Sudan Asks UN to Deploy Peacekeeping Mission

 Sudanese PM Abdalla Hamdouk met Sunday with UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres (Sudan news agency SUNA)
Sudanese PM Abdalla Hamdouk met Sunday with UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres (Sudan news agency SUNA)
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Sudan Asks UN to Deploy Peacekeeping Mission

 Sudanese PM Abdalla Hamdouk met Sunday with UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres (Sudan news agency SUNA)
Sudanese PM Abdalla Hamdouk met Sunday with UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres (Sudan news agency SUNA)

The Sudanese government asked the United Nations to deploy a peacekeeping mission in the country as soon as possible under Chapter 6 of the UN charter, covering the entire territory of Sudan.

In a statement issued by the Prime Minister’s Press Secretary, the request comes in the backdrop of discussions in the United Nations this month on the post-UNAMID arrangements in Sudan.

The request, which was presented by Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on January 22, includes supporting the implementation of the Constitutional Declaration, supporting peace efforts in Juba, mobilization of international economic assistance for Sudan, coordination of humanitarian assistance, and offering technical support to the constitutional making.

The request explains that the transition model in Sudan bears all elements of success and that the international community, including the United Nations, should now come to help with urgent issues raised and to lay the foundation for Sudan's path towards peace and prosperity.

It also indicated that the UN country team should shift its approach from project-based and short-term assistance to long-term development programming that would help Sudan achieve sustainable development goals by 2030.

On the sidelines of his participation in the 33rd African Summit in Addis Ababa on Sunday, Hamdok met with Guterres and discussed the developments in Sudan and South Sudan and the challenges facing the Inter-Governmental Agency for Development.

The UN Chief affirmed the UN support to the transitional period and the Prime Minister, pointing to the international organization’s readiness to provide all the possible assistance to overcome the difficult stage in Sudan.

“The UN Secretary-General is well aware of the difficulties and complications facing the transitional period,” said a press release issued by the PM office.

Guterres renewed his stance to support the removal of Sudan’s name from the list of the countries-sponsoring terrorism, indicating that he will discuss the issue with the US concerned officials.

For his part, Hamdok briefed the UN official on the current developments in Sudan and the difficulties facing the transitional government, in addition to the ongoing efforts for making peace in South Sudan State.

Separately, the German government said that Chancellor Angela Merkel would receive the Sudanese PM in Berlin next Friday, indicating that the meeting will discuss the economic and political situation in the country.



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".