BEIRUT: More people have visited Lebanon since Saudi Arabia lifted its travel warning in February, pointing to a “promising summer” ahead, Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Al-Hariri said on Wednesday.
A fall in visitors from Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies has hit Lebanon’s tourism industry, once a mainstay of a now-battered economy that Hariri’s new government has pledged to revive.
Saudi Arabia was once a major supporter both of its political allies in Beirut, chiefly Hariri, and of the Lebanese state. However, mindful of its overarching rivalry with Iran, Riyadh stepped back as Iran’s Lebanese ally, the political and military Hezbollah movement, grew in strength.
Saudi Arabia had been advising its citizens since 2011 to avoid Lebanon, citing Hezbollah’s influence and instability from the war in neighboring Syria.
“Without doubt the Saudi leadership’s decision ... had the most impact in increasing the number of visitors to Lebanon recently, which gives the best proof of a promising summer,” Hariri said at a Beirut conference attended by the head of Saudi Arabia’s King Salman humanitarian center.
Hariri also said he hoped that a pledge from Riyadh to help Lebanese families in need would spark a series of agreements between the two countries.
With pillars of the economy such as tourism and real estate in the doldrums, Lebanon has suffered years of low economic growth, and run up one of the world’s heaviest public debt burdens.
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Hariri: ‘Promising summer’ for Lebanon after Saudi travel warning lifted
Hariri: ‘Promising summer’ for Lebanon after Saudi travel warning lifted
- Saudi Arabia started warning its citizens of the instability in Lebanon in 2011
- Lebanese PM Al-Hariri hopes for a series of agreements with Saudi Arabia
Sudan paramilitary used mass graves to conceal war crimes: ICC deputy prosecutor
UNITED NATIONS: Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces carried out mass killings in Darfur and attempted to conceal them with mass graves, the International Criminal Court’s deputy prosecutor said on Monday.
In a briefing to the UN Security Council, Nazhat Shameem Khan said it was the “assessment of the office of the prosecutor that war crimes and crimes against humanity” had been committed in the RSF’s takeover of the city of El-Fasher in October.
“Our work has been indicative of mass killing events and attempts to conceal crimes through the establishment of mass graves,” Khan said in a video address, citing audio and video evidence as well as satellite imagery.
Since April 2023, a civil war between the Sudanese army and the RSF has killed tens of thousands, displaced 11 million and created the world’s largest displacement and hunger crisis.
Reports of mass killings, sexual violence, abductions and looting emerged in the wake of the RSF’s sweep of El-Fasher, which was the army’s last holdout position in the Darfur region.
Both warring sides have been accused of atrocities throughout the war.
Footage reviewed by the ICC, Khan said, showed RSF fighters detaining, abusing and executing civilians in El-Fasher, then celebrating the killings and “desecrating corpses.”
According to Khan, the material matched testimony gathered from affected communities, while submissions from civil society groups and other partners had further corroborated the evidence.
The atrocities in El-Fasher, she added, mirror those documented in the West Darfur capital of El-Geneina in 2023, where UN experts determined the RSF killed between 10,000 and 15,000 people, mostly from the Massalit tribe.
She said a picture was emerging of “appalling organized, widespread mass criminality.”
“It will continue until this conflict and the sense of impunity that fuels it are stopped,” she added.
Khan also issued a renewed call for Sudanese authorities to “work with us seriously” to ensure the surrender of all individuals subject to outstanding warrants, including former longtime president Omar Al-Bashir, former ruling party chairman Ahmed Haroun and ex-defense minister Abdul Raheem Mohammed Hussein.
She said Haroun’s arrest in particular should be “given priority.”
Haroun faces 20 counts of crimes against humanity and 22 war-crimes charges for his role in recruiting the Janjaweed militia, which carried out ethnic massacres in Darfur in the 2000s and later became the RSF.
He escaped prison in 2023 and has since reappeared rallying support for the Sudanese army.
Khan spoke to the UN Security Council via video link after being denied a visa to attend in New York due to sanctions in place against her by the United States.
In a briefing to the UN Security Council, Nazhat Shameem Khan said it was the “assessment of the office of the prosecutor that war crimes and crimes against humanity” had been committed in the RSF’s takeover of the city of El-Fasher in October.
“Our work has been indicative of mass killing events and attempts to conceal crimes through the establishment of mass graves,” Khan said in a video address, citing audio and video evidence as well as satellite imagery.
Since April 2023, a civil war between the Sudanese army and the RSF has killed tens of thousands, displaced 11 million and created the world’s largest displacement and hunger crisis.
Reports of mass killings, sexual violence, abductions and looting emerged in the wake of the RSF’s sweep of El-Fasher, which was the army’s last holdout position in the Darfur region.
Both warring sides have been accused of atrocities throughout the war.
Footage reviewed by the ICC, Khan said, showed RSF fighters detaining, abusing and executing civilians in El-Fasher, then celebrating the killings and “desecrating corpses.”
According to Khan, the material matched testimony gathered from affected communities, while submissions from civil society groups and other partners had further corroborated the evidence.
The atrocities in El-Fasher, she added, mirror those documented in the West Darfur capital of El-Geneina in 2023, where UN experts determined the RSF killed between 10,000 and 15,000 people, mostly from the Massalit tribe.
She said a picture was emerging of “appalling organized, widespread mass criminality.”
“It will continue until this conflict and the sense of impunity that fuels it are stopped,” she added.
Khan also issued a renewed call for Sudanese authorities to “work with us seriously” to ensure the surrender of all individuals subject to outstanding warrants, including former longtime president Omar Al-Bashir, former ruling party chairman Ahmed Haroun and ex-defense minister Abdul Raheem Mohammed Hussein.
She said Haroun’s arrest in particular should be “given priority.”
Haroun faces 20 counts of crimes against humanity and 22 war-crimes charges for his role in recruiting the Janjaweed militia, which carried out ethnic massacres in Darfur in the 2000s and later became the RSF.
He escaped prison in 2023 and has since reappeared rallying support for the Sudanese army.
Khan spoke to the UN Security Council via video link after being denied a visa to attend in New York due to sanctions in place against her by the United States.
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