Sudan’s Army Agrees to Three-Day Truce to Mark Eid

In this photo provided by Maheen S , smoke fills the sky in Khartoum, Sudan, near Doha International Hospital on Friday, April 21, 2023. (Maheen S via AP)
In this photo provided by Maheen S , smoke fills the sky in Khartoum, Sudan, near Doha International Hospital on Friday, April 21, 2023. (Maheen S via AP)
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Sudan’s Army Agrees to Three-Day Truce to Mark Eid

In this photo provided by Maheen S , smoke fills the sky in Khartoum, Sudan, near Doha International Hospital on Friday, April 21, 2023. (Maheen S via AP)
In this photo provided by Maheen S , smoke fills the sky in Khartoum, Sudan, near Doha International Hospital on Friday, April 21, 2023. (Maheen S via AP)

Sudan's army said it had agreed to a three-day truce starting on Friday to enable people to celebrate the Muslim holiday of Eid Al-Fitr following almost a week of fighting between its troops and a rival paramilitary force.

"The armed forces hope that the rebels will abide by all the requirements of the truce and stop any military moves that would obstruct it," an army statement said.

Sudan's paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) had agreed to the 72-hour truce earlier in the day.

Gunfire tore through residential neighborhoods of the capital Khartoum after the army deployed on foot for the first time in its almost week-long fight with the RSF.

Soldiers and gunmen from the RSF shot at each other in neighborhoods across the city, including during the call for special early morning Eid prayers.

It was not immediately clear when the truce would begin. Gunfire crackled without pause all day, punctuated by the thud of artillery and air strikes. Drone footage showed several plumes of smoke across Khartoum and its Nile sister cities, together one of Africa's biggest urban areas.

The fighting has killed hundreds, mainly in the capital and the west of Sudan, tipping the continent's third-largest country - where about a quarter of people already relied on food aid - into a humanitarian disaster.

With the airport caught in the fighting and the skies unsafe, nations including the United States, Japan, South Korea, Germany and Spain have been unable to evacuate embassy staff.

In Washington, the US State Department said without elaborating that one US citizen in Sudan had been killed. The White House said no decision yet had been made to evacuate American diplomatic personnel but the US was preparing for such an eventuality if it becomes necessary.

Reuters reported on Thursday that the United States was sending a large number of additional troops to its base in Djibouti in case of an eventual evacuation from Sudan.

At least five aid workers have been killed, including three from the World Food Program, which has since suspended its Sudan operation - one of the world's largest food aid missions.

A worker at the International Organization for Migration was killed in the city of El Obeid on Friday, after his vehicle was hit by crossfire as he tried to move his family to safety.

The army has pressed forward, fighting the RSF on the ground after having previously stuck largely to air strikes and artillery shelling across the capital since the power struggle erupted last weekend.

In a statement, the army said it had begun "the gradual cleaning of hotbeds of rebel groups around the capital".



Syrian Authorities Announce Closure of Notorious Desert Camp

 A boy carries bricks as he helps to restore a home in al-Qaryatayn, eastern part of Syria's Homs province, Tuesday, June 3, 2025. (AP)
A boy carries bricks as he helps to restore a home in al-Qaryatayn, eastern part of Syria's Homs province, Tuesday, June 3, 2025. (AP)
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Syrian Authorities Announce Closure of Notorious Desert Camp

 A boy carries bricks as he helps to restore a home in al-Qaryatayn, eastern part of Syria's Homs province, Tuesday, June 3, 2025. (AP)
A boy carries bricks as he helps to restore a home in al-Qaryatayn, eastern part of Syria's Homs province, Tuesday, June 3, 2025. (AP)

A notorious desert refugee camp in Syria has closed after the last remaining families returned to their areas of origin, Syrian authorities said on Saturday.

The Rukban camp in Syria's desert was established in 2014, at the height of Syria's civil war, in a de-confliction zone controlled by the US-led coalition fighting the ISIS group, near the borders with Jordan and Iraq.

Desperate people fleeing ISIS extremists and former government bombardment sought refuge there, hoping to cross into Jordan.

Former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government rarely allowed aid to enter the camp and neighboring countries closed their borders to the area, isolating Rukban for years.

After an opposition offensive toppled Assad in December, families started leaving the camp to return home.

The Syrian Emergency Task Force, a US-based organization, said on Friday that the camp was "officially closed and empty, all families and residents have returned to their homes".

Syrian Information Minister Hamza al-Mustafa said on X on Saturday that "with the dismantlement of the Rukban camp and the return of the displaced, a tragic and sorrowful chapter of displacement stories created by the bygone regime's war machine comes to a close".

"Rukban was not just a camp, it was the triangle of death that bore witness to the cruelty of siege and starvation, where the regime left people to face their painful fate in the barren desert," he added.

At its peak, the camp housed more than 100,000 people. Around 8,000 people still lived there before Assad's fall, residing in mud-brick houses, with food and basic supplies smuggled in at high prices.

Syrian minister for emergency situations and disasters Raed al-Saleh said on X said the camp's closure represents "the end of one of the harshest humanitarian tragedies faced by our displaced people".

"We hope this step marks the beginning of a path that ends the suffering of the remaining camps and returns their residents to their homes with dignity and safety," he added.

According to the International Organization for Migration, 1.87 million Syrians have returned to their places of origin since Assad's fall, after they were displaced within the country or abroad.

The IOM says the "lack of economic opportunities and essential services pose the greatest challenge" for those returning home.