PORT SUDAN: At least 176 people were killed in two days of army and paramilitary strikes across Sudan, according to an AFP tally of tolls provided by officials, activists and lawyers on Tuesday.
In Omdurman, part of the Sudanese capital, paramilitary shelling killed at least 65 people and wounded hundreds on Tuesday, according to the state’s army-aligned governor.
A single shell on a passenger bus “killed everyone on board and turned 22 people into body parts,” said Khartoum governor Ahmed Othman Hamza.
He attributed the strike to “the terrorist militia,” in reference to the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, at war with the army since April 2023.
The attack comes a day after an army air strike on a market in the North Darfur town of Kabkabiya killed over 100 people, the pro-democracy Emergency Lawyers reported Tuesday.
“The air strike took place on the town’s weekly market day, where residents from various nearby villages had gathered to shop, resulting in the death of more than 100 people and injury of hundreds, including women and children,” said the lawyers’ group, which has been documenting human rights abuses during the conflict.
The lawyers also reported six people were killed in North Kordofan state when a drone that had crashed on November 26 exploded.
In the famine-stricken Zamzam displacement camp in North Darfur, paramilitary shelling on Tuesday killed five people, according to civil society group the Darfur General Coordination of Camps for the Displaced and Refugees.
A UN-backed report in July declared famine had taken hold in the camp after a months-long RSF siege of state capital El-Fasher and the surrounding area.
The war between the RSF and the regular army has so far killed tens of thousands, uprooted 12 million and created what the United Nations has called the worst humanitarian crisis in recent memory.
It has also nearly destroyed Khartoum, control over which both sides have not managed to claim.
Most of Omdurman — the capital’s twin city across the Nile — is under army control, while the RSF holds Khartoum North (Bahri) to the east.
Residents have continuously reported shelling across the river, with bombs and shrapnel regularly striking homes on both banks.
On Tuesday, eyewitnesses said artillery was striking Omdurman from multiple fronts.
“We haven’t seen bombing this intense in six months,” one eyewitness to the passenger bus shelling told AFP, also requesting anonymity.
Another reported shelling from the Wadi Seidna army base, in northern Omdurman, toward RSF positions in western Omdurman and across the river in Bahri.
The army currently controls parts of the capital, as well as the country’s north and east.
The RSF has seized nearly the entire vast western region of Darfur, swathes of the southern Kordofan region and much of central Sudan.
Darfur, a region the size of France, is home to around a quarter of Sudan’s population but more than half its displaced people.
It has also been the site of some of the war’s most horrific violence.
In footage sent to AFP purporting to show the aftermath of Monday’s strike on the market, people were seen sifting through rubble as the charred remains of children lay on scorched ground.
The footage, which AFP was unable to independently verify, was supplied by the Darfur General Coordination of Camps for the Displaced and Refugees.
Though some drone attacks have been attributed to the RSF, the Sudanese military is the only party with fighter jets and maintains a functional monopoly on the skies.
In a statement Tuesday, the army accused RSF-affiliated political groups of “spreading lies” and said its forces “target rebel activity bases.”
The lawyers described the attack as a “horrendous massacre committed by army air strikes.”
They said recent strikes across the country were part of an “escalation campaign... deliberately concentrated on densely populated residential areas,” contradicting claims by warring parties that they only target military objectives.
Both the army and the RSF have been accused of indiscriminately targeting civilians and deliberately bombing residential areas.
On Tuesday, Human Rights Watch accused the RSF and allied Arab militias of carrying out numerous abuses against civilians in South Kordofan state from December 2023 to March 2024.
The rights organization accused the groups of “war crimes” including “killings, rapes, and abductions of ethnic Nuba residents, as well as the looting and destruction of homes.”
The group also urged the United Nations and the African Union to deploy a mission to protect civilians in Sudan.
At least 176 killed in two days of Sudan battles
https://arab.news/68c3w
At least 176 killed in two days of Sudan battles
- In Omdurman, part of the Sudanese capital, paramilitary shelling killed at least 65 people and wounded hundreds
- A single shell on a passenger bus “killed everyone on board and turned 22 people into body parts,” said Khartoum governor Ahmed Othman Hamza
Israeli troops kill Palestinians for crossing a vague ceasefire line that’s sometimes unmarked
- Israeli soldiers direct near-daily fire at anyone who crosses or even lingers near it
- The ‘yellow line’ is still unmarked in certain places
CAIRO: A dividing line, at times invisible, can mean life or death for Palestinians in Gaza.
Those sheltering near the territory’s “yellow line” that the Israeli military withdrew to as part of the October ceasefire say they live in fear as Israeli soldiers direct near-daily fire at anyone who crosses or even lingers near it.
Of the 447 Palestinians killed between the ceasefire taking effect and Tuesday, at least 77 were killed by Israeli gunfire near the line, including 62 who crossed it, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Among them were teenagers and young children, The Associated Press found.
And although the military has placed some yellow barrels and concrete barriers delineating the limits of the Palestinian zone, the line is still unmarked in certain places and in others was laid nearly half a kilometer deeper than what was agreed to in the ceasefire deal, expanding the part of Gaza that Israel controls, according to Palestinians and mapping experts.
“We stay away from the barrels. No one dares to get close” said Gaza City resident Ahmed Abu Jahal, noting that the markers are less than 100 meters from his house — instead of the roughly 500 meters outlined in a map put out by the Israeli military.
As of Tuesday, the military had acknowledged killing 57 people around the yellow line, saying most were militants. It said its troops are complying with the rules of engagement in order to counter militant groups, and are informing Palestinians of the line’s location and marking it on the ground to “reduce friction and prevent misunderstandings.”
Easy to get lost
Under the ceasefire, Israel withdrew its troops to a buffer zone that is up to 7 kilometers deep and includes most of Gaza’s arable land, its elevated points and all of its border crossings. That hems more than 2 million Palestinians into a strip along the coastline and central Gaza.
People of all ages, some already dead, have been showing up almost daily at the emergency room of Gaza City’s Al-Ahli hospital with bullet wounds from straying near the line, said hospital director Fadel Naeem.
Amid the vast destruction in Gaza, the demarcation line often isn’t easy to detect, Naeem said. He recounted picking his way through undamaged paths during a recent visit to the southern city of Khan Younis. He didn’t notice he was almost across the line until locals shouted at him to turn back, he said.
The Israeli military said most of the people it has killed crossing the line posed a threat to its troops. According to a military official who spoke on the condition of anonymity in line with military rules, troops issue audible warnings and then fire warning shots whenever someone crosses the line. Many civilians retreat when warning shots are fired, though some have been killed, the official acknowledged.
Killed while playing near the line
Zaher Shamia, 17, lived with his grandfather in a tent 300 meters from the line in northern Gaza’s Jabaliya refugee camp. On Dec. 10, he was playing with his cousin and some friends near the line, according to video he took before his death.
Suddenly, shots rang out and the video stopped. Soldiers approaching the line with an armored bulldozer had fired on the teens, hitting Zaher, said a witness.
A neighbor eventually found Zaher’s body, which had been crushed by the bulldozer, said Zaher’s grandfather, Kamal Al-Beih: “We only recognized him from his head.”
Two doctors, Mohamed Abu Selmiya and Rami Mhanna, confirmed that the teen had been killed by gunshots and then run over by a bulldozer. The military official said he was aware that Shamia was a civilian and that the military was looking into it.
Maram Atta said that on Dec. 7, her 3-year-old daughter, Ahed Al-Bayouk, was playing with siblings outside of their tent, which was near the yellow line along Gaza’s southern coast. Atta was preparing lentils when she heard aircraft overhead, then shots.
A stray projectile whizzed close to her and struck Ahed, who was dead before they reached the clinic.
“I lost my daughter to what they keep calling a ‘ceasefire’” said Atta, crying. “What ceasefire are they talking about?”
A military official denied the killing.
Deadly ambiguity
The line’s exact location is ambiguous, differing on maps put out by the Israeli military and the White House.
Neither matches the line troops appear to be marking on the ground, according to Palestinians and geolocation specialists.
Chris Osiek, an open source intelligence analyst and consultant, has geolocated a number of yellow blocks based on social media videos. He found at least four urban areas where troops set the blocks several hundred meters deeper into Gaza than the military map-specified yellow line.
“This is basically what you get when you simply let Trump make an image and post it on Truth Social and let the IDF make their own,” he said, using the acronym for the military. “If it’s not a proper system, with coordinates that make it easy for people to navigate where it is, then you leave the ambiguity free for the IDF to interpret the yellow line how they basically want.”
The military official dismissed such criticism, saying any deviations from the map amount to just a few meters. But to Palestinians hemmed in by widespread destruction and displacement, every few meters lost is another house that can’t be sheltered in — another they doubt will ever be returned.
‘The line is getting very close’
Under the ceasefire, Israeli forces are only supposed to remain at the yellow line until a fuller withdrawal, though the agreement doesn’t give a timeline for that. With the next steps in the deal lagging and troops digging into positions on the Israeli side, though, Palestinians wonder if they are witnessing a permanent land takeover.
In December, Israel’s defense minister described the yellow line as “a new border line — serving as a forward defensive line for our communities and a line of operational activity.”
The military has continued leveling buildings inside the Israeli-held zone, turning already damaged neighborhoods to moonscapes. Almost all of the city of Rafah, on Gaza’s border with Egypt, has been razed over the past year. The army says this is necessary to destroy tunnels and prepare the area for reconstruction.
In some places, demolitions since the ceasefire have encroached beyond the official yellow line. Since November, troops have leveled a swath of Gaza City’s Tuffah neighborhood extending some 300 meters outside the Israeli-held zone, according to Oct. 14 and Dec. 18 satellite photos provided by Planet Labs.
Abu Jahal moved back to his damaged house in Tuffah at the ceasefire’s start. He said he frequently saw new yellow barrels appear and the military forcing out anyone living on its side of the markers.
On Jan. 7, Israeli fire hit a house near him, and the residents had to evacuate, he said. Abu Jahal said his family — including his wife, their child, and seven other relatives — may also have to leave soon.
“The line is getting very close,” he said.
