Sudan Lab Seizure Poses Biohazard Risk during Lull in Battles

This picture shows destroyed vehicles in southern Khartoum on April 19, 2023 amid fighting between Sudan's regular army and paramilitaries following the collapse of a 24-hour truce. (AFP)
This picture shows destroyed vehicles in southern Khartoum on April 19, 2023 amid fighting between Sudan's regular army and paramilitaries following the collapse of a 24-hour truce. (AFP)
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Sudan Lab Seizure Poses Biohazard Risk during Lull in Battles

This picture shows destroyed vehicles in southern Khartoum on April 19, 2023 amid fighting between Sudan's regular army and paramilitaries following the collapse of a 24-hour truce. (AFP)
This picture shows destroyed vehicles in southern Khartoum on April 19, 2023 amid fighting between Sudan's regular army and paramilitaries following the collapse of a 24-hour truce. (AFP)

Fighting in Sudan eased on Tuesday and more foreigners and locals fled the capital Khartoum, where marauding combatants created what a UN agency said was a "high risk of biological hazard" by seizing a laboratory.

The World Health Organization (WHO) said one of the warring parties had taken control of a national health facility that stores measles and cholera pathogens for vaccinations, and ejected the technicians.

It gave few details and did not say which of the two sides - the army or the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) - had captured the lab, which also contains a major blood bank.

An exodus of embassies and aid workers from Africa's third largest country has raised fears that civilians who remain will be in greater danger if an alternative to hostilities is not found before a shaky three-day truce ends on Thursday.

The clashes have paralyzed hospitals and other essential services, and left many people stranded in their homes with dwindling supplies of food and water. The WHO has reported 14 attacks on health facilities and is relocating staff to safety.

Yassir Arman, a leading figure in a civilian political coalition, the Forces for Freedom and Change (FFC), urged humanitarian groups and the international community to help restore water and electricity, and send generators to hospitals.

"There are bodies scattered in streets and sick people who cannot find medicine, no water nor electricity. People should be allowed to bury their dead during the ceasefire," he said.

The UN humanitarian office (OCHA) said shortages of food, water, medicines and fuel were becoming "extremely acute", with prices for basic goods including bottled water rocketing, and it had been forced to cut back operations for safety reasons.

The UN refugee agency forecast that hundreds of thousands of people might flee into neighboring countries.

‘Why is the world abandoning us?’

As foreign governments evacuated their nationals, those with nowhere to go said they felt forsaken. They fear fewer international observers may mean worse bloodshed to come - and less respect for civilians.

"Why is the world abandoning us at a time of war?" said Sumaya Yassin, 27, accusing foreign powers of being selfish.

"Sudanese people are afraid that there might be unethical practices in the war against civilians and using civilians as human shields," said a Khartoum man who gave his name as Ahmed.

"These are our fears after the evacuation of expatriates," he said with a nod to Sudan's long history of bloody civil wars.

Since fighting erupted on April 15, tens of thousands have left for neighboring Chad, Egypt, Ethiopia and South Sudan, despite the uncertainty of conditions there.

With civilians leaving Khartoum in cars and buses, the streets of one of Africa's biggest metropolitan areas were largely emptied of ordinary daily life, with those still in the city huddling at home while fighters roamed outside.

"The situation has become very dangerous, including in areas not under bombardment," French journalist Augustine Passilly, who has worked in Sudan since 2020, said down a poor telephone line as she tried to cross the border into Egypt.

"There is nothing left in stores, no water, no food. People have started to go out armed, with axes, with sticks."

Hundreds dead

The fighting has turned residential areas into battlefields. Air strikes and artillery shells have killed at least 459 people, wounded over 4,000, destroyed hospitals and limited food distribution in a nation already reliant on aid for a third of its 46 million people.

In a country flanking the Red Sea, Horn of Africa and Sahel regions, the violence risks a "catastrophic conflagration", UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Monday.

Foreign countries have airlifted embassy staff out after several attacks on diplomats, including the killing of an Egyptian attaché shot on his way to work.

Britain launched a large-scale evacuation of its nationals on military flights from an airfield north of Khartoum. France and Germany said they had each evacuated more than 500 people of various nationalities, and that a French commando had been hit by crossfire during the operation.

Many Sudanese families used the relative lull as a chance to search for transport to get to places out of harm's way.

"Maybe the hardest moment is thinking about leaving the country," said Intisar Mohammed El Haj, a resident of Khartoum whose children had hidden under beds from the sound of explosions before the family fled to Egypt.

Another resident reported that a bus fare to Egypt had jumped six-fold, to $340.

Lab technicians out

Speaking to reporters in Geneva via video link from Sudan, the WHO's Nima Saeed Abid said gunmen had thrown technicians out of the National Public Health Laboratory.

"And there is high risk of biological hazards because in that lab we have already isolates, we have measles isolates as well as cholera isolates," he said.

The RSF accused the army of exploiting the truce deal - one of several that have quickly unraveled - by intensifying movements of fighters and supplies of ammunition for further attacks.

Pillaging of homes in abandoned neighborhoods was increasing and the RSF said it had ordered unit commanders to "put an end to recklessness and looting".

A Reuters witness heard sporadic gunfire on Tuesday morning in the city of Omdurman, adjacent to the capital. Explosions were also reported in Bahri, across the Nile.

The Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) said the US and Saudi Arabia had brokered the latest ceasefire.



Israeli Forces Storm Major West Bank City of Nablus

Tear gas and smoke are pictured through a window during a large-scale Israeli military raid in the old town of Nablus city in the occupied West Bank, on June 10, 2025. (AFP)
Tear gas and smoke are pictured through a window during a large-scale Israeli military raid in the old town of Nablus city in the occupied West Bank, on June 10, 2025. (AFP)
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Israeli Forces Storm Major West Bank City of Nablus

Tear gas and smoke are pictured through a window during a large-scale Israeli military raid in the old town of Nablus city in the occupied West Bank, on June 10, 2025. (AFP)
Tear gas and smoke are pictured through a window during a large-scale Israeli military raid in the old town of Nablus city in the occupied West Bank, on June 10, 2025. (AFP)

Israel launched a large-scale military operation on Tuesday in the old city of Nablus in the occupied West Bank, AFP journalists reported, with the army reporting injured troops and two Palestinians "eliminated".

Dozens of military vehicles entered the city shortly after midnight, an AFP journalist reported, after a curfew had been announced over loudspeakers the day before.

Military operations are focused on the old city, a densely populated area bordering a large downtown square where young men and boys gathered to burn tires and throw stones at armored vehicles.

The Israeli army said that one soldier was "moderately injured" and three others "lightly injured" when two Palestinians attempted to steal a soldier's weapon.

Troops opened fire and "eliminated" both Palestinians, the army said in a statement, using a term the military often uses when killing gunmen.

AFPTV footage showed Israeli soldiers standing in one of the old city's narrow streets, next to the bodies of two civilians.

Neither Palestinian medics nor the Israeli army confirmed the two deaths.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said on Tuesday that three people were injured from bullet shrapnel, four from "physical assaults", and dozens more from tear gas inhalation.

It added that many injuries had to be handled within the old city after its ambulances were blocked from entering.

Nablus is located in the northern West Bank, a Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967.

The territory's north has been the target of a major Israeli military operation dubbed "Iron Wall" since January 21.

On Tuesday, Israeli soldiers entered shops to search them and arrested several people for questioning, according to an AFP correspondent at the scene.

The correspondent added that Israeli flags were raised over the roofs of buildings in the Old City that had been turned into temporary bases for Israeli troops.

Violence has surged in the West Bank since the start of the Gaza war, triggered by the unprecedented October 7, 2023 attack by the Palestinian movement Hamas on Israel.

At least 938 Palestinians, including fighters but also many civilians, have been killed in the West Bank by Israeli soldiers or settlers, according to data from the Palestinian Authority.

During the same period, least 35 Israelis, both civilians and soldiers, have been killed in Palestinian attacks or during Israeli military raids, according to official Israeli figures.