CAIRO: Former Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi’s son Saif Al-Islam plans to run for the country’s presidency in elections next year, nearly seven years after his father was deposed and killed.
The younger Qaddafi, 45, “enjoys the support of major tribes in the country,” said family spokesman Basem Al-Hashimi Al-Soul of the Qaddafi-supporting Supreme Council of Libyan Tribes. He is expected to publicly announce his candidacy soon.
Qaddafi was captured and detained by the Zintan militia in southern Libya in November 2011, after the revolt against his father. He was released in July 2016 and a year later was pardoned by the government in Tobruk led by military strongman Khalifa Haftar.
His exact whereabouts since then are unknown, but he is thought to have met local tribes and supporters of his father’s regime to discuss running for the presidency.
Qaddafi’s supporters are confident that he will return to the political scene, Mohammad Gomaa, an analyst at the Ahram Center for Strategic Studies in Cairo, told Arab News. Pressure from these supporters for Qaddafi’s release indicated that the old regime had growing political influence, he said.
However, Paul Sullivan, a Middle East expert in Washington, cast doubt on whether Qaddafi would be able to unify Libya’s factions, who derive their legitimacy from their roles in the 2011 revolution and afterward.
“The Qaddafis were some of the most divisive people in the history of Libya. There are lots of Libyans who still harbor deep resentment and anger, and fear, toward the ousted leader,” he told Arab News.
Nevertheless, events could not be predicted and may hold “lots of surprises,” he said.
Haftar, the military commander whose forces control large parts Libya, has also hinted that he would run for the presidency in next year’s elections. He said he would “listen to the will of the people.”
Qaddafi’s son Saif Al-Islam to run for Libya presidency
Qaddafi’s son Saif Al-Islam to run for Libya presidency
UN rights chief shocked by ‘unbearable’ Darfur atrocities
- Mediation efforts have failed to produce a ceasefire, even after international outrage intensified last year with reports of mass killings, rape, and abductions during the RSF’s takeover of El-Fasher in Darfur
PORT SUDAN: Nearly three years of war have put the Sudanese people through “hell,” the UN’s rights chief said on Sunday, blasting the vast sums spent on advanced weaponry at the expense of humanitarian aid and the recruitment of child soldiers.
Since April 2023, Sudan has been gripped by a conflict between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces that has left tens of thousands of people dead and around 11 million displaced.
Speaking in Port Sudan during his first wartime visit, UN Human Rights commissioner Volker Turk said the population had endured “horror and hell,” calling it “despicable” that funds that “should be used to alleviate the suffering of the population” are instead spent on advanced weapons, particularly drones.
More than 21 million people are facing acute food insecurity, and two-thirds of Sudan’s population is in urgent need of humanitarian aid, according to the UN.
In addition to the world’s largest hunger and displacement crisis, Sudan is also facing “the increasing militarization of society by all parties to the conflict, including through the arming of civilians and recruitment and use of children,” Turk added.
He said he had heard testimony of “unbearable” atrocities from survivors of attacks in Darfur, and warned of similar crimes unfolding in the Kordofan region — the current epicenter of the fighting.
Testimony of these atrocities must be heard by “the commanders of this conflict and those who are arming, funding and profiting from this war,” he said.
Mediation efforts have failed to produce a ceasefire, even after international outrage intensified last year with reports of mass killings, rape, and abductions during the RSF’s takeover of El-Fasher in Darfur.
“We must ensure that the perpetrators of these horrific violations face justice regardless of the affiliation,” Turk said on Sunday, adding that repeated attacks on civilian infrastructure could constitute “war crimes.”
He called on both sides to “cease intolerable attacks against civilian objects that are indispensable to the civilian population, including markets, health facilities, schools and shelters.”
Turk again warned on Sunday that crimes similar to those seen in El-Fasher could recur in volatile Kordofan, where the RSF has advanced, besieging and attacking several key cities.
Hundreds of thousands face starvation across the region, where more than 65,000 people have been displaced since October, according to the latest UN figures.
