Saturday, September 28, 2024

Sudan army launches attack on Khartoum as rapidly spreading cholera outbreak kills 500 in two months

Report from Channel 4 News UK 
By Lindsey Hilsum 
International Editor 
Dated Friday, 27 September 2024 - full copy:

Sudan’s army launches major offensive on capital Khartoum

Air strikes and clashes have rocked Khartoum after Sudan’s army launched a major offensive to take back areas it lost early in its war with the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.


It comes as a cholera outbreak that’s killed almost 500 people in two months, appears to be spreading more rapidly. This, in a country where half the 50 million population is suffering severe hunger.




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Wednesday, September 25, 2024

Zamzam IDP camp in Al Fasher, N Darfur, Sudan could be surrounded by Hemeti's RSF in days or weeks

NOTE from Sudan Watch Editor: A nightmare scenario, unless something major happens and none of the current trends change, is not only the fall of Sudan's Armed Forces' (SAF) 6th Infantry Division in Al Fasher, capital city of North Darfur, Sudan to the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) but that Zamzam IDP camp in the area is also likely to be surrounded by RSF in days or weeks.


Here is a rough transcript I made of a video (Abrabic subtitles) showing Abdallah Hussain, News Anchor for Albalad TV interviewing Nathaniel Raymond, Director, Humanitarian Research Lab at Yale School of Public Health, USA on Sunday, 22 Sept 2024 and streamed on 23 Sept 2024.


Question by ABDALLAH HUSSAIN:

"So Mr Raymond, regarding your previous point that RSF outnumbers the joint forces plus the Sudanese Army and of course the rainy season has been a factor right now that’s occurring on the battlefield, what after the rainy season can we anticipate that El Fasher will fall?"


Answer by NATHANIEL RAYMOND:

"If, at the end of the day making predictions in a yes, no or [on this day?] X or Y is going to happen doesn’t help but I think it does help to talk about where the trends are going.


Right now, Sudan Armed Forces controls a corridor on the western side of the city that’s maybe 8-9 kilometres long by 4 kilometres wide depending on how you measure it. And RSF has all the [advantages?] at this point. 


Now things can change but if none of the current trends change what we really have to worry about is not only the fall of 6th Infantry Division in Al Fasher but is a Rapid Support Forces move on Zamzam camp. 


What for me is a nightmare scenario and you can tell by watching the space - the Sudan Armed Forces is also concerned about this - is that RSF takes the B26 road going south, not [South?] Sudan Armed Forces' checkpoint on that road, and then from Al Fasher in Nyala squeezes Zamzam and surrounds it, and you can tell based on what we can see inside Zamzam that people there are also concerned about being surrounded and that is a nightmare scenario [.?.] unless something major happens the [trend line?] is that Al Fasher will fall and Zamzam is likely to be surrounded in days or weeks".

FURTHER VIDEO👇 

El Fasher Siege Continues | Analysis



VIDEO INTERVIEW dated Tue, Sept 24, 2024: "As the siege continues and El Fasher battles intensify, Abdallah Hussain, News Anchor for Albalad TV spoke with Nathaniel Raymond, Executive Director at the Humanitarian Research Lab at Yale School of Public Health, to delve into the escalating humanitarian crisis and its impact on civilians".

Source: YouTube https://youtu.be/J_CtJr3YJXw

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Related

African Union urges end to fighting in Sudan's El-Fasher

AFP yesterday (24 Sep) says African Union urges end to fighting in Sudan's El-Fasher: AUC said its chairman Moussa Faki Mahamat "calls for an immediate cessation of the fighting inside and outside of El-Fasher," it added. Mahamat also called on the AU's Peace and Security Council to "urgently consider the situation".

Full story: https://english.ahram.org.eg/News/532383.aspx


Sudan: RSF to turn Zurrug, N. Darfur into a dream city

Sudan Watch - October 05, 2023
As Hemeti, the ruthless leader of Sudan's Janjaweed militia, has grand plans for Zurrug, a remote western province in North Darfur, Sudan the transformation of Zurrug risks more unrest. 

Full story: https://sudanwatch.blogspot.com/2023/10/sudan-rsf-to-turn-zurrug-n-darfur-into.html


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Sudan's ex-president Bashir and ex-defence minister Abdel-Rahim Muhammad Hussein taken to hospital

FILE PHOTO: Sudan's Former President Omar al-Bashir. AP

SUDAN'S jailed former president al-Bashir was transferred yesterday (24 Sep) to a hospital in the town of Merowe, about 330 kilometres (205 miles) north of Khartoum and Sudan's former Defence Minister Abdel-Rahim Muhammad Hussein — who was also arrested soon after al-Bashir — was also transferred to the same facility. 

Allegedly, 80-year-old al-Bashir has been held at a military facility on the outskirts of the Sudanese capital, Khartoum. 

Full story by Associated Press (AP): https://english.ahram.org.eg/News/532445.aspx

Friday, September 20, 2024

Kristof is on Chad-Sudan border: Shame of hunger belongs to those who are powerful, well fed and blind

NOTE from Sudan Watch Editor: Longtime American columnist and Sudan watcher Nicholas Kristof is back in the saddle on the Chad-Sudan border. 

Kristof is a great storyteller who never lets a few facts get in his way. In his article below, he says a US partner, the UAE, supplies weapons to RSF militia in Sudan but omits to say the US is one of the leading arms traders to UAE. 

Trouble is, eye popping online news tends to spread quickly around the world and is viewed as fact before the truth has had time to get its boots on.

If Nicholas says (he doesn't) 150,000 died in Sudan and others say 15-23K, so be it. Readers of his news in New York Times assume NYT news is true.


In June, UN stated 15,500 fatalities reported in 1,400 incidents targeting civilians; 9.5M displaced – 7.3M internally, 1.9M in neighbouring countries.

This month, ACLED says "since fighting first broke out between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) on 15 April 2023, ACLED records over 7,623 events of political violence and more than 23,105 reported fatalities in Sudan. On 5 September 2024, ACLED released corrections to the Sudan data that updated events with fatalities in West Darfur state, as reported by Human Rights Watch (HRW) in its published report titled ‘The Massalit Will Not Come Home’: Ethnic Cleansing and Crimes Against Humanity in El Geneina, West Darfur, Sudan. The new information from HRW resulted in ACLED recording 2,635 additional fatalities in West Darfur during the period of April to November 2023. For more on how ACLED incorporated the information from the HRW report, see this update in the ACLED Knowledge Base".

So, Nicholas is back on the scene. Hold onto your hats Messrs Burhan and Hemeti. Longtime Sudan watchers are alive and wellVive la révolution! 

___________________________

 

From The New York Times

OPINION editorial by By Nicholas Kristof

Opinion Columnist, reporting from the Chad/Sudan border

Dated 18 September 2024. Here is a full copy, for the record and posterity:


I Just Went to Darfur. Here Is What Shattered Me.

Credit: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images


When an Arab militia rampaged through Maryam Suleiman’s village in the Darfur region of Sudan last year and lined up men and boys to massacre, the gunmen were blunt about their purpose.


“We don’t want to see any Black people,” a militia leader said, adding mockingly: “We don’t even want to see black trash bags.” To make his point, Maryam recalled, he shot a donkey because it was black.


Then the militia members executed men and boys who belonged to Black African ethnic groups, she said. 


“They shot my five brothers, one after the other,” Maryam told me, describing how her youngest brother survived the first bullet and called out to her. Then a militia member shot him in the head and sneeringly asked her what she thought of that.


The militia tried to systematically kill all the males over 10, Maryam said, and also killed some younger ones. A 1-day-old boy was thrown to the ground and killed, and one male infant was thrown into a pond to drown, she said.


The gunmen then rounded up the women and girls in a corral to rape, she added. “They raped many, many girls,” she recalled. One man tried to rape Maryam, she said, and when he failed he beat her. She was pregnant and suffered a miscarriage.


“You’re slaves,” Maryam quoted the militia members as saying. “There is no place for you Black people in Sudan.” So Maryam fled to neighboring Chad and is one of more than 10 million Sudanese who have been forcibly displaced since a civil war began last year in the country and ignited pogroms against Black African ethnic groups like hers.

Maryam Suleiman wept as she recounted how a militia in Sudan attacked her village and killed her five brothers. Photo Credit: Nicholas Kristof


The atrocities underway near here are an echo of the Darfur genocide of two decades ago, with the additional complication of famine. But there’s a crucial difference: At that time, world leaders, celebrities and university students vigorously protested the slaughter and joined forces to save hundreds of thousands of lives. Today, in contrast, the world is distracted and silent. So the impunity is allowing violence to go unchecked, which, in turn, is producing what may become the worst famine in half a century or more.


“It’s beyond anything we’ve ever seen,” Cindy McCain, the executive director of the United Nations World Food Program, told me. “It’s catastrophic.”


“Unless,” she added, “we can get our job done.”


World leaders will convene next week in New York for the annual United Nations General Assembly, but they have been mostly indifferent and are unlikely to get the job done. What’s needed is far greater pressure to end the civil war between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the rival Arab militia, while pushing the warring parties to allow humanitarian access. All sides in the war are behaving irresponsibly, so more than half the people of Sudan — 25 million people — have become acutely malnourished already. A famine was formally declared in one area in Sudan in the summer.


WATCH VIDEO 2:18

Nicholas Kristof on the Silent Famine in Darfur

This is what I witnessed — and it shattered me.


Timmo Gaasbeek, a disaster expert who has modeled the crisis for a research institute in the Netherlands, told me that he foresees 13 million people starving to death in Sudan by October 2025, with a margin of error of two million. Such a toll would make this one of the worst famines in world history and the worst since the great Chinese famine of 65 years ago. By way of contrast, the famous Ukraine famine of the 1930s killed perhaps four million people, although estimates vary.


I can’t verify that a cataclysm of that level is approaching. Warring parties blocked me from entering Sudanese areas they controlled, so I reported along the Chad-Sudan border. Arriving refugees described starvation but not yet mass mortality from malnutrition.


All I can say is that whether or not a cataclysmic famine is probable, it is a significant risk. Those in danger are people like Thuraya Muhammad, a slight 17-year-old orphan who told me how her world unraveled when the Rapid Support Forces, the same group that killed Maryam’s five brothers, attacked her village and began burning homes and shooting men and boys.


“So many men were killed, like grains of sand,” she told me.

When Thuraya Muhammad, an orphan because of Sudan’s war, doesn’t have enough food to feed her younger sister and brother, she gives them water to fill their stomachs. Photo Credit: Nicholas Kristof


After slaughtering the men in Thuraya’s village, the militia raped many women and girls, she said. Thuraya’s cousin, a woman of 20, was among those kidnapped by the militia and hasn’t been seen since, she added.


Thuraya’s father was murdered by the militia and her mother had died earlier, so at 16 she was now the head of the household. She led her younger brother and two younger sisters to safety by walking to the Chadian border town of Adré. Gunmen tried to rob them several times, but the family had nothing left to steal.


Now in a refugee camp in Chad, Thuraya works to feed her siblings. Like other refugees, she gets a monthly food allotment from the World Food Program that helps but is insufficient. She supports her family by seeking day jobs washing clothes or cleaning houses (for about 25 cents a day). When she finds work, she and her siblings eat; if not, they may go hungry.


When I dropped by their hut, Thuraya had been unable to find work that day. A friendly neighbor had given her a cup of coffee, but she hadn’t eaten anything since the previous day — and there was no prospect of dinner, either. If there is no food, Thuraya told me, she serves water to her siblings in place of dinner.


She wept.


Thuraya wasn’t crying from her own pangs of hunger. Rather, tears tumbled silently down her cheeks out of shame at her inability to feed her brother and sisters.


“When there isn’t enough food, I give it to my sisters and brother,” she told me, and her younger sister Fatima confirmed that. “I go hungry, or else my neighbors may call me over to eat with them.”

“I’d rather my sisters and brother eat, because they cry when they go hungry,” she said. “And I can’t bear to hear them cry.”


Fatima resists the favoritism and tries to give her sister back some food. But Thuraya won’t take it and goes out, telling her brother and sisters to eat while she finds something for herself. They all know that in a refugee camp of about 200,000 hungry people, she will find nothing.


I’m hoping that Thuraya’s fortitude might inspire President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, along with world leaders gathering at the United Nations, to summon a similar resolve to tackle slaughter and starvation in Sudan. Donor nations have contributed less than half the sum needed by U.N. agencies to ease Sudan’s food crisis, and they have not insisted forcefully on either providing humanitarian access or on cutting off the flow of weapons that sustains the war.


Biden, who 20 years ago savaged President George W. Bush for not doing enough to stop the Darfur genocide, has provided aid and appointed a special envoy to push for peace talks but has said little about the current crisis. An American partner, the United Arab Emirates, supplies weapons to the militia that slaughtered and raped Thuraya’s neighbors, yet Biden has not publicly demanded that the Emirates cut off that support for killers and rapists.


The upshot of this neglect is the risk not only of a horrendous famine but also of endless war, Sudan’s fragmentation, enormous refugee flows and instability across the region.


So as world leaders at the U.N. General Assembly tuck into fine banquets next week to celebrate their humanitarianism, may they be awakened by thoughts of an orphan of Darfur who ignores her own hunger and divides scraps of bread among her brother and sisters.


Thuraya has no reason to feel ashamed that her siblings are hungry; the shame belongs to those who are powerful, well fed and blind.


What question do you have about the civil war in Sudan and the people affected by it? What more would you like to know? Submit your question or critique in the field below and Nicholas Kristof will try to respond to a selection of queries in a future installment in this series.


Want to stay updated on what’s happening in Chad and Sudan? Sign up for Your Places: Global Update, and we’ll send our latest coverage to your inbox.


View original (currently a free gift unlocked article): https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/18/opinion/darfur-sudan-famine.html


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Thursday, September 05, 2024

The US is one of the leading arms traders to the UAE. Sudan's VP defends refusal to join US-led peace talks

NOTE from Sudan Watch Editor: Wars are started and prolonged for money and profit. The US is >$35 trillion in debt and makes and sells arms to reduce its debt. In my view, wherever there is war the US seems to be in the thick of it or in the background in the guise of fighting for freedom and democracy.

Here is an 11-minute video report by PBS News Sep 3, 2024 titled ‘Sudanese teachers and shopkeepers join the fight against rebels in nation’s civil war’. Note that at 4:35 it says: “The United States is one of the leading arms traders to the UAE”.


Related reports


From PBS News - August 16, 2024

Video and transcript 

‘Amid brutal civil war, Sudan’s VP defends refusal to participate in U.S.-led peace talks’

This week, the United States attempted peace talks in Geneva, but the Sudanese armed forces refused to attend. With the support of the Pulitzer Center, special correspondent Leila Molana-Allen discussed the war with Sudanese Vice President Malik Agar.

Full story: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/amid-brutal-civil-war-sudans-vp-defends-refusal-to-participate-in-u-s-led-peace-talks

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From Amnesty International - July 25, 2024

‘Sudan: Constant flow of arms fuelling relentless civilian suffering in conflict – new investigation’

The conflict in Sudan is being fuelled by a constant flow of weapons into the country, Amnesty International said today in a new briefing. The briefing, New Weapons Fuelling the Sudan Conflict, documents how recently manufactured foreign weapons have been transferred into and around Sudan, often in flagrant breach of the existing Darfur arms embargo.

Amnesty International found that recently manufactured or recently transferred weapons and ammunition from countries including China, Russia, Serbia, Türkiye, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Yemen are being imported in large quantities into Sudan, and then in some cases diverted into Darfur.

Full story: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/07/sudan-constant-flow-of-arms-fuelling-relentless-civilian-suffering-in-conflict-new-investigation/


End

Tuesday, September 03, 2024

WFP's OIG launches probe into its Sudan operations. Famine watchdog says 25M facing food crisis in Sudan

THIS sickening news is probably the tip of the iceberg in the multi-billion dollar business of humanitarian aid where corruption tarnishes the most honest humanitarians and donors who do their best to help people in need.
_______________________________

Report from Reuters
By Giulia Paravicini and Maggie Michael
Dated August 28, 2024. Full copy for posterity:

Exclusive: WFP launches probe into its Sudan operations as famine spreads


Summary

  • Inspector general examining two top WFP officials in Sudan -sources
  • Investigators looking at whether staff hid alleged role of Sudan’s army in blocking food aid
  • Probe also investigating disappearance of fuel supplies in Sudan
  • WFP, USAID confirm investigation of Sudan operation is under way
  • Famine watchdog IPC says 25 million facing food crisis in Sudan

NAIROBI/CAIRO, Aug 28 (Reuters) - The U.N. World Food Program is investigating two of its top officials in Sudan over allegations including fraud and concealing information from donors about its ability to deliver food aid to civilians amid the nation’s dire hunger crisis, according to 11 people with knowledge of the probe.


The investigation by the WFP’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) comes as the U.N.’s food-aid arm is struggling to feed millions of people in war-plagued Sudan, now suffering one of the world’s most severe food shortages in years.


As part of the probe, investigators are looking at whether WFP staff sought to hide the alleged role of Sudan’s army in obstructing aid amid a brutal 16-month war with a rival paramilitary for control of the country, according to five of the sources who spoke to Reuters.


One of those being examined in the inquiry is the WFP’s deputy country director in Sudan, Khalid Osman, who has been given a “temporary duty assignment” outside Sudan, a de facto suspension, according to six sources.


A second senior official, WFP area manager Mohammed Ali, is being investigated in connection with the alleged disappearance of more than 200,000 liters of the U.N. organization’s fuel in the Sudanese city of Kosti, according to four sources. Reuters could not confirm whether Ali remains in his role.


Osman and Ali declined to comment when contacted by Reuters, referring the news agency to the WFP’s media office.


Asked about the probe by Reuters, the WFP said that “allegations of individual misconduct related to irregularities in pockets of our operation in Sudan” are under urgent review by its inspector general’s office. It declined to comment on the nature of alleged wrongdoing or the status of specific employees.


The U.S. government’s aid agency, USAID, told Reuters in a statement that it was notified by the WFP on Aug. 20 of “potential incidents of fraud affecting WFP operations in Sudan.” USAID says it is the single largest donor to the WFP, providing nearly half of all contributions in a typical year.


“These allegations are deeply concerning and must be thoroughly investigated,” the USAID statement said. “USAID immediately referred these allegations to the USAID Office of the Inspector General."


The investigation comes at a critical time for the WFP, which describes itself as the world’s largest humanitarian organization. It won the 2020 Nobel peace prize for its role in combating hunger and promoting peace.


The WFP is battling severe hunger on many fronts. It is seeking $22.7 billion in funding to reach 157 million people, including some 1.3 million on the brink of famine, mostly in Sudan and Gaza, but also in countries such as South Sudan and Mali. In addition to distributing food itself, the WFP also coordinates and provides logistical support for large-scale emergencies globally for the wider humanitarian community.


In recent years, however, its operations have been rocked by diversion and theft of aid in countries including Somalia and Yemen. The WFP and USAID last year temporarily suspended food distribution to Ethiopia following reports of the widespread stealing of food aid there.


More than half a dozen humanitarians and diplomats told Reuters they are worried that mismanagement at the heart of the WFP’s Sudan office could have contributed to the failure so far to deliver enough aid during the war between Sudan’s army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The conflict has been raging for more than 16 months.


The investigation at the WFP comes weeks after the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), an international technical group tasked with measuring hunger, determined that famine had taken hold in at least one site in Sudan’s Darfur region. The IPC has classified 13 other areas across the country as being at risk of famine. And it says that more than 25 million people, or over half Sudan’s population, face crisis levels of hunger or worse.

IMAGE 1 of 4 A volunteer distributes food to people in Omdurman, Sudan, September 3, 2023. REUTERS/El Tayeb Siddig/File Photo


Reuters reported in April that in some parts of the country, people were forced to survive by eating leaves and soil. In June, a Reuters analysis of satellite images showed that cemeteries were expanding fast as starvation and disease spread.


Aid workers say they have struggled to deliver relief, partly because of logistical constraints and fighting. But they also allege that army-linked authorities have hindered access by withholding travel permits and clearances, while RSF troops have looted aid supplies. Both factions deny impeding the delivery of humanitarian relief.


One focus of the investigation involves suspicions that senior WFP staff in Sudan may have misled donors, including U.N. Security Council member states, by downplaying the Sudanese army’s alleged role in blocking aid deliveries to areas controlled by the RSF, according to four people with direct knowledge of the matter.


In one instance in June 2024, two people with knowledge of the probe said, WFP deputy country director Osman allegedly hid from donors that authorities aligned with the army in Port Sudan had refused to give permission for 15 trucks to carry life-saving aid to Nyala in South Darfur, an area that includes communities at risk of famine. The trucks waited for seven weeks before they finally were granted permission to proceed.


Osman, who was promoted within the WFP’s Sudan office with unusual speed, had high-level army connections, according to eight sources. He exercised control over which WFP colleagues gained visa approvals to enter Sudan, allowing him to limit access and scrutiny of the army’s management of aid, according to three people familiar with the system.


Reuters was unable to independently confirm the allegations against Osman or what possible motive he may have had in misleading donors.


In its written response to Reuters, the WFP said it had taken “swift measures” to reinforce its work in Sudan due to the scale of the humanitarian challenge and following the IPC’s confirmation of famine in Darfur. “WFP has taken immediate staffing actions to ensure the integrity and continuity of our life-saving operations,” it added.


The war in Sudan broke out in April 2023. It has driven more than 10 million people from their homes, causing the world’s largest internal displacement crisis as well as worsening hunger, a spike of severe acute malnutrition among children, and outbreaks of disease such as cholera. The United States and rights groups have accused both sides of war crimes, which the combatants deny.


U.N. agencies have been operating out of Port Sudan on the Red Sea coast, where the army-aligned government relocated after losing control of most of the capital city of Khartoum early in the war.


The WFP and other U.N. agencies have complained that lack of access contributed to their inability to reach people in need, mostly in areas under RSF control such as Khartoum and the Darfur and Kordofan regions. But the aid agencies have largely avoided blaming either of the warring parties publicly.


In response to a request for comment about the military’s role in the hunger crisis, Sudanese armed forces spokesman Nabil Abdallah said the army is doing all it can to facilitate aid to “alleviate the suffering of our people.”


In response to questions, an RSF spokesperson said that the probe was a good step and that it should cover all humanitarian aid.


On Aug. 1, the IPC’s Famine Review Committee said that the war and the subsequent restrictions on aid deliveries were the main drivers of the food crisis in Sudan.


Some aid officials said they feared making public statements assigning blame, worrying the army could expel them from Port Sudan and they could lose access to army-controlled areas where hunger is acute.


View original report and VIDEO here: https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/un-world-food-program-launches-investigation-into-its-sudan-operations-famine-2024-08-28/


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