PORT SUDAN: Sudan’s warring parties traded accusations of deadly attacks on civilians as fighting raged in the center and west on Friday between the regular army and paramilitaries.
The army-backed government accused the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) of causing at least 120 civilian deaths over two days in Al-Jazira state, Sudan’s pre-war breadbasket where fighting has raged since last month.
The RSF in turn accused the regular armed forces of killing 60 people in an air strike in North Darfur, where they have been battling to retain a foothold in the western region otherwise controlled by the paramilitaries.
The conflict in Sudan pits the regular army, under Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, against the RSF, led by his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.
It has led to the deaths of tens of thousands of people since April 2023 and displaced more than 11 million more, according to the International Organization for Migration.
“The Janjaweed militia (paramilitaries) committed a new massacre in the town of Hilaliya in Al-Jazira state over the past two days,” the foreign ministry of the army-backed government said in a statement late Thursday.
It said 120 civilians had been killed “either by gunfire or due to food poisoning and lack of medical care.”
The army-backed government routinely refers to the RSF as Janjaweed, an infamous militia recruited by the then government in Khartoum to suppress an ethnic minority rebellion in the western region of Darfur two decades ago.
The Sudan Doctors’ Union said that after “stealing all the possessions of residents in Hilaliya, the militia detained people inside mosques, only allowing them to leave after paying large sums, which are impossible to afford after the extensive looting and theft.”
Witnesses said that the RSF had laid siege to the town for two weeks, leaving residents without safe food and water or access to medical care.
“A large number of citizens are suffering from acute diarrhea and are suspected of having cholera, without access to any medical care,” the Doctors’ Union said, adding that the death toll was “rising rapidly.”
On Monday, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said that attacks on more than 30 towns and villages in Al-Jazira state since October 20 had driven more than 135,000 people from their homes.
Witnesses reported the first direct clashes between the paramilitaries and former comrades who defected to the army with their commander, Abu Aqla Keykal, last month.
In the vast western region of Darfur, the RSF said that an air strike by the regular armed forces had killed more than 60 civilians and wounded hundreds in a displaced persons’ camp.
“The heinous assault... destroyed Al-Farouq Primary School, which was sheltering over 35 displaced families in the town of Al-Kuma,” a spokesman said on the RSF’s official Telegram channel.
“Hundreds were wounded as a result of the strike, which involved more than seven missiles and bombs.”
Parts of North Darfur state, including its besieged capital El-Fasher, a city of some two million people, are the only parts of the region still under the control of the army and its allies.
UN officials have voiced mounting concern about the dire conditions in Darfur and across Sudan.
“The people of Sudan are living through a nightmare of violence — with thousands of civilians killed, and countless others facing unspeakable atrocities, including widespread rape and sexual assaults,” UN chief Antonio Guterres told the Security Council late last month.
Sudan foes trade accusations as fighting rages in center, west
https://arab.news/jpzzt
Sudan foes trade accusations as fighting rages in center, west
- The army-backed government accused the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) of causing at least 120 civilian deaths over two days in Al-Jazira state
- The RSF in turn accused the regular armed forces of killing 60 people in an air strike in North Darfur
Trump says change of power in Iran would be ‘best thing’
- Trump’s comments were his most overt call yet for the toppling of Iran’s clerical establishment
- USS Gerald R. Ford — the world’s largest warship — would be “leaving very soon” for the Middle East
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump said Friday that a change of government in Iran would be the “best thing that could happen,” as he sent a second aircraft carrier to the Middle East to ratchet up military pressure on the Islamic republic.
Trump’s comments were his most overt call yet for the toppling of Iran’s clerical establishment, and came as he pushes on Washington’s arch-foe Tehran to make a deal to limit its nuclear program.
At the same time, the exiled son of the Iranian shah toppled in the 1979 Islamic revolution renewed his calls for international intervention following a bloody crackdown on protests by Tehran.
“Seems like that would be the best thing that could happen,” Trump told reporters at the Fort Bragg military base in North Carolina when a journalist asked if he wanted “regime change” in Iran.
Trump declined to say who he would want to take over in Iran from supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, but he added that “there are people.”
He has previously backed off full-throated calls for a change of government in Iran, warning that it could cause chaos, although he has made threats toward Khamenei in the past.
Speaking earlier at the White House, Trump said that the USS Gerald R. Ford — the world’s largest warship — would be “leaving very soon” for the Middle East to up the pressure on Iran.
“In case we don’t make a deal, we’ll need it,” Trump said.
The giant vessel is currently in the Caribbean following the US overthrow of Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro. Another carrier, the USS Abraham Lincoln, is one of 12 US ships already in the Middle East.
‘Terribly difficult’
When Iran began its crackdown on protests last month — which rights groups say killed thousands — Trump initially said that the United States was “locked and loaded” to help demonstrators.
But he has recently focused his military threats on Tehran’s nuclear program, which US forces struck last July during Israel’s unprecedented 12-day war with Iran.
The protests have subsided for now but US-based Reza Pahlavi, the son of Iran’s last shah, urged international intervention to support the Iranian people.
“We are asking for a humanitarian intervention to prevent more innocent lives being killed in the process,” he told the Munich Security Conference.
It followed a call by the opposition leader, who has not returned to his country since before the revolution, for Iranians at home and abroad to continue demonstrations this weekend.
Videos verified by AFP showed people in Iran this week chanting anti-government slogans as the clerical leadership celebrated the anniversary of the Islamic revolution.
Iran and the United States, who have had no diplomatic relations since shortly after the revolution, held talks on the nuclear issue last week in Oman. No dates have been set for new talks yet.
The West fears the program is aimed at making a bomb, which Tehran denies.
The head of the UN nuclear watchdog, Rafael Grossi, said Friday that reaching an accord with Iran on inspections of its processing facilities was possible but “terribly difficult.”
Reformists released
Trump said after talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier this week that he wanted to continue talks with Iran, defying pressure from his key ally for a tougher stance.
The Israeli prime minister himself expressed skepticism at the quality of any agreement if it didn’t also cover Iran’s ballistic missiles and support for regional proxies.
According to the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency, 7,008 people, mostly protesters, were killed in the recent crackdown, although rights groups warn the toll is likely far higher.
More than 53,000 people have also been arrested, it added.
The Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHR) NGO said “hundreds” of people were facing charges linked to the protests that could see them sentenced to death.
Figures working within the Iranian system have also been arrested, with three politicians detained this week from the so-called reformist wing of Iranian politics supportive of President Masoud Pezeshkian.
The three — Azar Mansouri, Javad Emam and Ebrahim Asgharzadeh — were released on bail Thursday and Friday, their lawyer Hojjat Kermani told the ISNA news agency.
