Bashir, Salva Kiir End Juba-Khartoum Tension

Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir and South Sudan's President Salva Kiir in January 2014 (Reuters)
Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir and South Sudan's President Salva Kiir in January 2014 (Reuters)
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Bashir, Salva Kiir End Juba-Khartoum Tension

Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir and South Sudan's President Salva Kiir in January 2014 (Reuters)
Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir and South Sudan's President Salva Kiir in January 2014 (Reuters)

Sudan and South Sudan have agreed to resolve pending disputes and to implement existing agreements between the two countries, in an attempt to end tensions and establish comprehensive reconciliation.

President Salva Kiir Mayardit concluded on Thursday a two-day visit to Khartoum, where he held talks with his counterpart Omar al-Bashir on the outstanding issues between the two countries.

During a joint news conference, Bashir underlined the strong political will to promote cooperation between Khartoum and Juba, and to end the period of tensions that have inflicted heavy burdens on the population.

The Sudanese president described Salva Kiir’s visit as a real and new breakthrough for the relations between the two countries, saying in this regard: “We have agreed to sponsor the implementation of the existing arrangements and to overcome all obstacles through direct communication.”

For his part, Salva Kiir said his talks with Bashir have led to a road map for moving forward.

“We have started and will not retreat ... I ordered my team to implement what we signed immediately, especially the security files, and I am confident that we will achieve positive results,” he stated.

The two presidents concluded their talks by signing a joint statement, stressing the acceleration of joint cooperation agreements, the formation of a border commission, the convening of political consultation committees and the continuation of humanitarian aid to southern Sudan.

According to the statement, the two parties agreed to activate the joint political and security mechanism emanating from joint cooperation agreements, accelerate the establishment of a demilitarized zone, and play an active role in the African Union.

The joint statement, for the first time since the outbreak of oil disputes between the two countries, emphasized the approval of the Government of South Sudan to pay the debts of Sudan, resulting from arrears of fees for the use of Sudanese oil facilities to export oil from South Sudan.



Amnesty Accuses Israel of 'Live-streamed Genocide' against Gaza Palestinians

TOPSHOT - Palestinians inspect the damage after an Israeli strike on the Yafa school building, a school-turned-shelter, in Gaza City on April 23, 2025. (Photo by Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP)
TOPSHOT - Palestinians inspect the damage after an Israeli strike on the Yafa school building, a school-turned-shelter, in Gaza City on April 23, 2025. (Photo by Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP)
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Amnesty Accuses Israel of 'Live-streamed Genocide' against Gaza Palestinians

TOPSHOT - Palestinians inspect the damage after an Israeli strike on the Yafa school building, a school-turned-shelter, in Gaza City on April 23, 2025. (Photo by Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP)
TOPSHOT - Palestinians inspect the damage after an Israeli strike on the Yafa school building, a school-turned-shelter, in Gaza City on April 23, 2025. (Photo by Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP)

Amnesty International on Tuesday accused Israel of committing a "live-streamed genocide" against Palestinians in Gaza by forcibly displacing most of the population and deliberately creating a humanitarian catastrophe.

In its annual report, Amnesty charged that Israel had acted with "specific intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza, thus committing genocide".

Israel has rejected accusations of "genocide" from Amnesty, other rights groups and some states in its war in Gaza.

The conflict erupted after the Palestinian group Hamas's deadly October 7, 2023 attacks inside Israel that resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

Hamas also abducted 251 people, 58 of whom are still held in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.

Israel in response launched a relentless bombardment of the Gaza Strip and a ground operation that according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory has left at least 52,243 dead.

"Since 7 October 2023, when Hamas perpetrated horrific crimes against Israeli citizens and others and captured more than 250 hostages, the world has been made audience to a live-streamed genocide," Amnesty's secretary general Agnes Callamard said in the introduction to the report.

"States watched on as if powerless, as Israel killed thousands upon thousands of Palestinians, wiping out entire multigenerational families, destroying homes, livelihoods, hospitals and schools," she added.

'Extreme levels of suffering'

Gaza's civil defense agency said early Tuesday that four people were killed and others injured in an Israeli air strike on displaced persons' tents near the Al-Iqleem area in Southern Gaza.

The agency earlier warned fuel shortages meant it had been forced to suspend eight out of 12 emergency vehicles in Southern Gaza, including ambulances.

The lack of fuel "threatens the lives of hundreds of thousands of citizens and displaced persons in shelter centers," it said in a statement.

Amnesty's report said the Israeli campaign had left most of the Palestinians of Gaza "displaced, homeless, hungry, at risk of life-threatening diseases and unable to access medical care, power or clean water".

Amnesty said that throughout 2024 it had "documented multiple war crimes by Israel, including direct attacks on civilians and civilian objects, and indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks".

It said Israel's actions forcibly displaced 1.9 million Palestinians, around 90 percent of Gaza's population, and "deliberately engineered an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe".

Even as protesters hit the streets in Western capitals, "the world's governments individually and multilaterally failed repeatedly to take meaningful action to end the atrocities and were slow even in calling for a ceasefire".

Meanwhile, Amnesty also sounded alarm over Israeli actions in the occupied Palestinian territory of the West Bank, and repeated an accusation that Israel was employing a system of "apartheid".

"Israel's system of apartheid became increasingly violent in the occupied West Bank, marked by a sharp increase in unlawful killings and state-backed attacks by Israeli settlers on Palestinian civilians," it said.

Heba Morayef, Amnesty director for the Middle East and North Africa region, denounced "the extreme levels of suffering that Palestinians in Gaza have been forced to endure on a daily basis over the past year" as well as "the world's complete inability or lack of political will to put a stop to it".