Headline

Airstrikes Rock Sudan As Truce Talks Yield No Breakthrough

Published

2 years ago

May 8, 2023

Air strikes again shook Sudan’s capital Monday while the latest truce talks in Jeddah have yielded no progress, with a Saudi diplomat saying both sides consider themselves “capable of winning the battle”.

Sudan was thrown into deadly chaos when fighting broke out on April 15 between the forces of army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his deputy turned rival Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, who heads the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

The battles have since killed hundreds, wounded thousands and left millions barricaded inside their homes amid dire shortages of water, food and basic supplies.

The feuding generals have sent representatives to Saudi Arabia for talks on establishing a humanitarian truce in an effort also backed by the United States, but to no avail so far.

By Monday, the talks had yielded “no major progress”, a Saudi diplomat told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.

READ ALS: Sudan Crisis: Conflicting Sides Set For face-to-face Saudi Arabia Talks

“A permanent ceasefire isn’t on the table… Every side believes it is capable of winning the battle,” the diplomat added.

In Khartoum, a city of five million, terrified residents reported more combat, now in its fourth week, as they hid out in their homes amid power outages and sweltering heat.

A southern Khartoum resident told AFP the family could hear “the sound of airstrikes which appeared to come from near a market in central Khartoum”.

‘Dangerous everywhere’

The fighting has sparked a mass exodus of foreigners and of Sudanese, in both air and sea evacuations and arduous overland journeys to Egypt, Chad, South Sudan and other neighbouring countries.

“It’s very dangerous everywhere,” said Rawaa Hamad, who escaped from Port Sudan on an evacuation flight to Qatar on Monday carrying 71 people.

In Sudan, she said, there is “no safety now, unfortunately”, with its people enduring “a lack of everything — a lack of water, lack of fuel, lack of medicine, lack of even hospitals and doctors”.

The battles have killed more than 750 people and injured over 5,000, according to a count by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project.

The United Nations has warned of a widening humanitarian crisis after fighting has already displaced 335,000 people and created 117,000 refugees.

More than 60,000 Sudanese have fled north into Egypt, 30,000 west to Chad, and over 27,000 to South Sudan, according to the UN.

The UN top humanitarian official, Martin Griffiths, has travelled to the Saudi coastal city of Jeddah, the site of what Washington and Riyadh have labelled “pre-negotiation talks”.

A UN official said on Monday that Griffiths had “asked to join the negotiations” between the warring sides, but that his request had not been approved so far.

Mediation efforts

Saudi Arabia is pushing for “a timetable for expanded negotiations to reach a permanent cessation of hostilities”, its foreign ministry said.

The Jeddah talks, which are set to continue “in the following days”, aim to reach “an effective short-term halt” to the fighting, facilitating aid delivery and restoring basic services, it added.

A major breakthrough would be to secure humanitarian corridors to allow aid through Port Sudan on the Red Sea coast to Khartoum and to the strife-torn Darfur region bordering Chad.

Since mid-April, multiple truce deals have been declared and quickly violated in the poverty-stricken country with a history of instability.

Mediation efforts have multiplied.

The African Union — which holds little leverage after suspending Sudan following a coup in 2021 — and East African regional bloc IGAD are pushing for discussions mediated by South Sudan.

The Arab League on Sunday called for an end to hostilities and the preservation of Sudan’s “sovereignty”, but without specifying details.

Heavyweights in the pan-Arab bloc are divided on Sudan, with Egypt supporting Burhan and the United Arab Emirates seen to be backing the RSF, according to experts.
AFP

Headline

FULL LIST: US Set To Carry Out Four Executions This Week

Published

9 minutes ago

October 15, 2025

Editor

A Florida man convicted of murdering two women he hired for sex was put to death by lethal injection on Tuesday, one of four executions to be carried out in the United States this week.

Samuel Smithers, 72, was sentenced to death in 1999 for the 1996 killings of Christy Cowan and Denise Roach in Tampa. They had been beaten and strangled and their bodies were found in a pond.

Smithers was executed at a Florida state prison at 6:15 pm (2215 GMT), the 14th execution in the southern state this year.

Another convicted murderer was also put to death by lethal injection in the midwestern state of Missouri on Tuesday.

The execution of Lance Shockley, 48, was carried out at 6:13 pm (2313 GMT) for the 2005 murder of a police sergeant, Carl Graham.

Graham was gunned down in an ambush at his home. The officer had been investigating a fatal car accident involving Shockley at the time.

Shockley maintained his innocence but his appeals were rejected by numerous courts, including the Supreme Court. Missouri Governor Mike Kehoe rejected his clemency request on Monday.

Two other executions are scheduled this week.

Charles Crawford, 59, is to be put to death by lethal injection in Mississippi on Wednesday for the 1994 rape and murder of Kristy Ray, a 20-year-old college student.

Richard Djerf, 55, is to be executed by lethal injection in Arizona on Friday for the brutal 1993 murders of four members of a Phoenix family.

In a letter last month apologizing for the crime, Djerf said he was ready to die and would not seek clemency.

“If I can’t find reason to spare my life, what reason would anyone else have?” he wrote.

There have been 37 executions in the United States this year, the most since 2013, when 39 inmates were put to death.

Florida has carried out the most executions with 14, followed by Texas with five and South Carolina and Alabama with four.

Thirty-one of this year’s executions have been carried out by lethal injection, two by firing squad and four by nitrogen hypoxia, which involves pumping nitrogen gas into a face mask, causing the prisoner to suffocate.

The use of nitrogen gas as a method of capital punishment has been denounced by United Nations experts as cruel and inhumane.

The death penalty has been abolished in 23 of the 50 US states, while three others — California, Oregon and Pennsylvania — have moratoriums in place.

President Donald Trump is a proponent of capital punishment and, on his first day in office, called for an expansion of its use “for the vilest crimes.”

Headline

Welcome Home, Israel Confirms Return Of 20 Hostages From Gaza

Published

2 days ago

October 13, 2025

Editor

Israel said that the last 20 living hostages released by Hamas on Monday had arrived in the country.

“Welcome home,” the foreign ministry wrote in a series of posts on X, hailing the return of Matan Angrest, Gali Berman, Ziv Berman, Elkana Bohbot, Rom Braslavski, Nimrod Cohen, David Cunio, Ariel Cunio, Evyatar David, Guy Gilboa Dalal, Maxim Herkin, Eitan Horn, Segev Kalfon, Bar Kuperstein, Omri Miran, Eitan Mor, Yosef Haim Ohana, Alon Ohel, Avinatan Or and Matan Zangauker.

AFP

Headline

20 Members Of Gang Blacklisted By US Escape Guatemala Prison

Published

2 days ago

October 13, 2025

Editor

Twenty members of a gang designated a “foreign terrorist organisation” by the United States have escaped from detention in Guatemala, a prison chief said Sunday.

The members of the Barrio 18 gang “evaded security controls” at the Fraijanes II facility, prison director Ludin Godinez said at a news conference.

He received “an intelligence report” on Friday warning about the “possible escape” from the prison, which is southeast of the capital, Guatemala City.

Godinez said they were investigating possible acts of corruption.

Washington last month blacklisted Barrio 18, an El Salvador-based gang which has a reputation for violence and extortion, as part of its crackdown on drug trafficking.

The US embassy in Guatemala condemned the prison escape as “utterly unacceptable.”

“The United States designated members of this heinous group as the terrorists they are and will hold accountable anyone who has provided, provides, or decides to provide material support to these fugitives or other gang members,” the embassy said on X.

It called on the Guatemalan government to “act immediately and vigorously to recapture these terrorists.”

According to Interior Minister Francisco Jimenez, there are about 12,000 gang members and collaborators in Guatemala, while another 3,000 are in prison.

The country’s homicide rate has increased from 16.1 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2024 to 17.65 this year, more than double the world average, according to the Centre for National Economic Research.

According to the Salvadoran government, the gangs Barrio 18 and Mara Salvatrucha, better known as MS-13, are responsible for the deaths of about 200,000 people over three decades.

The two gangs once controlled an estimated 80 percent of El Salvador, which had one of the highest homicide rates in the world.