Everyday terror in Khartoum, the hundreds of notices of missing people are just appalling “M. 14, went out to buy bread on the morning of May 17 and has never been seen since…” #Sudan pic.twitter.com/zEysOMDrvq
— Sarra Majdoub (@SarraMajd) May 27, 2023
Looking for a family member? Here's how to get help, call ICRC:
هل تبحث عن أحد أفراد عائلتك؟ إليكم طريقة الحصول على المساعدة #السودان pic.twitter.com/C5QNF0XXrQ
— ICRC Sudan (@ICRC_Sudan) May 7, 2023
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Report from RadioTamazuj.org
Dated Wednesday 17 May 2023 - full copy:
Torit prison inmates starving
Inmates at the Torit Central Prison. (ICRC photo)
The Eastern Equatoria State government has said at least 646 inmates currently housed at the Torit Central Prison are starving as the state cannot feed them.
The revelation was made during an emergency meeting convened by the state government and attended by humanitarian partners on Tuesday to find ways of feeding the prisoners.
Oringa John Godfrey, the press secretary in the office of Governor Louis Lobong Lojore, said the prison used to receive food from the national government which stopped supplies without prior notice.
“It is very important to convene this meeting with humanitarian agencies on what they can do in terms of short and long-term plans. The short-term plan is how to supply food items to those in need in prisons because they are going hungry and I hear it is all over the country,” he said. “It is very hard for a government to work alone and that is why the emergency meeting was called so that we share how we can help. There are a lot of pledges that we have seen.”
According to Oringa, the state government is looking at long-term plans of giving the prisons seeds and tools so that prisoners can grow their food.
“There should also be vocational training to help them and many partners have pledged support,” he added.
The press secretary also said that the state is preparing to receive returnees from Sudan and that the state government and humanitarian partners will transport them to their places of origin when they arrive.
“Preparations have been put in place and the state government is trying to see if it can transport the returnees to their places of origin with the help of humanitarian agencies by delivering food items and non-food items so that they can reintegrate into their communities,” Oringa said.
Meanwhile, Okuma Augustine, the chairperson for the Relief and Rehabilitation Commission (RRC) in Eastern Equatoria State, confirmed the dire food situation of the prisoners in Torit.
“We decided that there must be immediate intervention through the provision of food to these people in prison and the humanitarian agencies said they will check with their head offices on how to help. We have 646 inmates,” he said.
“Also, we have long-term interventions so that they (prisoners) can be productive for themselves, the state, and the nation.”
“There is going to be an assessment about skilling them to help later when they are out of the prison,” Okuma added.
View original: https://radiotamazuj.org/en/news/article/torit-prison-inmates-starving
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NOTE from Sudan Watch Ed: Beige highlight is mine for future reference and to show: a woman with 5 children fled from Sudan to Chad in March; a Chadian official allegedly said Darfur war is just starting; ninety percent of the displaced seem to be children and women; they use westerners' lingo.
At height of Darfur war, usually before rainy season when rebels regrouped and splintered (I stopped counting after 40 groups, identifying them was like trying to nail mercury to a wall) women and children fled to be cared for by humanitarian aid. Rebels looted aid trucks to get the supplies they needed.
Going by what I can gather, people from all walks of life knew weeks before April 15 that fighting would start that week. What were the diplomats and politicians in Sudan doing? It's hard to believe there were no intelligence warnings. The fight for Khartoum was lightning fast and well orchestrated.
The US embassy in Khartoum alone has 70 staff. People acted surprised. It seems what we're being told doesn't add up. I saw a report about Egyptian soldiers on exercises in Sudan being caught April 13 and Burhan and Hemeti falling out over it. I saw it on video which is why I don't have report to hand.
Also during the fast-moving news at that time I glimpsed news of possible war between Sudan and Ethiopia. I've not had time to reprint those reports here for posterity nor much about Bashir & Co being sprung from prison.
The well-planned fight for Khartoum that erupted April 15 seemed different to previous chaotic coups and rebellions. If, as is reported, Sudan has no functioning government why hasn't a state of emergency been declared?
It's easy to remember how much Russia needs and appreciates Sudan's gold in order to keep up its war on Ukraine. And that Hemeti agreed to Russia leasing a port in Port Sudan where China has a port too.
What's China's stance, I wonder. A report HERE recently suggests it's standing back. Next post: Xi sends congratulations to Arab League meeting.
___________________________
Report from The New York Times
By Elian Peltier - Photographs by Yagazie Emezi
Elian Peltier and Yagazie Emezi visited refugee sites on Chad’s Sudan border, where tens of thousands of people have found refuge since a war started in Sudan last month.
Dated Tuesday 16 May 2023, 3:29 p.m. ET - full copy:
Fleeing Generals at War and Violent Militias, Many Say 'We're Not Coming Back'
The war in Sudan has unleashed a new wave of violence in the western region of Darfur, sending tens of thousands into neighbouring Chad, where a new humanitarian crisis is looming.
An estimated 60,000 Sudanese refugees have crossed into neighbouring Chad since the beginning of the war in Sudan in April. More than 90 percent of them are children and women.
Thousands of Sudanese refugees watched as the first emergency aid workers reached a village in Chad, days after escaping from their embattled country. Mothers tended to toddlers, while men listed their most urgent needs — water, vaccines, tarps for the looming rainy season.
The fighting that erupted in Sudan’s capital last month has ricocheted far beyond the city’s borders, worsening instability in the restive western region of Darfur and sending tens of thousands of people fleeing to neighboring countries, including Chad in Central Africa.
As villages in western Sudan empty, villages in eastern Chad are filling up: Camps have sprouted up, sometimes in days, with thousands of tents made of colourful sheets mounted on branches, forming a fragile patchwork of uncertainty.
IMAGE by The New York Times, map of Darfur Region, Sudan
The surging conflict in Darfur is the latest ordeal for a region that has been traumatized by two decades of [SW Ed: alleged] genocidal violence. It has also deepened a humanitarian crisis in Chad, where hundreds of thousands of people displaced from Darfur had already taken refuge.
The United Nations’ Refugee Agency said last week that 60,000 Sudanese had crossed into Chad since the start of the conflict — doubling an earlier assessment, with 25,000 refugees recently registered in the Chadian village of Borota alone. Most had fled Kango Haraza, a village on the other side of the border, in Darfur.
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Aid workers from the United Nations’ Refugee Agency registering families in the Chadian village of Borota, a few miles from the Sudanese border.
Two New York Times journalists accompanied the U.N. agency last week into Borota, where tens of thousands of refugees have been without food, water and other essential items.
With Sudan’s most powerful groups, the army and the R.S.F., fighting for control in the capital, Khartoum, the unstable situation in Darfur has spiralled into further violence.
Militias, made up mostly of Arab fighters, have exploited the power vacuum to rampage through cities, loot households and kill an unknown number of civilians, according to aid workers, doctors and local activists. In response, some civilians have begun arming themselves, and non-Arab groups have also retaliated against militias at a small scale.
Along with Khartoum and the two adjoining cities across the Nile, cities in Darfur have been the most affected by the fighting between the Sudanese Army and a paramilitary group known as the Rapid Support Forces. Hospitals have been looted and markets burned.
But while Khartoum had been a peaceful city before April, Darfur has been torn by decades of violence.
More than 300,000 people were killed in Darfur in the 2000s when Sudan’s former dictator, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, ordered militias, widely known as the Janjaweed, to crush a rebellion among non-Arab groups. A popular uprising in 2019 led to Mr. al-Bashir’s ouster, but in Darfur the situation has continued to deteriorate, including with ethnically motivated attacks in recent years.
The latest influx of refugees is also increasing pressure on Chad, a landlocked, vast Central African country that shares 870 miles of border with Sudan and is the among the world’s poorest nations. Its eastern region, semiarid and isolated, already has more than 400,000 refugees from Darfur living in 13 camps, which are now filling with new arrivals helped by the U.N. refugee agency.
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In Borota, thousands Sudanese refugees have joined people who had been displaced by earlier conflicts in Darfur.
About 90 percent of the refugees from Darfur recently registered by the United Nations in Chad are women and children. For most families, returning to Sudan is out of the question.
“Move back to what, and where?” said Khadija Abubakar, a mother of five young children who said she fled from Kango Haraza with her husband this month. “As long as there’s no security, we’re staying.”
The violence in Darfur shows no sign of abating. In El Geneina, the capital of West Darfur and 15 miles from Chad, armed groups have looted health care facilities and burned refugee camps. Hospitals are out of service, and humanitarian workers have fled the city for Chad, leaving thousands of people in need and trapped amid the fighting.
Over the past few days, at least 280 people were killed in El Geneina alone, according to the Sudanese Doctors’ Trade Union. Aid workers and Chadian officials now expect that a pause in the fighting there could push tens of thousands to flee to Chad.
In Borota, which is four miles from the Sudanese border, many refugees had fled earlier eruptions of violence in Darfur, according to Jean-Paul Habamungu, the coordinator of the U.N. agency’s operations in Eastern Chad.
He was one of the first humanitarian workers to reach Borota, arriving on May 11. What he saw stunned him: hundreds of children, most of whom had arrived in the previous days, lining up in front of him, so many people that it caught the local authorities and aid agencies by surprise.
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Awa Ibrahim Abakar, 35, a refugee from Darfur now staying in Chad, said gunmen killed her husband and wounded one of her four children.
The refugee encampment is at least four hours away from the closest aid outpost in the region, and some parts of the sandy and bumpy tracks used to traverse the area will soon be submerged in the rainy season. As we crossed a few dried-out wadis, or rivers, on our way to Borota, raindrops appeared and puddles began to form.
Ms. Abubakar, the mother of five, has spent her days waiting for her husband to find food in a nearby village. As she tried to keep two toddlers playing in the dust nearby, she said that she also needed water and soap.
Other Sudanese repeated similar pleas. “We need vaccination for the children, we need tarp for when the rain comes,” said Adoum Ahmad Issa, a 43-year-old father of four who said he had arrived in Chad in early May.
In nearby tents, children in rags dozed on their mother’s laps, while other parents prepared madeeda hilba, a thick porridge, and grilled small grasshoppers in the 100-degree heat. Most appeared to have fled with little more than a few cooking supplies, sheets and mats and, in some cases, a donkey.
Mr. Issa and nearly two dozens other refugees interviewed this month said the violence in Darfur had preceded the fighting in Khartoum. But many said the new conflict had only made things worse.
It is unclear how many people have died in Darfur, but they are estimated to be in the hundreds. At least 822 civilians have been killed and more than 3,200 injured in the month long conflict, according to the doctors union.
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At the border between Koufroune in Chad, and the Sudanese village of Tendelti, people journey back and forth to gather personal belongings.
Aid agencies have rushed to try to help refugees who have gathered in Chad, often in sites miles apart. In some areas, like in the Chadian border village of Koufroune, refugees have managed to bring furniture, mattresses and bed frames.
On a recent morning, some men and teenagers on horse-drawn carts crossed a dried riverbed — the border between the two countries — journeying back and forth between Koufroune and the Sudanese village of Tendelti, just on the other side. Some villagers said they fled under gunfire in the early days of the conflict. Tendelti now stands emptied of most residents.
A few Chadian soldiers stood guard by the riverbed, under the shade of mango trees bending under the weight of ripe fruit.
“Tendelti is now here, in Chad,” said Fatima Douldoum, a 50-year-old mother of five who said she fled in late March. Relatives crossed back in April to retrieve their beds.
“Tendelti is now here, in Chad,” Fatima Douldoum, left, a 50-year-old mother of five, said referring to her village in Darfur. She sat with her family under a tent made of scarves and other fabric.
“It is the first time so many people are bringing everything they can,” said Aleksandra Roulet-Cimpric, the country director for the International Rescue Committee, an aid organization providing health services in Koufroune. “It’s also the first time so many of them say ‘We’re not coming back.’”
Kango Haraza, too, is now mostly empty, and in recent days people have reached Borota from other Sudanese communities, said Mr. Habamungu of the U.N. agency.
As he visited the site last week, Mr. Habamungu said a Chadian official told him that the war in Darfur was only starting. “That made me pause and wonder,” Mr. Habamungu said. “How we are going to cope?”
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A family from Darfur organized their belongings under a tree in Koufroune, Chad. Aid agencies have struggled to provide aid to the swelling number of Sudanese refugees arriving in Chad.
Violence in Sudan
Fighting between two military factions has thrown Sudan into chaos, with plans for a transition to a civilian-led democracy now in shambles.
Elian Peltier is the West Africa correspondent. He joined The Times in 2017 and was previously based in Paris and London. He now lives in Dakar, Senegal. @ElianPeltier
View original: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/16/world/africa/chad-sudan-conflict.html
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Report from Qatar Tribune
Dated Saturday 13 May 2023 - full copy:
Qatari plane carrying medical aid provided by ICRC arrives in Port Sudan
QNA
A Qatari aircraft carrying 15 tons of medical aid provided by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) arrived at Port Sudan Airport in the sisterly Republic of the Sudan on Saturday [13 May].
The ICRC thanked Qatar for facilitating the transportation of this shipment as well as for its generous support in completing its humanitarian tasks.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that 271 persons holding Qatari residency were evacuated from the sisterly Republic of the Sudan after a fourth Qatari plane took off from Port Sudan Airport, bringing the total of those evacuated to 579 residents.
Qatar had evacuated earlier Qatari citizens present in Sudan, as well as 308 persons holding Qatari residency.
The ministry reiterated the keenness of Qatar on security and stability in the Republic of the Sudan.
View original: https://www.qatar-tribune.com/article/64285/latest-news/qatari-plane-carrying-medical-aid-provided-by-icrc-arrives-in-port-sudan
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United Nations Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohamed was among UN officials and other leaders who held a meeting with President William Ruto on Monday, May 1, to find a way forward for the Sudan crisis.Thank you, @WilliamsRuto, for your leadership and support for urgent humanitarian action in #Sudan.
— Martin Griffiths (@UNReliefChief) May 1, 2023
We need a strong plan moving forward to prevent the situation from further spiraling. https://t.co/ZAINbsobQn
News and photos released from
International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)
Sunday 30 April 2023 - (SW Ed: yellow highlighting is mine) - full copy:
Sudan: ICRC’s first international shipment of humanitarian aid arrives in Port Sudan
Geneva (ICRC) - Life-saving medical material departed from Amman, Jordan to Port Sudan today as part of emergency operations by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) following the outbreak of conflict in Sudan.
The 8 tonnes of humanitarian cargo includes surgical material to support Sudanese hospitals and volunteers from the Sudan Red Crescent Society (SRCS) who are providing medical care to people wounded in the fighting.
“Health-care workers in Sudan have been doing the impossible, caring for the wounded without water, electricity, and basic medical supplies,” said Patrick Youssef, ICRC’s regional director for Africa. “The logistics needed to bring in supplies amid an active conflict are extremely difficult, and we’re relieved to get this medical material into the country.”
The medical shipment includes anaesthetics, dressings, sutures and other surgical material that can treat thousands of people who may have been wounded by weapons. With hostilities still ongoing, ICRC teams will need guarantees of safe passage from the parties to the conflict to deliver this material to medical facilities in locations with active fighting, such as Khartoum.
Since commercial flights in Sudan were discontinued and civilian airspace became inaccessible, the ICRC has been working to overcome logistical and security challenges to help civilians in need who are trapped in the fighting. Delivering medical supplies to hospitals and helping them restore water and power lines remains its urgent priority.
The ICRC is grateful for the support of the authorities in Jordan -- where the ICRC has a major logistics hub -- who rapidly made an aircraft available to deliver this medical cargo. We also appreciate the cooperation shown by the civilian Sudanese authorities in charge of facilitating the arrival of aircraft with humanitarian goods and personnel on board.
The ICRC is sending a second airplane carrying additional ICRC medical supplies and emergency personnel.
The ICRC reminds the parties to the conflict to respect their obligations under international humanitarian law and to facilitate the work of medical and humanitarian personnel, treat detainees humanely and take all feasible precautions to avoid loss of life among civilians and damage to civilian objects and infrastructure.
Note to editors:
The ICRC has been present in Sudan since 1978 helping people affected by the conflict in Darfur, Blue Nile and South Kordofan. The ICRC’s work today, independently or in cooperation the Sudanese Red Crescent Society, includes supporting hospitals and health facilities with equipment and supplies, working with local water authorities on improving people’s access to clean water and supporting the authorities in providing rehabilitation services for people with disabilities.
Media contacts:
Alyona Synenko, ICRC Nairobi,
+254 716 897 265, asynenko@icrc.org
Crystal Wells, ICRC Geneva,
+41 77 963 75 74, cwells@icrc.org
Jessica Moussan ICRC Dubai,
+971 504 254 091, jmoussan@icrc.org
Fatima Sator, ICRC Geneva,
+41 79 848 49 08, fsator@icrc.org
Imene Trabelsi, ICRC Beirut,
+961 3 13 83 53, itrabelsi@icrc.org
Alaa Nayel, ICRC Kuwait,
+965 966 73614, anayel@icrc.org
Matthew Morris, ICRC London,
+44 7753 809471 mmorris@icrc.org
Galina Balzamova, ICRC Moscow,
+7 093 545 3534, gbalzamova@icrc.org
Frédéric Joli, ICRC Paris,
+33 6 20 49 46 30, fjoli@icrc.org
Yuriy Shafarenko, ICRC New York,
+1 917 631 1913, yshafarenko@icrc.org
Elizabeth Shaw, ICRC Washington DC,
+1 202 361 1566, egormanshaw@icrc.org
View original: https://www.icrc.org/en/document/sudan-first-international-shipment-humanitarian-aid-arrives-port-sudan
(Khartoum) – The International Community of the Red Cross says that negotiations have begun in order to secure the release of a staff member who was kidnapped on November 9 in Chad.
Laurent Maurice, a France national, was kidnapped by a Darfur anti-government group in eastern Chad along with two other workers from Triangle, a French humanitarian agency.
Samara al-Rufai is an information officer for the ICRC. Speaking to SRS from Khartoum, he said that the kidnappers had not yet made a ransom demand.
(Samara al-Rufai), “We are still in contact with the kidnappers. We have been calling them by phone but our man hasn’t been released yet. We are trying to resolve this issue as quickly as possible because the important thing is the security and safety of our colleagues and humanitarian staff in general. This is why we are calling for their release. We don’t know at this point what they [the kidnappers] are demanding. But we don’t believe that there should be a price to be paid to release somebody who is conducting humanitarian work for people in conflict areas. There should not be a price for that. The ICRC does not negotiate at all in terms of money.”
The ICRC suspended its operations in eastern Chad and western Darfur following the incident.
KHARTOUM, SUDAN - A French employee of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) abducted Thursday in war-torn Darfur is in "good health", Sudan's minister of state for humanitarian affairs Abdel Baqi Gilani told AFP.- - -
"He is in good health according to the first report I have received," Gilani said about Frenchman Gauthier Lefevre, who the Red Cross earlier said was abducted near El-Geneina, capital of West Darfur state.
Gilani did not elaborate but he said he expected Lefevre to be freed "soon" because he works for the Red Cross, with has a good reputation among Darfur groups.
"I think he will be released soon. The ICRC is very respected and neutral and has no enmity among Darfur groups," Gilani said.
He also described the kidnappers as "bandits" and said that the Sudanese government "condemns" the abduction - the fifth one of a foreign relief worker in war-torn Darfur since March but the first to target an ICRC employee.
In Geneva, the ICRC issued a statement earlier saying the incident occurred around midday as Lefevre "was returning with other ICRC staff to El-Geneina after completing a field trip north of the town to help local communities upgrade their water supply systems.
"He was travelling in one of two clearly marked ICRC vehicles when he was seized a few kilometres (miles) from the town."
The ICRC has called for his immediate and "unconditional release" - a demand also made by the French foreign ministry in Paris. -AFP
- - -
EL GENEINA (23 Oct 2009- Updated) – A French staff worker of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in El Geneina in West Darfur was kidnapped from his car this afternoon. He was returninmg to his compound after a fieldtrip to supervise waterprojects.
Radio Dabanga learnt that he was seized 40 kilometres from Geneina town in his ICRC marked car by around ten gun men.
The men took the Red Cross worker out of the Red Cross car, leaving other ICRC staff behind allowing them to continue their way, Tamara Al-Rifai, spokesperson of the ICRC in Khartoum told Radio Dabanga.
A local reporter of Radio Dabanga noticed that the kidnappers were heading for the nearby border with Chad. This was confirmed by a government official in El Geneina.
The new kidnap case happened few days after the release of two aid workers of GOAL after 106 of captivity. The kidnapping of two UNAMID-staff workers in Zalingei is still continuing. [...]
Khartoum/Geneva (ICRC) – An expatriate staff member of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) was abducted by several armed men today near the town of Al Geneina, in West Darfur, near the border with Chad.
The incident occurred around midday local time. The staff member, Gauthier Lefevre, a French national, was returning with other ICRC staff to Al Geneina after completing a field trip north of the town to help local communities upgrade their water supply systems. He was travelling in one of two clearly marked ICRC vehicles when he was seized a few kilometres from the town.
The ICRC currently has no indication of who the abductors might be or of their motives. It is in contact with the authorities and other parties with the aim of resolving the situation as swiftly as possible.
Mr Lefevre's family was informed of the incident immediately.
The ICRC is calling for the rapid and unconditional release of its kidnapped staff member.
For further information, please contact:
Tamara Al-Rifai, ICRC Khartoum, tel: +249 183 476 464 or +249 912 17 05 76
Anna Schaaf, ICRC Geneva, tel: +41 22 730 22 71 or +41 79 217 32 17
