DUBAI: A militant group controlling Sudan’s Nuba Mountains and parts of Blue Nile state said on Wednesday that the local population was experiencing a hunger catastrophe.
The Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N) said that 20 percent of families were suffering severe food shortages, while 30 percent of children suffered from malnutrition. An Arabic version of the statement described the situation as a famine.
It said the parties involved in Sudan’s civil war and a poor harvest were to blame for the crisis.
The situation in the two regions was “the most severe compared to other states,” the SPLM-N said. “The little foodstock that the host community has been able to produce is being shared and rapidly depleted.”
Some 3.9 million people live in the two territories under SPLM-N control, a number that swelled after people from other parts of the country were displaced by the fighting.
The ongoing war between Sudan’s army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has plunged half the population of about 50 million into food insecurity and created the world’s largest humanitarian crisis.
Across the country, some 756,000 people face catastrophic hunger, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, a global hunger monitor, said in June.
Both the army and the RSF are accused of blocking aid from reaching targeted areas, and of damaging the infrastructure and markets needed for food production and delivery.
The SPLM-N accused the army-aligned government in Port Sudan of selling aid allocated for the area, while it said the RSF was closing markets.
“Civilian villages in both regions were also targeted through a scorched earth policy, burning crops and homes, displacing residents to camps, and blocking roads,” it said.
The army and RSF did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Sudan’s SPLM-N rebel group declares famine in its territory
https://arab.news/zemrf
Sudan’s SPLM-N rebel group declares famine in its territory
- 20 percent of families were suffering severe food shortages, while 30 percent of children suffered from malnutrition
- The situation in the two regions was “the most severe compared to other states,” the SPLM-N said
Saad Hariri pledges to contest May election
- Beirut rally draws large crowds on anniversary of his father’s assassination
BEIRUT: Lebanon’s former Prime Minister Saad Hariri announced on Saturday that his movement, which represents the majority of Lebanon’s Sunni community, would take part in upcoming parliamentary elections scheduled for May.
The Future Movement had suspended its political activities in 2022.
Hariri was addressing a large gathering of Future Movement supporters as Lebanon marked the 21st anniversary of the assassination of his father and former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, at Martyrs’ Square in front of his tomb.
He said his movement remained committed to the approach of “moderation.”
A minute’s silence was observed by the crowd in Martyrs’ Square at the exact time when, in 2005, a suicide truck carrying about 1,000 kg of explosives detonated along Beirut’s seaside road as Rafik Hariri’s motorcade passed, killing him along with 21 others, including members of his security guards and civilians, and injuring 200 people.
Four members of Hezbollah were accused of carrying out the assassination and were tried in absentia by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon.
The crowd waved Lebanese flags and banners of the Future Movement as they awaited Saad Hariri, who had returned to Beirut from the UAE, where he resides, specifically to commemorate the anniversary, as has been an annual tradition.
Hariri said that “after 21 years, the supporters of Hariri’s approach are still many,” denouncing the “rumors and intimidation” directed at him.
He added: “Moderation is not hesitation … and patience is not weakness. Rafik Hariri’s project is not a dream that will fade. He was the model of a statesman who believed, until martyrdom, that ‘no one is greater than their country.’ The proof is his enduring place in the minds, hearts and consciences of the Lebanese people.”
Hariri said he chose to withdraw from political life after “it became required that we cover up failure and compromise the state, so we said no and chose to step aside — because politics at the expense of the country’s dignity and the project of the state has no meaning.”
He said: “The Lebanese are weary, and after years of wars, divisions, alignments and armed bastions, they deserve a normal country with one constitution, one army, and one legitimate authority over weapons — because Lebanon is one and will remain one. Notions of division have collapsed in the face of reality, history and geography, and the illusions of annexation and hegemony have fallen with those who pursued them, who ultimately fled.”
Hariri said the Future Movement’s project is “One Lebanon, Lebanon first — a Lebanon that will neither slide back into sectarian strife or internal fighting, nor be allowed to do so.”
He added that the Taif Agreement is “the solution and must be implemented in full,” arguing that “political factions have treated it selectively by demanding only what suits them — leaving the agreement unfulfilled and the country’s crises unresolved.”
He said: “When we call for the full implementation of the Taif Agreement, we mean: weapons exclusively in the hands of the state, administrative decentralization, the abolition of political sectarianism, the establishment of a senate and full implementation of the truce agreement. All of this must be implemented — fully and immediately — so we can overcome our chronic problems and crises together.
“Harirism will continue to support any Arab rapprochement, and reject any Arab discord. Those who seek to sow discord between the Gulf and Arab countries will harm only themselves and their reputation.
“We want to maintain the best possible relations with all Arab countries, starting with our closest neighbor, Syria — the new Syria, the free Syria that has rid itself of the criminal and tyrannical regime that devastated it and Lebanon, and spread its poison in the Arab world.”
Hariri said he saluted “the efforts of unification, stabilization and reconstruction led by Syrian President Ahmad Al-Sharaa.”
When asked about the Future Movement’s participation in parliamentary elections following his withdrawal from politics, he said: “Tell me when parliamentary elections will be held, and I will tell you what the Future Movement will do. I promise you that, when the elections take place, they will hear our voices, and they will count our votes.”
The US Embassy in Lebanon shared a post announcing that Ambassador Michel Issa laid a wreath at the grave of Rafik Hariri.
Hariri’s legacy “to forge peace and prosperity continues to resonate years later with renewed significance,” the embassy said.
