KHARTOUM: Sudan on Monday announced it was returning to east African bloc IGAD, two years after freezing its membership over a decision to invite rival paramilitary chief Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo to a summit.
“The government of the Republic of Sudan will resume its full activity in the membership” in the Djibouti-based Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), the foreign ministry said in a statement.
Sudan had suspended its membership in January 2024 after the bloc invited the head of rival paramilitary group the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) to a summit in Uganda to discuss the country’s brutal conflict.
The RSF has been at war with Sudan’s army since April 2023 in a conflict that has killed tens of thousands, displaced 11 million and caused one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
The foreign ministry cited a statement by IGAD which reaffirmed “its full recognition of Sudan’s sovereignty and the unity of its lands and people” and pledged “non-interference in member states’ internal affairs.”
The decision to rejoin IGAD follows a meeting in January between the bloc’s executive secretary, Workneh Gebeyehu, and Sudan’s Prime Minister Kamil Idris.
Following the meeting, the bloc issued a statement saying it “condemns all forms of violations committed by the Rapid Support Forces and reaffirms its full support for the unity and sovereignty of the Republic of the Sudan, as well as its existing national institutions.”
The nearly three-year conflict has effectively split Sudan between army-controlled areas in the north, east and center, and those controlled by the paramilitaries in the west and parts of the south.
The RSF has also formed a rival parallel administration in Nyala, the South Darfur state capital, but it has received no international recognition.
IGAD on Monday welcomed Sudan’s decision to return, describing it as “a reaffirmation of regional solidarity and collective commitment to peace, stability, and cooperation across the region.”
Sudan returns to east African bloc after two years
https://arab.news/ppqdr
Sudan returns to east African bloc after two years
- Decision comes two years after Sudan froze its IGAD membership over a decision to invite rival paramilitary chief Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo to a summit
The UN says Al-Hol camp population has dropped sharply as Syria moves to relocate remaining families
The UN says Al-Hol camp population has dropped sharply as Syria moves to relocate remaining families
- Forces of Syria’s central government captured the Al-Hol camp on Jan. 21 during a weekslong offensive against the SDF, which had been running the camp near the border with Iraq for a decade
DAMASCUS: The UN refugee agency said Sunday that a large number of residents of a camp housing family members of suspected Daesh group militants have left and the Syrian government plans to relocate those who remain.
Gonzalo Vargas Llosa, UNHCR’s representative in Syria, said in a statement that the agency “has observed a significant decrease in the number of residents in Al-Hol camp in recent weeks.”
“Syrian authorities have informed UNHCR of their plan to relocate the remaining families to Akhtarin camp in Aleppo Governorate (province) and have requested UNHCR’s support to assist the population in the new camp, which we stand ready to provide,” he said.
He added that UNHCR “will continue to support the return and reintegration of Syrians who have departed Al-Hol, as well as those who remain.”
The statement did not say how residents had left the camp or how many remain. Many families are believed to have escaped either during the chaos when government forces captured the camp from the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces last month or afterward.
There was no immediate statement from the Syrian government and a government spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
At its peak after the defeat of IS in Syria in 2019, around 73,000 people were living at Al-Hol. Since then, the number has declined with some countries repatriating their citizens. The camp’s residents are mostly children and women, including many wives or widows of IS members.
The camp’s residents are not technically prisoners and most have not been accused of crimes, but they have been held in de facto detention at the heavily guarded facility.
Forces of Syria’s central government captured the Al-Hol camp on Jan. 21 during a weekslong offensive against the SDF, which had been running the camp near the border with Iraq for a decade. A ceasefire deal has since ended the fighting.
Separately, thousands of accused IS militants who were held in detention centers in northeastern Syria have been transferred to Iraq to stand trial under an agreement with the US
The US military said Friday that it had completed the transfer of more than 5,700 adult male IS suspects from detention facilities in Syria to Iraqi custody.
Iraq’s National Center for International Judicial Cooperation said a total of 5,704 suspects from 61 countries who were affiliated with IS — most of them Syrian and Iraqi — were transferred from prisons in Syria. They are now being interrogated in Iraq.
