NEW YORK/CAIRO: Sudanese army chief Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan ordered the release of four civilian members of the ousted government of Abdallah Hamdok, state television said on Thursday.
Ministers Hamza Baloul, Ali Jiddo, Hashim Hasabalrasoul and Yousef Adam were ordered released, it added.
The move came following a call with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, where he urged Burhan to release “Hamdok and other civilians arbitrarily detained in Sudan,” a UN spokesperson said.
Speaking during the call, Guterres said he encouraged the developments of all efforts toward resolving the political crisis in the north African country, and called to urgently restore the constitutional order and Sudan’s transitional process.
The secretary-general reaffirmed that the UN “will continue to stand with the people of Sudan as they strive to fulfill their aspirations for a peaceful, prosperous and democratic future.”
Burhan pledged to “maintain the peace and inevitability of the democratic transition and to complete the transition process in a manner that preserves the security of the country, the gains of the revolution, and to reach an elected civilian government,” Sudan’s state news agency reported.
Meanwhile, the UN special envoy for Sudan said talks had produced the contours of a potential deal on a return to power-sharing, including restoration of the ousted prime minister, but it had to be agreed in “days not weeks” before the positions of both sides harden.
The UN has been coordinating efforts to find a way out of the country’s crisis following a coup by the military on Oct. 25 in which top civilian politicians were detained and Hamdok was placed under house arrest.
Disclosing the “contours” of a potential deal publicly for the first time, the envoy, Volker Perthes, said these included: the return of Hamdok to office, the release of detainees, the lifting of a state of emergency, as well as adjustments to some transitional institutions and a new technocratic cabinet.
“The longer you wait the more difficult it is to implement such an agreement and get the necessary buy in from the street and from the political forces,” Perthes, special representative of the Secretary General and head of the UN’s Integrated Transition Mission in Sudan (UNITAMS), said in an interview.
“It will also become more difficult for the military, as pressures to appoint some government, whatever its credibility, will increase. And the positions of both sides would harden. We are speaking of days not of weeks,” he added.
“Now the question is, are both sides willing to commit to that. Here we still have at least a few hiccups,” Perthes told Reuters.
The talks effectively represented “the last chance,” for the military to come to a negotiated deal, Perthes said, adding that there appeared to be discussions inside the military on whether or not to take advantage of it.
(With Reuters)
Sudan’s Burhan orders release of 4 civilian cabinet ministers after call with UN chief
https://arab.news/rmuds
Sudan’s Burhan orders release of 4 civilian cabinet ministers after call with UN chief
- Antonio Guterres urges the restoration of constitutional order and the transitional process
- UN special envoy says Sudan deal under discussion, needed in ‘days not weeks’
Israeli settlers forcibly enter Palestinian home in latest West Bank attack
- The settlers killed three sheep and injured four more, smashed a door and a window of the home
- Police said they arrested the five settlers on suspicion of trespassing onto Palestinian land
JERUSALEM: Israeli settlers attacked a Palestinian home in the south of the Israeli-occupied West Bank overnight, breaking in and killing sheep, a Palestinian official said Tuesday. It was the latest in a surge of attacks by settlers against Palestinians in the territory in recent months.
Israeli police said they arrested five settlers.
The settlers killed three sheep and injured four more, smashed a door and a window of the home, and fired tear gas inside, sending three Palestinian children under the age of 4 to the hospital, said Amir Dawood, who directs an office documenting such attacks within a Palestinian governmental body called the Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission.
Police said they arrested the five settlers on suspicion of trespassing onto Palestinian land, damaging property and dispensing pepper spray, not tear gas. They said they are investigating.
CCTV video from the attack in the town of As Samu’, shared by the commission, showed five masked settlers in dark clothing, some with batons, approaching the home and appearing to enter. Sounds of smashing are heard, as well as animal noises. Another video from inside shows masked figures appearing to strike sheep in the stable.
Photos of the aftermath, also shared by the commission, show smashed car windows and a shattered front door. Bloodied sheep lie dead as others stand with blood staining their wool. Inside the home, photos show broken glass and the furniture ransacked.
Dawood said it was the second settler attack on the family in less than two months. He called it “part of a systematic and ongoing pattern of settler violence targeting Palestinian civilians, their property and their means of livelihood, carried out with impunity under the protection of the Israeli occupation.”
During October’s olive harvest, settlers across the territory launched an average of eight attacks daily, the most since the United Nations humanitarian office began collecting data in 2006. The attacks continued in November, with the UN recording at least 136 by Nov. 24.
Israel occupied the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza — areas claimed by the Palestinians for a future state — in the 1967 war. It has settled over 500,000 Jews in the West Bank, in addition to over 200,000 in contested East Jerusalem.
Israel’s government is dominated by far-right proponents of the settler movement, including Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Cabinet Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who oversees the nation’s police force. Earlier this week, Smotrich said the Israeli cabinet had approved a proposal for 19 new Jewish settlements, another blow to the possibility of a Palestinian state.
