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US Official Discusses Dialogue Arrangements with Sudan Army Leaders

US Assistant Secretary of State for Africa Molly Phee and Saudi Ambassador to Khartoum Ali bin Hassan Jaafar meeting with the Sovereign Council military committee headed by Lt Gen Mohamed Hamdan Hemetti to discuss the dialogue process (SUNA)
US Assistant Secretary of State for Africa Molly Phee and Saudi Ambassador to Khartoum Ali bin Hassan Jaafar meeting with the Sovereign Council military committee headed by Lt Gen Mohamed Hamdan Hemetti to discuss the dialogue process (SUNA)
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US Official Discusses Dialogue Arrangements with Sudan Army Leaders

US Assistant Secretary of State for Africa Molly Phee and Saudi Ambassador to Khartoum Ali bin Hassan Jaafar meeting with the Sovereign Council military committee headed by Lt Gen Mohamed Hamdan Hemetti to discuss the dialogue process (SUNA)
US Assistant Secretary of State for Africa Molly Phee and Saudi Ambassador to Khartoum Ali bin Hassan Jaafar meeting with the Sovereign Council military committee headed by Lt Gen Mohamed Hamdan Hemetti to discuss the dialogue process (SUNA)

US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Molly Phee has discussed with Sudanese army leaders the final arrangements for launching direct talks among different parties in Sudan.

Negotiations seeking to solve the worsening political crisis in Sudan are being sponsored by a trilateral mechanism that includes the United Nations, the African Union, and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD).

“Phee and her accompanying delegation met on Tuesday the military committee headed by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (Hemedti) and two council members, Shams El-Din Kabbashi and Ibrahim Jaber Ibrahim,” read a statement released by the Transitional Military Council’s (TMC) media.

According to the statement, the officials met at the Republican Palace in Khartoum. Moreover, the Saudi Ambassador to Sudan, Ali bin Hassan Jaafar, was present at the meeting.

Sudan’s military leaders affirmed their full support for the efforts of the trilateral mechanism facilitating dialogue between the Sudanese parties and for its success.

The Director of the North American Department of the Sudanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Kamal Bashir, said in statements that the meeting affirmed support for the trilateral mechanism in enhancing rapprochement between the Sudanese parties for the success of the transitional period and reaching a consensus leading to the formation of a civilian government.

Additionally, the meeting addressed the details related to the launch of direct dialogue between the Sudanese national parties.

The talks were launched indirectly on May 12 to discuss ways of defusing the crisis that the country has been witnessing since October last year, which triggered the dissolution of the government and imposition of a state of emergency.

Phee posted a tweet saying she and the Saudi Ambassador held a meeting “with the military’s negotiating mechanism to urge real progress towards a civilian-led government and support for the AU-UN-IGAD process.”

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Displaced Syrians Who Have Returned Home Face a Fragile Future, Says UN Refugees Chief

A handout picture released by the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) shows Syria's interim Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani (R) meeting with United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi in the Syrian capital Damascus on June 20, 2025. (SANA / AFP)
A handout picture released by the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) shows Syria's interim Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani (R) meeting with United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi in the Syrian capital Damascus on June 20, 2025. (SANA / AFP)
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Displaced Syrians Who Have Returned Home Face a Fragile Future, Says UN Refugees Chief

A handout picture released by the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) shows Syria's interim Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani (R) meeting with United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi in the Syrian capital Damascus on June 20, 2025. (SANA / AFP)
A handout picture released by the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) shows Syria's interim Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani (R) meeting with United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi in the Syrian capital Damascus on June 20, 2025. (SANA / AFP)

UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said Friday that more than two million Syrian refugees and internally displaced people have returned home since the fall of the government of Bashar al-Assad in December.

Speaking during a visit to Damascus that coincided with World Refugee Day, Grandi described the situation in Syria as “fragile and hopeful” and warned that the returnees may not remain if Syria does not get more international assistance to rebuild its war-battered infrastructure.

“How can we make sure that the return of the Syrian displaced or refugees is sustainable, that people don’t move again because they don’t have a house or they don’t have a job or they don’t have electricity?” Grandi asked a small group of journalists after the visit, during which he met with Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani and spoke with returning refugees.

“What is needed for people to return, electricity but also schools, also health centers, also safety and security,” he said.

Syria’s near 14-year civil war, which ended last December with the ouster of Assad in a lightning opposition offensive, killed nearly half a million people and displaced half the country’s pre-war population of 23 million.

Grandi said that 600,000 Syrians have returned to the country since Assad’s fall, and about another 1.5 million internally displaced people returned to their homes in the same period.

However, there is little aid available for the returnees, with multiple crises in the region -- including the new Israel-Iran war -- and shrinking support from donors. The UNHCR has reduced programs for Syrian refugees in neighboring countries, including healthcare, education and cash support for hundreds of thousands in Lebanon.

“The United States suspended all foreign assistance, and we were very much impacted, like others, and also other donors in Europe are reducing foreign assistance,” Grandi said, adding: “I tell the Europeans in particular, be careful. Remember 2015, 2016 when they cut food assistance to the Syrian refugees in Lebanon and Jordan, the Syrians moved toward Europe.”

Some have also fled for security reasons since Assad's fall. While the situation has stabilized since then, particularly in Damascus, the new government has struggled to extend its control over all areas of the country and to bring a patchwork of former opposition groups together into a national army.

Grandi said the UNHCR has been in talks with the Lebanese government, which halted official registration of new refugees in 2015, to register the new refugees and “provide them with basic assistance.”

“This is a complex community, of course, for whom the chances of return are not so strong right now,” he said. He said he had urged the Syrian authorities to make sure that measures taken in response to the attacks on civilians “are very strong and to prevent further episodes of violence.”

The Israel-Iran war has thrown further fuel on the flames in a region already dealing with multiple crises. Grandi noted that Iran is hosting millions of refugees from Afghanistan who may now be displaced again.

The UN does not yet have a sense of how many people have fled the conflict between Iran and Israel, he said.

“We know that some Iranians have gone to neighboring countries, like Azerbaijan or Armenia, but we have very little information. No country has asked for help yet,” he said. “And we have very little sense of the internal displacement, because my colleagues who are in Iran - they’re working out of bunkers because of the bombs.”