KHARTOUM: Sudan’s Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok welcomed rebel leaders to the capital Khartoum on Sunday, as crowds celebrated what they hoped was the end of war following a landmark peace deal.
“We have been looking forward to this day,” Hamdok said as he greeted the leaders, according to a broadcast by the official news agency SUNA.
“Today we are taking the first steps to put an end to the suffering of our people.”
It was the first time the leaders of the Sudan Revolutionary Front (SRF), a coalition of rebel and political groups, had come to the capital since the signing of an October 3 peace agreement in neighboring South Sudan.
“We have come to put the peace agreement into effect on the ground,” said Minni Minawi, who leads a faction of the Darfur-based Sudan Liberation Movement, according to SUNA.
“We must work to assume responsibility and abandon the political quarrels to move toward democracy.”
The peace deal is hoped to end decades of fighting, including the war in the western Darfur region that erupted in 2003.
The United Nations estimates at least 300,000 people were killed and 2.5 million were displaced in the Darfur conflict.
“This is the first time in Sudan’s history we reached a deal that truly addresses the roots of the Sudanese crisis,” said Hamdok.
Jubilant crowds packed a central square in Khartoum, chanting and carrying banners to celebrate.
The SRF — founded in 2011 — is an alliance of armed rebel groups and political movements including from Darfur, South Kordofan and Blue Nile states.
Conflict in South Kordofan and Blue Nile erupted in 2011, following unresolved issues from bitter fighting there in Sudan’s 1983-2005 civil war.
Sudan’s transitional government seized power after the April 2019 ouster of longtime president Omar Al-Bashir, following unprecedented street protests against his rule.
Bashir has been jailed in Khartoum’s high security Kober prison and was found guilty last December of corruption.
He is currently on trial in Khartoum for his role in the 1989 coup that brought him to power, and has also been indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) accused of genocide in Darfur.
Sudan welcomes rebels back to Khartoum after peace deal
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Sudan welcomes rebels back to Khartoum after peace deal
- “We have been looking forward to this day,” Hamdok said as he greeted the leaders
Tunisia’s famed blue-and-white village threatened after record rains
SIDI BOU SAID, Tunisia: Perched on a hill overlooking Carthage, Tunisia’s famed blue-and-white village of Sidi Bou Said now faces the threat of landslides, after record rainfall tore through parts of its slopes.
Last week, Tunisia saw its heaviest downpour in more than 70 years. The storm killed at least five people, with others still missing.
Narrow streets of this village north of Tunis — famed for its pink bougainvillea and studded wooden doors — were cut off by fallen trees, rocks and thick clay. Even more worryingly for residents, parts of the hillside have broken loose.
“The situation is delicate” and “requires urgent intervention,” Mounir Riabi, the regional director of civil defense in Tunis, recently told AFP.
“Some homes are threatened by imminent danger,” he said.
Authorities have banned heavy vehicles from driving into the village and ordered some businesses and institutions to close, such as the Ennejma Ezzahra museum.
- Scared -
Fifty-year-old Maya, who did not give her full name, said she was forced to leave her century-old family villa after the storm.
“Everything happened very fast,” she recalled. “I was with my mother and, suddenly, extremely violent torrents poured down.”
“I saw a mass of mud rushing toward the house, then the electricity cut off. I was really scared.”
Her Moorish-style villa sustained significant damage.
One worker on site, Said Ben Farhat, said waterlogged earth sliding from the hillside destroyed part of a kitchen wall.
“Another rainstorm and it will be a catastrophe,” he said.
Shop owners said the ban on heavy vehicles was another blow to their businesses, as they usually rely on tourist buses to bring in traffic.
When President Kais Saied visited the village on Wednesday, vendors were heard shouting: “We want to work.”
One trader, Mohamed Fedi, told AFP afterwards there were “no more customers.”
“We have closed shop,” he said, adding that the shops provide a livelihood to some 200 families.
- Highly unstable -
Beyond its famous architecture, the village also bears historical and spiritual significance.
The village was named after a 12th-century Sufi saint, Abu Said Al-Baji, who had established a religious center there. His shrine still sits atop the hill.
The one-time home of French philosopher Michel Foucault and writer Andre Gide, the village is protected under Tunisian preservation law, pending a UNESCO decision on its bid for World Heritage status.
Experts say solutions to help preserve Sidi Bou Said could include restricting new development, building more retaining walls and improving drainage to prevent runoff from accumulating.
Chokri Yaich, a geologist speaking to Tunisian radio Mosaique FM, said climate change has made protecting the hill increasingly urgent, warning of more storms like last week’s.
The hill’s clay-rich soil loses up to two thirds of its cohesion when saturated with water, making it highly unstable, Yaich explained.
He also pointed to marine erosion and the growing weight of urbanization, saying that construction had increased by about 40 percent over the past three decades.
For now, authorities have yet to announce a protection plan, leaving home and shop owners anxious, as the weather remains unpredictable.
