of USAid has wiped out its coveted Sudan specialists. “The USAid experts on Sudan are gone, so too the state department experts. It has been gutted,” says a source. US pressure on the Emirates to cease supplying the RSF appears to have waned. A UAE official denied “providing any support or supplies” to the paramilitary group. America’s disengagement from Sudan has left the UK with even greater responsibility. Expectation is mounting before a London conference on 15 April – the war’s second anniversary – that aims to “end the conflict”. The event is already mired in controversy. Of 20 foreign ministers invited, Sudan’s was not among them . Relations with Sudanese officials deteriorated further on 7 March when they learned the UK had invited the UAE. A day earlier Sudan launched ­proceedings against the UAE over its support for the RSF. Abugarda adds: “The UK is putting economic interests ahead of human rights. So much for British values.” The hospital that saved Awadin Mohammed is symptomatic of a country in freefall. A former RSF command centre, its troops stole everything. Even a collection of broken walking frames weas looted. The hospital also mirrors the world’s reaction to Sudan’s suffering. Eight months after the RSF fled, its staff still wait for assistance. Requests for equipment and funding have proved fruitless. “We have received no help from the international community,” says Moneim. The hospital director, like most Sudanese people, had no idea that the same community had promised his country £515m a year ago – a promise that wasn’t upheld. Last week, Moneim sent a dizzying list of what the hospital needs to function, from life-saving drugs to stethoscopes. Two thousand patients visit his hospital weekly. Amputations are commonplace due to the shelling. Most patients, though, are dying from malnutrition. Khartoum’s residents drink from leaky water pipes. Food is scarce. One stall was seen offering a solitary bag of onions. A boy was killed last week over a falafel sandwich. At least five children a day are dying in the city of malnutrition, according to Hanin Ahmed, a volunteer at Khartoum’s community kitchen network. Ahmed’s emergency response rooms, which have been nominated for a Nobel peace prize , have kept millions of destitute Sudanese people alive. But aid cuts mean they are vanishing. Just 220 out of 800 across Sudan remain. More shut daily. There is $200,000 (£155,000) to share among those still functioning: enough to run operations for several days. “It’s shameful that the international community ­cannot help more,” says Ahmed. She laments that the UK is still not engaging, or funding her community kitchens. Without direct funding it takes six weeks for cash to reach them. We are losing the ability – and hope – to assist,” she says, gasping as a report from colleagues comes in. A mother of five has been raped in south Khartoum. As she reported the crime to medics, the RSF perpetrator attacked her again. “He threatened to kill her and her children. She needs evacuating to a safe area.” But Ahmed has no money to help. The mother is trapped. Things will deteriorate. Western nations are scaling back foreign aid. Five days after Awadin arrived at hospital, Keir Starmer announced swingeing cuts to Britain’s aid budget. The decision made humanitarians reeling from the derailment of USAid despair. During a recent closed UK parliamentary meeting, UN agencies demanded – without success – to know how much funding would remain for Sudan. One aired concerns it may have to suspend operations. A crucial scheme safeguarding displaced people could, it feared, fold in two weeks. With a quarter of the year gone, the UN’s collective humanitarian response for Sudan has reached just 6.63%, a shortfall of $3.9bn. Multimillion-pound projects have not received a penny. “It’s beyond terrifying,” says a Sudanese UN official. The pooled Sudan fund is also struggling. Last year it granted Sudan $183m, with the UK to contribute almost a third. So far it has amassed $15.9m. The UK is yet to give anything. Perhaps the greatest indictment of the international community’s approach to Sudan was seen at a high-profile Paris conference a year ago. Before the world’s media, donors lavishly pledged more than €2bn (£1.68bn) for Sudan. Documents show the UK pledged £87m. When asked if it was ever paid, Foreign Office officials refused to answer. By far the largest amount offered at the conference – a quarter of the total – was a massive $555m pledged by the World Bank, a transformative sum in light of the USAID cuts. Not a penny was paid. A World Bank source said there had been a misunderstanding: it had not pledged any extra cash at the conference. Instead, it was talking about existing World Bank programmes in Sudan. These amount to $383.9m. However, a year on from the Paris conference, its official website still states that the World Bank had “announced” $555m for Sudan. T hey were closing in on her. In truth, it was far from a fair race. Heavily pregnant, she could hardly run. Amira knew what the RSF soldiers would do if they caught her. Everyone knew that the RSF raped women wherever they wanted. Early afternoon, last July, Amira turned off Alshaheeda Nada Street and hid down a side alley. There, her waters broke. She gave birth but passed out, her newborn left lying on the ground. Tousif Osman found Amira, not her real name, just in time. A large stray dog had eaten the placenta and had turned its attention to the newborn. “They were in danger. I pushed the dog away and ran to get help.” The mother was taken to the same Omdurman hospital where, seven months later, orphan Awadin would arrive. Osman never learned what happened to the mother: people vanish all the time in wartime. Fresh accounts of life in Sudan’s capital under RSF occupation confirm a hellish existence. There was no sanitation, no streetlights, no power, no phone or internet connectivity: people could only wonder if the rest of Sudan was engulfed in chaos. The RSF ruled through arbitrary violence. “When you heard their motorbikes you moved away. If you walked too close they beat you. No eye contact. Ever,” says Malik Award Siddig. Only a few people stayed in Maigoma, largely those who couldn’t escape: Osman’s father was disabled. Within days of the RSF occupying Maigoma in April 2023, Osman sent his sister away from the capital. Accounts indicate the RSF began raping women the moment they arrived. Ahmed Abdelraman, 27, witnessed at least 10 women raped in Alshaheeda Nada Street. “Many more in other streets.” A Sudanese army ‘hit squad’ search for any RSF sniper cells that might be hiding low in Maigoma . Photograph: Mark Townsend/The Observer People were abducted from their homes. Mechanics and doctors were the first to be kidnapped, says Abdelraman. Others were executed. Snipers killed for kicks. Mustafa Ibrahim, pointing east towards Haj Yusuf, says a toddler was shot. People, he says, became too scared to retrieve bodies. Corpses piled up on certain corners. Some people stopped leaving their houses, preferring not to eat. All lived in fear of a knock on the door. Of about 30 people in Maigioma interviewed by the Observer , all said their homes were looted by RSF gunmen. Resistance meant likely death. Mohammad Khalil ran a jewellery shop on Alshaheeda Nada Street. The RSF demanded it, but the 37-year-old refused. “He had worked all his life to build his shops,” says best friend Mussi Mohammed. Then the RSF threatened to kill Khalil’s wife and children, so he sent them away. Last summer gunmen burst into the shopkeeper’s home. Khalil appears to have run on to the roof where, cornered, he was killed. Mohammed found his body hanging from the top of the building. Dried blood is still visible on the wall. RSF brutality was not confined to Khartoum’s residents. New testimony offers a rare insight into how the militia also treated their own. Enlisted at the pinnacle of the RSF’s power – January 2024 – recruits reveal how the group exploited young men from neighbouring countries. Some were later press-ganged into battle with no weapon. Others were given two days’ training. Dubbed “mercenaries” by the Sudanese military – all have been detained in a military prison in Omdurman for the past year. Their families have no idea if they are even alive. All were promised a generous salary but none received a penny. Hassan Mohammed was playing football with friends one evening before Christmas 2023 in Abéché, Chad, when RSF fighters approached them with promises of payment. All 57 footballers joined the war. “They took us into Sudan straight away. We never informed our parents,” said Mohammed, who looked no older than 14. Sent to Sudan’s national broadcast headquarters in Omdurman in January 2024, Mohammed was locked inside the top floor. Rations consisted of one portion of stale bread a day. A Sudanese army offensive soon recaptured the headquarters. “By then all the commanders had left.” He witnessed four of his friends from Abéché die. Residents of Maigoma celebrate as they return home after nearly two years. Photograph: Mark Townsend/The Observer The cowardice of their commanders was a recurrent theme. Ateir Lonjar, 25, from Abyei in South Sudan, was charged with defending eastern Omdurman. As night fell on 12 March 2024, he witnessed the entire RSF command sailing across the Nile to safety in Khartoum. “They left us to die. I wasn’t even given a gun.” The ethnic hierarchy of the RSF was also evident. Anyone from Darfur’s Rizeigat tribe was, said Lonjar, allowed to cross the river. “Other tribes had to stay,” said Lonjar, a Dinka . Other RSF soldiers confirm a two-tier system with troops from Darfur given the best food and accommodation. Sudanese Armed Forces soldiers celebrate after taking over the presidential palace in Khartoum.Photograph: AP Makuach Achoul, 22, from Aweil, South Sudan, said: “They call themselves the ‘RSF proper’, they don’t mix with us.” Achoul was abducted from a Khartoum charcoal factory last year and forced to fight for the RSF. “My family will think I’m dead.” I t was the first Friday prayers since the war began. Inside Khartoum’s al-Noor mosque, six Sudanese army troops knelt, AK-47s laid beside them. No one led the weekly Jum’ah. Al-Noor’s imam had been killed and his successor had not appeared, perhaps concerned the area was unsafe. The mosque caretaker, Al Mogtba Obeid, had turned up, but wished he hadn’t. “They’ve even stripped the carpet. What a mess.” He could say the same for his country. Awadin’s future, like that of Sudan itself, is uncertain. As it became clear that no extended family was coming to take her in, one of the hospital nurses, Roaa Yoosif, stepped up. “My mother will take care of her for now. But maybe, one day, someone will turn up and offer a new beginning.”