RSF Leader: Armed Groups Responsible for Escalation in Sudan's El Fasher

Commander of Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) Mohammed Hamdan Daglo in southern Darfur. (AFP file photo)
Commander of Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) Mohammed Hamdan Daglo in southern Darfur. (AFP file photo)
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RSF Leader: Armed Groups Responsible for Escalation in Sudan's El Fasher

Commander of Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) Mohammed Hamdan Daglo in southern Darfur. (AFP file photo)
Commander of Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) Mohammed Hamdan Daglo in southern Darfur. (AFP file photo)

Commander of Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) Mohammed Hamdan Daglo, also known as Hemedti, slammed on Sunday the “popular resistance,” saying they were a cover for the brigades of the ousted regime and whose members were from the army and other security forces.

In a voice recording on Eid al-Adha, he congratulated the Sudanese people on the occasion, saying their country was “going through extraordinary circumstances because of the war that was sparked by the Islamist movement with the help of the army command.”

This was Daglo’s first address to the public in two months.

“We are pained by the conditions our citizens are going through and we are working on easing their suffering to achieve peace and stability and ensure the delivery of humanitarian aid,” he went on to say.

On the situation in El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state, Daglo blamed the escalation there on armed factions “that have abandoned neutrality and chosen to side with their slaughterer.”

“They attacked our forces, so we had no choice but to defend ourselves,” he stressed.

He said the development in Wad al-Noura in al-Jazirah state was a military battle between the RSF, army, Islamist movement brigades and the security agency. He declared that the RSF succeeded in deciding the battle in its favor.

Clashes in the rural town have left over 100 people dead and injured.

Daglo stressed the importance of opening humanitarian corridors to deliver aid to the people. “We reject the practices committed by the gang in Port Sudan,” he added, in reference to the army.

He blamed the military for impeding the delivery of aid throughout Sudan, accusing it of war crimes.



UNRWA: Huge Mounds of Rotting Trash Pile up around Gaza Camps

12 May 2024, Palestinian Territories, Deir al-Balah: Tents for displaced people are crowded west of Deir al-Balah city in the central Gaza Strip after thousands of Palestinians fled Rafah after the Israeli army announced the start of a military operation there. Photo: Saher Alghorra/ZUMA Press Wire/dpa
12 May 2024, Palestinian Territories, Deir al-Balah: Tents for displaced people are crowded west of Deir al-Balah city in the central Gaza Strip after thousands of Palestinians fled Rafah after the Israeli army announced the start of a military operation there. Photo: Saher Alghorra/ZUMA Press Wire/dpa
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UNRWA: Huge Mounds of Rotting Trash Pile up around Gaza Camps

12 May 2024, Palestinian Territories, Deir al-Balah: Tents for displaced people are crowded west of Deir al-Balah city in the central Gaza Strip after thousands of Palestinians fled Rafah after the Israeli army announced the start of a military operation there. Photo: Saher Alghorra/ZUMA Press Wire/dpa
12 May 2024, Palestinian Territories, Deir al-Balah: Tents for displaced people are crowded west of Deir al-Balah city in the central Gaza Strip after thousands of Palestinians fled Rafah after the Israeli army announced the start of a military operation there. Photo: Saher Alghorra/ZUMA Press Wire/dpa

Mounds of trash rotting in the heat are piling up close to where displaced people are sheltering in Gaza, a UN official said on Friday, raising fears about the further spread of disease.

Hundreds of thousands of Gazans who had fled to southern Gaza earlier in the more than 8-month conflict have been uprooted again since Israel expanded its military operations against Hamas to the southern city of Rafah in early May.

Louise Wateridge, an aid worker with United Nations Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA), said that a pile of waste weighing an estimated 100,000 tonnes was building up near people's tents in central Gaza, Reuters reported.

"It's among the population and it's building up without anywhere to go. It just keeps getting worse. And with the temperatures rising, it's really adding misery to the living conditions here," she told journalists via video link from Gaza.

Israel has refused repeated requests to allow UNRWA to empty the main landfill sites, she said, meaning temporary ones are emerging, she added. Even if permission is granted, Wateridge said UNRWA's humanitarian missions such as trash collection have all but halted due to Israeli refusals to allow fuel imports.

Israel's COGAT, a branch of the military tasked with coordinating aid deliveries into Palestinian territories, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Israel, which launched its Gaza military operation after deadly Hamas attacks on southern Israel on Oct. 7, says it has expanded efforts to facilitate aid flows into Gaza and blames aid agencies for distribution problems inside the enclave. It controls fuel shipments into Gaza and has long maintained that there is a risk they are diverted to Hamas.

The World Health Organization's Tarik Jašarević said the trash, along with the rising heat, a lack of clean drinking water and sanitation services, was adding to disease risks.

"It can lead to a number of communicable diseases appearing," he said, mentioning that around 470,000 cases of diarrhea have been reported since the start of the war.

Wateridge, who arrived back in Gaza on Thursday after a four-week absence, said the situation had deteriorated significantly. She described the living conditions as "unbearable" with people sweltering under plastic sheets and cowering in bombed out buildings.