Geagea: Saudi Arabia Has Not Turned its Back on Lebanon

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea. (NNA)
Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea. (NNA)
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Geagea: Saudi Arabia Has Not Turned its Back on Lebanon

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea. (NNA)
Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea. (NNA)

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea stressed on Monday that the Saudi leadership will not spare an effort to help Lebanon and the Lebanese despite the baseless accusations and slander that have been directed towards the Kingdom by some misguided Lebanese sides.

During a consultative business meeting in Maarab attended by Saudi Ambassador to Lebanon Walid al-Bukhari and several LF MPs, Geagea said he was hoping that the “spirit of fraternity would prevail with Saudi Arabia standing by Lebanon and its people.”

He stressed his support for the best of relations between Lebanon and the Saudi leadership and people.

Moreover, he remarked that Lebanon had entered a “dark era in recent years after some sides sought to drag it away from its Arab fold and natural surroundings.”

“Saudi Arabia consequently, took a noticeable step back, not to turn its back on the Lebanese people, as some sides are led to believe, but in order to garner support and prepare to stand by Lebanon again as it has always done,” he explained.

It is no secret to the Saudi leadership that Lebanon has been “cursed” in the past 15 years with groups from within it that are following agendas that completely go against the country’s interest and do not take its national interest into account, including good foreign relations, he went on to say.

Geagea said he was committed “to the death” to Lebanon’s independence, rejecting any form of occupation or hegemony of any foreign power.

Moreover, he reiterated recent statements by Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rai in which he said that Saudi Arabia had never violated Lebanon’s sovereignty or independence and never dragged it into wars, obstructed its democracy or disregarded its state.

Lebanon will not allow sides with “evil intentions to succeed in separating it from its Arab fold,” he vowed.



Activists Say 50 Killed in Sudan RSF Attack

People from Khartoum and al-Jazira states, displaced by the war between Sudan's army and paramilitaries, wait to receive aid from a charity organization in Gedaref, eastern Sudan, on December 30, 2023 - AFP
People from Khartoum and al-Jazira states, displaced by the war between Sudan's army and paramilitaries, wait to receive aid from a charity organization in Gedaref, eastern Sudan, on December 30, 2023 - AFP
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Activists Say 50 Killed in Sudan RSF Attack

People from Khartoum and al-Jazira states, displaced by the war between Sudan's army and paramilitaries, wait to receive aid from a charity organization in Gedaref, eastern Sudan, on December 30, 2023 - AFP
People from Khartoum and al-Jazira states, displaced by the war between Sudan's army and paramilitaries, wait to receive aid from a charity organization in Gedaref, eastern Sudan, on December 30, 2023 - AFP

At least 50 people have been killed in a single attack by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) who have besieged and raided villages in al-Jazira state, activists said.

RDF have been at war with Sudan's regular army since April 2023 but have in recent days intensified their violence against civilians in al-Jazira, south of the capital Khartoum, after their commander in the state defected to the army.

"The villages of al-Sariha and Azraq have been under attack" since Friday morning, the resistance committee in Hasaheisa, one of hundreds of volunteer groups coordinating aid in Sudan, said in a statement to AFP late on Friday.

In al-Sariha alone, the attack killed 50 and wounded more than 200, the resistance committee added, reporting a total "inability to evacuate the wounded from the village due to the shelling and snipers" from the RSF.

With a near-total communications blackout, tolls are impossible to verify and often hard to gather.

The resistance committee said that the nearby village of Azraq had been placed under a "total siege, suffering the same violations as al-Sariha", although it was not possible to provide a death toll.

On Friday, the Sudanese doctors' union called on the United Nations to press for safe humanitarian corridors into villages that "are facing genocide at the hands of the Rapid Support militia".

The doctors' union added that rescue operations had become impossible and that "the army is incapable of protecting civilians".

According to medical sources in several villages, nearly all health facilities capable of receiving emergency cases have been forced shut.

The war in Sudan has killed tens of thousands of people, with some estimates of 150,000 dead.

It has also caused what the UN calls the world's largest displacement crisis, with more than seven million uprooted.

In June, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the United States ambassador to the UN, said Sudan is the planet's "largest humanitarian crisis".

Famine was declared in July in the Zamzam camp for displaced people near the town of El-Fasher, in Sudan's western Darfur region bordering Chad.

- Regional impact -

Last Sunday the army announced that the RSF's al-Jazira commander Abu Aqla Kaykal had abandoned the RDF, bringing "a large number of his forces" with him, in what it said was the first high-profile defection to its side.

Activists reported at least 20 people killed in subsequent RSF attacks in eastern al-Jazira. They also said an air strike by the Sudanese Armed forces on a mosque in the state capital, Wad Madani, killed 31 people.

On Thursday, neighbouring Chad denied helping to arm the RSF after the governor of Sudan's Darfur region, Minni Minnawi, accused them of doing so.

"Chad has no interest in amplifying the war in Sudan," said Chadian Foreign Minister Abderaman Koulamallah, pointing out that Chad was "one of the rare countries upon which this war has had major repercussions".