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.



Israel Demolishes Seven Palestinian Homes in East Jerusalem

A picture shows a view of the Al-Aqsa Mosque complex (top L) across from the Arab town of Silwan on the hill with its al-Bustan neighborhood (C) in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem on November 5, 2024. (AFP)
A picture shows a view of the Al-Aqsa Mosque complex (top L) across from the Arab town of Silwan on the hill with its al-Bustan neighborhood (C) in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem on November 5, 2024. (AFP)
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Israel Demolishes Seven Palestinian Homes in East Jerusalem

A picture shows a view of the Al-Aqsa Mosque complex (top L) across from the Arab town of Silwan on the hill with its al-Bustan neighborhood (C) in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem on November 5, 2024. (AFP)
A picture shows a view of the Al-Aqsa Mosque complex (top L) across from the Arab town of Silwan on the hill with its al-Bustan neighborhood (C) in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem on November 5, 2024. (AFP)

Municipal workers began demolishing seven homes in occupied east Jerusalem's Silwan neighborhood on Tuesday, Palestinian residents and the municipality said, after an Israeli court called their construction illegal.

"This morning the Jerusalem Municipality, with a security escort from the Israel police, began its enforcement against illegal buildings in the Al-Bustan neighborhood in Silwan," Jerusalem's Israeli-controlled city hall said in a statement.

Activist Fakhri Abu Diab, one of those affected by the demolition, confirmed that "at least seven homes have been demolished, and the operation is ongoing".

He said that both houses and apartments were affected.

"They demolished my home, which I had renovated after it was previously demolished earlier this year, as well as my son's house, Haitham Ayed's family home, and four homes belonging to the Al-Ruwaidi family," Abu Diab told AFP.

He said around "40 people, including children, were affected by the demolitions in the neighborhood, leaving them homeless".

An AFP photographer saw at least four bulldozers operating on Tuesday at demolition sites in the neighborhood under tight Israeli police supervision.

In a statement, Jerusalem city hall pointed to court orders that call for the demolition of the buildings due to zoning laws that make them illegal.

However, Palestinian residents and activists accuse the municipality of concealing its true intentions.

"The buildings, like most of the buildings in the neighborhood, are located on an area that is a green designation, that is, an open public area and where there is no possibility for zoning," the municipality said, adding that the area would become a green zone instead.

Abu Diab said the true aim of the demolitions was "to reduce the percentage of Arabs and alter the demographic composition of Jerusalem in favor of (Israeli) settlers", connecting them to west Jerusalem.

Israel "is above international law, has escaped accountability, and is exploiting global focus on the wars in Gaza and Lebanon and the US elections", he said.

Israel occupied east Jerusalem in 1967 and later annexed it in a move not recognized by the international community.

Some 230,000 Israeli settlers live in east Jerusalem, according to the United Nations. Another 3,000 live in Palestinian neighborhoods within east Jerusalem's boundaries, according to Israeli rights organization Peace Now.