US says ‘pleased’ with improved aid access into Sudan

A handout image shows aid trucks with relief material for Sudan's Darfur region, at a location given as the border of Chad and Sudan, released on August 21, 2024. (Reuters)
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Updated 01 October 2024
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US says ‘pleased’ with improved aid access into Sudan

  • “We are pleased by the significant but incremental improvements on humanitarian access,” US envoy on Sudan, Tom Perriello, told reporters in Nairobi

NAIROBI: The US envoy to Sudan on Monday said there had been a marked improvement of aid deliveries into the war-torn African country suffering a devastating humanitarian crisis.
Fighting erupted in April 2023 between the regular army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) after a plan to integrate them into the military failed.
Both sides have been accused of war crimes, including deliberately targeting civilians and blocking humanitarian aid.
“We are pleased by the significant but incremental improvements on humanitarian access,” US envoy on Sudan, Tom Perriello, told reporters in Nairobi.
“We have had a couple (of) hundred trucks get through areas that were previously blocked.”
More than 25 million people — more than half of Sudan’s population — face acute hunger, according to UN agencies, with famine declared in a displacement camp in the western Darfur region, which borders Chad.
The war has already killed tens of thousands of people, with the World Health Organization declaring a toll of at least 20,000 people dead, but some estimates are up to 150,000.
“The situation is extremely dire and those who are in the best position to stop it seem eager instead to accelerate” it, Perriello said.
Several rounds of peace negotiations have failed to end the fighting.
Multiple truces brokered by the United States and Saudi Arabia in the early stages of the war were systematically violated and the process faltered.
“One track of these efforts overall is a sense of trying to restore the basic norm that even if the war continues, certain issues of humanitarian access and civilian protection should be respected,” Perriello said, blaming “a lack of sufficient will” from the warring sides.
The latest round of US-brokered talks opened in Switzerland last month.
While an RSF delegation showed up, the Sudanese armed forces were unhappy with the format and did not attend, though they were in telephone contact with the mediators.
The talks were co-hosted by Saudi Arabia and Switzerland, with the African Union, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the United Nations completing the so-called Aligned for Advancing Lifesaving and Peace in Sudan Group (ALPS).
The army objected to the UAE’s involvement in the talks, accusing the oil-rich Gulf state of arming the RSF. The UAE has repeatedly denied the allegations.
The Sudanese army on Monday rejected an accusation by the UAE that it had attacked the home of its ambassador in Khartoum.


Elderly Palestinian shot dead in Rafah

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Elderly Palestinian shot dead in Rafah

  • Death toll from Israel’s aggression on Gaza rises to 71,795 since start of assault in October 2023

GAZA: An elderly Palestinian man was killed by Israeli fire in Rafah on Sunday afternoon, bringing the number of fatalities since morning to two, according to local and medical sources.

The sources reported that Khaled Hammad Dahleez, 63, was shot dead by an Israeli drone northwest of Rafah.

Earlier in the day, another man was killed and several others injured in a drone strike north of Wadi Gaza, in the central Gaza Strip, the Palestinian News Agency reported.

BACKGROUND

On Saturday, at least 31 Palestinians, including children and women, were slaughtered in a series of Israeli airstrikes on several locations across the enclave — one of the deadliest days since the start of the ceasefire agreement on Oct. 11, 2025.

On Saturday, at least 31 Palestinians, including children and women, were slaughtered in a series of Israeli airstrikes on several locations across the war-ravaged enclave — one of the deadliest days since the start of the ceasefire agreement on Oct. 11, 2025.

Since the ceasefire took effect on Oct. 11, the number of people killed has risen to 523, with 1,433 injuries recorded, while 715 bodies have been recovered during the same period.

Medical sources said on Sunday the death toll from Israel’s aggression on the Gaza Strip had risen to 71,795 Palestinians killed and 171,551 injured since the start of the assault in October 2023.

The sources reported that 26 fatalities and 68 injuries were brought to Gaza hospitals over the past 48 hours, noting that numerous victims were trapped under rubble or in the streets, with ambulance and rescue crews unable to reach them.

The ceasefire’s first phase called for the exchange of all hostages held in Gaza for hundreds of Palestinians held by Israel, a surge in humanitarian aid and a partial pullback of Israeli troops.

The second phase is more complicated. It calls for installing a new Palestinian committee to govern Gaza, deploying an international security force, disarming Hamas, and taking steps to begin rebuilding.

Hamas has so far ‌rejected disarmament and Israel has repeatedly indicated that if the Islamist militant group is not disarmed peacefully, it will use force to make it do so.