UN Relief Coordinator Calls for Immediate Action to Stop War in Sudan

People displaced by the ongoing conflict in Sudan between the army and paramilitaries, queue to receive aid from a charity organisation in Gedaref on December 30, 2023. (Photo by AFP)
People displaced by the ongoing conflict in Sudan between the army and paramilitaries, queue to receive aid from a charity organisation in Gedaref on December 30, 2023. (Photo by AFP)
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UN Relief Coordinator Calls for Immediate Action to Stop War in Sudan

People displaced by the ongoing conflict in Sudan between the army and paramilitaries, queue to receive aid from a charity organisation in Gedaref on December 30, 2023. (Photo by AFP)
People displaced by the ongoing conflict in Sudan between the army and paramilitaries, queue to receive aid from a charity organisation in Gedaref on December 30, 2023. (Photo by AFP)

UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths has called on the international community, especially those whom he said have “influence” on the parties to the conflict in Sudan, to take “decisive and immediate” action to stop the fighting and safeguard humanitarian operations.

Last April, clashes erupted between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) led by Abdulfattah al-Burhan and the Rapid Support Forces headed by Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo following weeks of tension.

Griffiths said in a statement published by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Action (OCHA) that nearly nine months of war have tipped Sudan into a downward spiral that only grows more ruinous by the day.

He noted that as the “conflict spreads, human suffering is deepening, humanitarian access is shrinking, and hope is dwindling.”

Nearly 25 million people across Sudan will need humanitarian assistance in 2024, “the bleak reality is that intensifying hostilities are putting most of them beyond our reach,” he said Thursday.

- Serious threat

He said that hostilities reached the “country’s breadbasket” in al-Jazirah State, putting more of the population “at stake.”

More than 500,000 people have fled fighting in and around the state capital, Wad Medani, long a place of refuge for those uprooted by clashes elsewhere.

Ongoing mass displacement could also fuel the rapid spread of a cholera outbreak in the state, with more than 1,800 suspected cases reported there so far.

“The same horrific abuses that have defined this war in other hotspots – Khartoum, Darfur, and Kordofan – are now being reported in Wad Medani.”

Accounts of widespread human rights violations, including sexual violence, “remind us that the parties to this conflict are still failing to uphold their commitments to protect civilians.”

Given Wad Medani’s significance as a hub for relief operations, the fighting there – and looting of humanitarian warehouses and supplies – “is a body blow to our efforts to deliver food, water, health care, and other critical aid,” Griffiths pointed out.

- Regional stability

Top UN officials reported that about 25 million persons across Sudan will need humanitarian aid in 2024. However, the intensified hostilities make it more difficult for them to reach the aid.

Deliveries across conflict lines have ground to a halt. The cross-border aid operation from Chad continues to serve as a lifeline for people in Darfur, and efforts to deliver elsewhere are increasingly under threat.

Griffiths also warned that the escalating violence in Sudan is also imperiling regional stability.

The war has unleashed the world’s largest displacement crisis, uprooting the lives of more than 7 million people, some 1.4 million of whom have crossed into neighboring countries that already host large refugee populations.



Lebanon Security Source Says Hezbollah Official Targeted in Beirut Strike

Civil defense members work as Lebanese army soldiers stand guard at the site of an Israeli strike in Beirut's Basta neighbourhood, amid the ongoing hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, Lebanon November 23, 2024. REUTERS/Adnan Abidi
Civil defense members work as Lebanese army soldiers stand guard at the site of an Israeli strike in Beirut's Basta neighbourhood, amid the ongoing hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, Lebanon November 23, 2024. REUTERS/Adnan Abidi
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Lebanon Security Source Says Hezbollah Official Targeted in Beirut Strike

Civil defense members work as Lebanese army soldiers stand guard at the site of an Israeli strike in Beirut's Basta neighbourhood, amid the ongoing hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, Lebanon November 23, 2024. REUTERS/Adnan Abidi
Civil defense members work as Lebanese army soldiers stand guard at the site of an Israeli strike in Beirut's Basta neighbourhood, amid the ongoing hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, Lebanon November 23, 2024. REUTERS/Adnan Abidi

A Lebanese security source said the target of a deadly Israeli airstrike on central Beirut early Saturday was a senior Hezbollah official, adding it was unclear whether he was killed.

"The Israeli strike on Basta targeted a leading Hezbollah figure," the security official told AFP without naming the figure, requesting anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.

The early morning airstrike has killed at least 11 people and injured 63, according to authorities, and had brought down an eight-storey building nearby, in the second such attack on the working-class neighbourhood of Basta in as many months.

"The strike was so strong it felt like the building was about to fall on our heads," said Samir, 60, who lives with his family in a building facing the one that was hit.

"It felt like they had targeted my house," he said, asking to be identified by only his first name because of security concerns.

There had been no evacuation warning issued by the Israeli military for the Basta area.

After the strike, Samir fled his home in the middle of the night with his wife and two children, aged 14 and just three.

On Saturday morning, dumbstruck residents watched as an excavator cleared the wreckage of the razed building and rescue efforts continued, with nearby buildings also damaged in the attack, AFP journalists reported.

The densely packed district has welcomed people displaced from traditional Hezbollah bastions in Lebanon's east, south and southern Beirut, after Israel intensified its air campaign on September 23, later sending in ground troops.

"We saw two dead people on the ground... The children started crying and their mother cried even more," Samir told AFP, reporting minor damage to his home.

Since last Sunday, four deadly Israeli strikes have hit central Beirut, including one that killed Hezbollah spokesman Mohammed Afif.

Residents across the city and its outskirts awoke at 0400 (0200 GMT) on Saturday to loud explosions and the smell of gunpowder in the air.

"It was the first time I've woken up screaming in terror," said Salah, a 35-year-old father of two who lives in the same street as the building that was targeted.

"Words can't express the fear that gripped me," he said.

Saturday's strikes were the second time the Basta district had been targeted since war broke out, after deadly twin strikes early in October hit the area and the Nweiri neighbourhood.

Last month's attacks killed 22 people and had targeted Hezbollah security chief Wafiq Safa, who made it out alive, a source close to the group told AFP.

Salah said his wife and children had been in the northern city of Tripoli, about 70 kilometres away (45 miles), but that he had to stay in the capital because of work.

His family had been due to return this weekend because their school reopens on Monday, but now he has decided against it following the attack.

"I miss them. Every day they ask me: 'Dad, when are we coming home?'" he said.

Lebanon's health ministry says that more than 3,650 people have been killed since October 2023, after Hezbollah initiated exchanges of fire with Israel in solidarity with its Iran-backed ally Hamas over the Gaza war.

However, most of the deaths in Lebanon have been since September this year.

Despite the trauma caused by Saturday's strike, Samir said he and his family had no choice but to return home.

"Where else would I go?" he asked.

"All my relatives and siblings have been displaced from Beirut's southern suburbs and from the south."