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Security Council Fails to Find Common Ground on Darfur

Members of the United Nations and African Union peacekeeping mission (UNAMID) ride in the back of a truck in Kalma camp for internally displaced people in Nyala, the capital of South Darfur, on December 31, 2020. (Photo by - / AFP)
Members of the United Nations and African Union peacekeeping mission (UNAMID) ride in the back of a truck in Kalma camp for internally displaced people in Nyala, the capital of South Darfur, on December 31, 2020. (Photo by - / AFP)
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Security Council Fails to Find Common Ground on Darfur

Members of the United Nations and African Union peacekeeping mission (UNAMID) ride in the back of a truck in Kalma camp for internally displaced people in Nyala, the capital of South Darfur, on December 31, 2020. (Photo by - / AFP)
Members of the United Nations and African Union peacekeeping mission (UNAMID) ride in the back of a truck in Kalma camp for internally displaced people in Nyala, the capital of South Darfur, on December 31, 2020. (Photo by - / AFP)

The UN Security Council held an emergency closed-door meeting Thursday on recent deadly clashes in the Darfur region of Sudan, without agreeing on a joint declaration or a possible change of stance, diplomats said.

The meeting had been requested by European members and the United States after inter-ethnic fighting earlier this week left more than 200 people dead.

European members, the US and Mexico proposed a declaration urging the Sudanese government to accelerate the implementation of its plan to protect the population. But they met with refusal from the Council's African members, as well as India, Russia and China, who called for respect for Sudan's sovereignty, diplomats told AFP.

During the meeting, a majority of council members condemned the violence, one diplomat said, but some stressed it is the government's responsibility to fill the hole caused on December 31 when the United Nations and African Union peacekeeping mission, UNAMID, ended its 13 years of operations in Darfur.

UNAMID plans a phased withdrawal of its 8,000 or so armed and civilian personnel within six months.

Though a precarious calm appears to have returned to Darfur following the deployment of Sudanese troops, fears of fresh violence persist in the region, which has been battered by years of conflict.

At the end of last year, the UN reported that Sudanese authorities had pledged to deploy 12,000 troops to Darfur to take over from UNAMID in January.

Even after the end of the peacekeeping mission, the UN plans to remain in Sudan through a political mission based in Khartoum to help support the country's political transition.

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Arab World

Syrians Celebrate a Month Since Assad’s Overthrow With Revolutionary Songs in Damascus

People stand before the New Clock Tower along Quwatli Street in the center of the city of Homs in west-central Syria on January 8, 2025. (Photo by OMAR HAJ KADOUR / AFP)
People stand before the New Clock Tower along Quwatli Street in the center of the city of Homs in west-central Syria on January 8, 2025. (Photo by OMAR HAJ KADOUR / AFP)
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Syrians Celebrate a Month Since Assad’s Overthrow With Revolutionary Songs in Damascus

People stand before the New Clock Tower along Quwatli Street in the center of the city of Homs in west-central Syria on January 8, 2025. (Photo by OMAR HAJ KADOUR / AFP)
People stand before the New Clock Tower along Quwatli Street in the center of the city of Homs in west-central Syria on January 8, 2025. (Photo by OMAR HAJ KADOUR / AFP)

A packed concert hall in Damascus came alive this week with cheers as Wasfi Maasarani, a renowned singer and symbol of the Syrian uprising, performed in celebration of “Syria’s victory."
The concert Wednesday marked Maasarani’s return to Syria after 13 years of exile. While living in Los Angeles, Maasarani had continued to support Syria’s uprising through his music, touring the US and Europe, The Associated Press said.
The concert organized by the Molham Volunteering Team, a humanitarian organization founded by Syrian students, also marked a month since a lightning insurgency toppled former President Bashar Assad.
Revolutionary songs like those by Maasarani and Abdelbasset Sarout — a Syrian singer and activist who died in 2019 — played a key role in rallying Syrians during the nearly 14-year uprising-turned civil war starting in 2011.
Many opponents of Assad's rule, like Maasarani, had fled the country and were unsure if they would ever be able to come back.
In the dimly lit concert hall, the crowd’s phone lights flickered like stars, swaying in unison with the music as the audience sang along, some wiping away tears. The crowd cheered and whistled and many waved the new Syrian flag, the revolutionary flag marked by three stars. A banner held up in the hall read, “It is Syria the Great, not Syria the Assad.”
One of Maasarani's best known songs is “Jabeenak ’Ali w Ma Bintal,” which he first sang in 2012, addressing the Free Syrian Army. It was a coalition of defected Syrian military personnel and civilian fighters formed in 2011 to oppose Assad during the civil war.
“You free soldier, the Syrian eminence appears in his eyes, he refused to fire at his people, he refused the shame of the traitor army, long live you free army, protect my people and the revolutionaries,” the lyrics read.
Another banner in the audience read, “It is the revolution of the people and the people never fail.”
Between performances, Raed Saleh, the head of the civil defense organization known as the White Helmets, addressed the crowd, saying, “With this victory, we should not forget the families who never found their children in the prisons and detention centers.”
Thousands were tortured or disappeared under Assad’s government. After the fall of Assad, the White Helmets helped in the search for the missing.
After the concert, Maasarani told The Associated Press, “It’s like a dream” to return to Syria and perform his revolutionary songs.
“We were always singing them outside of Syria, experiencing the happy and sad moments from afar,” he said, adding that his role was to capture the atrocities on the ground through song, ensuring “they would be remembered in history.” He reflected on his years in exile and recalled surviving two assassination attempts before leaving Syria.
“We have not seen this state without Assad since I was born,” said Alaa Maham, a concert attendee who recently returned from the United Arab Emirates. “I cannot describe my feelings, I hope our happiness lasts.”
The future of Syria is still unclear, as the former insurgent group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, now the de facto ruling party, begins to form a new government and rebuild the country's institutions.
Whatever comes next, Maham said, “We got rid of the oppression and corruption with the fall of Assad and his family’s rule."