Officials: Civilians Among 10 Dead In Iraq Attack Blamed on ISIS

Military vehicles of the Counter Terrorism Service (CTS) are seen during the fight with ISIS fighters in Tal Afar, Iraq, August 25, 2017.Reuters
Military vehicles of the Counter Terrorism Service (CTS) are seen during the fight with ISIS fighters in Tal Afar, Iraq, August 25, 2017.Reuters
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Officials: Civilians Among 10 Dead In Iraq Attack Blamed on ISIS

Military vehicles of the Counter Terrorism Service (CTS) are seen during the fight with ISIS fighters in Tal Afar, Iraq, August 25, 2017.Reuters
Military vehicles of the Counter Terrorism Service (CTS) are seen during the fight with ISIS fighters in Tal Afar, Iraq, August 25, 2017.Reuters

At least three civilians and seven Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga fighters have been killed in northern Iraq in an attack blamed on ISIS, the forces said Friday.

The militants attacked the village of Khidir Jija, south of Erbil, late Thursday, killing three civilians, a statement said.

The peshmerga, Kurdistan's armed forces, launched an operation in response, and seven fighters died when "an explosive device planted by ISIS elements" blew up.

The three civilians, siblings aged 11-24, were children of a village official, a relative told AFP.

ISIS seized swathes of Iraq in a lightning offensive in 2014, before being beaten back by a counter-insurgency campaign supported by a US-led military coalition.

The Iraqi government declared the ISIS group defeated in late 2017, but the militants retain sleeper cells which continue to strike security forces with hit-and-run attacks.

Late last month, five Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga fighters were killed and four wounded in a roadside bombing claimed by ISIS.

That bombing, south of the city of Sulaimaniyah, underlined the "serious threat" ISIS still poses to the Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region, the region's prime minister Masrour Barzani said at the time.



Tens of Thousands Go Hungry in Sudan after Trump Aid Freeze

(FILES) A woman collects food at a location set up by a local humanitarian organisation to donate meals and medication to people displaced by the war in Sudan, in Meroe in the country's Northern State, on January 9, 2025. (Photo by AFP)
(FILES) A woman collects food at a location set up by a local humanitarian organisation to donate meals and medication to people displaced by the war in Sudan, in Meroe in the country's Northern State, on January 9, 2025. (Photo by AFP)
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Tens of Thousands Go Hungry in Sudan after Trump Aid Freeze

(FILES) A woman collects food at a location set up by a local humanitarian organisation to donate meals and medication to people displaced by the war in Sudan, in Meroe in the country's Northern State, on January 9, 2025. (Photo by AFP)
(FILES) A woman collects food at a location set up by a local humanitarian organisation to donate meals and medication to people displaced by the war in Sudan, in Meroe in the country's Northern State, on January 9, 2025. (Photo by AFP)

For the first time in nearly two years of war, soup kitchens in famine-stricken Sudan are being forced to turn people away, with US President Donald Trump's aid freeze gutting the life-saving schemes.

"People will die because of these decisions," said a Sudanese fundraising volunteer, who has been scrambling to find money to feed tens of thousands of people in the capital Khartoum.

"We have 40 kitchens across the country feeding between 30,000 to 35,000 people every day," another Sudanese volunteer told AFP, saying all of them had closed after Trump announced the freezing of foreign assistance and the dismantling of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

"Women and children are being turned away and we can't promise them when we can feed them again," she said, requesting anonymity for fear that speaking publicly could jeopardize her work.

In much of Sudan, community-run soup kitchens are the only thing preventing mass starvation and many of them rely on US funding.

"The impact of the decision to withdraw funding in this abrupt manner has life-ending consequences," Javid Abdelmoneim, medical team leader at Doctors Without Borders (MSF) in Khartoum's twin city of Omdurman, told AFP.

"This is yet another disaster for people in Sudan, already suffering the consequences of violence, hunger, a collapse of the healthcare system and a woeful international humanitarian response," he added.

Shortly after his inauguration last month, Trump froze US foreign aid and announced the dismantling of USAID.

His administration then issued waivers for "life-saving humanitarian assistance", but there have so far been no signs of this taking effect in Sudan and aid workers said their efforts were already crippled.

In what the United Nations has decried as a global "state of confusion", agencies on the ground in Sudan have been forced to halt essential food, shelter and health operations.

"All official communications have gone dark," another Sudanese aid coordinator told AFP, after USAID workers were put on leave this week.

The kitchens that have survived "are stretching resources and sharing as much as they can", he said.

"But there's just not enough to go around."

As one of the few independent organizations still standing in Sudan, MSF said it had been fielding requests from local responders to quickly step in.

However, "MSF can't fill the gap left by the US funding withdrawal," Abdelmoneim said.

The United States was the largest single donor to Sudan last year, contributing $800 million or around 46 percent of funds to the UN's response plan.

The UN estimates it currently has less than 6 percent of the humanitarian funding needed for Sudan in 2025.

Over 8 million people are on the brink of famine in Sudan, according to the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification.

Famine is expected to spread to at least five more areas of Sudan by May, before the upcoming rainy season is likely to make access to food all the more difficult across the country.