A battle for control of a key city in Sudan’s Darfur region between the army and a rival paramilitary force appears imminent, with both sides looking to tip the balance of the ruinous year-long civil war.
Al Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state, is not only the largest and most important city in the entire Darfur region, but also the only one of Darfur’s five state capitals not controlled by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
The other four were seized by the RSF last year.
Its strategic location has for years made it a hub for aid groups operating in western Sudan, providing a key transit stop for aid shipments from neighbouring Chad or Port Sudan on the Red Sea.
“Al Fasher is seen in Sudan as the capital of the entire Darfur region, not just North Darfur,” activist Abdul Rahim Al Sheikh said. “Whoever controls Al Fasher controls Darfur.”
Fighting broke out last April between the national army, headed by Sudan's de facto leader Abdel Fattah Al Burhan, and the RSF, led by his former deputy Mohamed Dagalo.
The war has killed tens of thousands of people, forced more than 8.5 million people to flee their homes and created circumstances for a famine, with 25 million people now in need of life-saving assistance.
RSF fighters have for weeks been laying siege to Al Fasher as a prelude to storming and capturing the city to cement control of the Darfur region.
Army aircraft, meanwhile, have continued to drop food, weapons and ammunition to the garrison inside the city, which is believed to number in the thousands and include fighters from allied rebel groups and volunteers.
A series of ceasefires brokered by the US and Saudi Arabia during the war's early days collapsed shortly after they came into force or were loosely observed.
The outbreak of the war followed months of tension between the two rival generals over details of Sudan’s democratic transition, especially the mandate of the army and associated paramilitaries in a civilian-led Sudan.
The RSF scored a series of battlefield victories in the early days of the war, capturing most of the capital and cities west and south of Khartoum.
In December, it dealt a body blow to the army when it captured Wad Madani, capital of Al Jazeera region – Sudan’s breadbasket – south of the capital.
However, the army has made some symbolically significant gains in recent months, regaining territory in Omdurman across the Nile from Khartoum and halting RSF advances in Al Jazeera and neighbouring regions.
Sudan’s air force has been bombarding RSF positions around Al Fasher and in nearby towns, with the paramilitary claiming the air strikes are killing civilians and livestock, the livelihood of many in Darfur, not its fighters.
“It may at the end prove difficult for the RSF to conquer Al Fasher, given the large number of troops and allied militiamen stationed inside,” said Ammar Awad, a Sudanese expert on Darfur.
“The RSF will also find the locals unwelcoming, unlike in some other Darfur cities where it found popular sympathy.”
'Deep concern'
On Saturday, the UN Security Council expressed its "deep concern" over an imminent RSF attack on Al Fasher.
In a statement, members “called on the Sudanese Armed Forces and Rapid Support Forces to end the build-up of military forces and to take steps to de-escalate the situation".
Senior UN officials also warned the Security Council last week that about 800,000 people in Al Fasher were in “extreme and immediate danger" as worsening violence threatens to "unleash bloody intercommunal strife throughout Darfur".
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has also called on the warring parties to refrain from fighting in Al Fasher and surrounding areas.
The UN humanitarian office said escalating tensions and clashes around Al Fasher in the past two weeks have displaced 40,000 people and caused an unspecified number of civilian casualties.
“The security situation has effectively cut off humanitarian access to Al Fasher,” said the Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha).
Darfur is the birthplace of the RSF’s forerunner, the Janjaweed militia, and its leader Gen Dagalo, a one-time cattle trader who rose to national prominence during the 29-year rule of former dictator Omar Al Bashir.
The Janjaweed joined the government’s forces during the Darfur civil war in the 2000s, fighting ethnic African rebels seeking an end to perceived discrimination by the Muslim and Arabised ruling elite in Khartoum.
The Arab-led Janjaweed has been accused of war crimes against ethnic African civilians during that war.
War crimes took place last summer in Darfur, when the RSF and allied militiamen killed hundreds, perhaps thousands, of members of the ethnic African Masalit tribe in El Geneina, near the border with Chad.
International Criminal Court prosecutor Karim Khan said in late January there were grounds to believe both sides in the current war may be committing war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide in Darfur.
Al Bashir, ousted in a popular uprising in 2019, is wanted by the ICC on charges of genocide and other crimes during the conflict in Darfur.
The biog
Born: High Wycombe, England
Favourite vehicle: One with solid axels
Favourite camping spot: Anywhere I can get to.
Favourite road trip: My first trip to Kazakhstan-Kyrgyzstan. The desert they have over there is different and the language made it a bit more challenging.
Favourite spot in the UAE: Al Dhafra. It’s unique, natural, inaccessible, unspoilt.
If you go
Flights
Emirates flies from Dubai to Phnom Penh with a stop in Yangon from Dh3,075, and Etihad flies from Abu Dhabi to Phnom Penh with its partner Bangkok Airlines from Dh2,763. These trips take about nine hours each and both include taxes. From there, a road transfer takes at least four hours; airlines including KC Airlines (www.kcairlines.com) offer quick connecting flights from Phnom Penh to Sihanoukville from about $100 (Dh367) return including taxes. Air Asia, Malindo Air and Malaysian Airlines fly direct from Kuala Lumpur to Sihanoukville from $54 each way. Next year, direct flights are due to launch between Bangkok and Sihanoukville, which will cut the journey time by a third.
The stay
Rooms at Alila Villas Koh Russey (www.alilahotels.com/ kohrussey) cost from $385 per night including taxes.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Quick facts on cancer
- Cancer is the second-leading cause of death worldwide, after cardiovascular diseases
- About one in five men and one in six women will develop cancer in their lifetime
- By 2040, global cancer cases are on track to reach 30 million
- 70 per cent of cancer deaths occur in low and middle-income countries
- This rate is expected to increase to 75 per cent by 2030
- At least one third of common cancers are preventable
- Genetic mutations play a role in 5 per cent to 10 per cent of cancers
- Up to 3.7 million lives could be saved annually by implementing the right health
strategies
- The total annual economic cost of cancer is $1.16 trillion
Our legal consultant
Name: Dr Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
The specs
Engine: 4.0-litre flat-six
Torque: 450Nm at 6,100rpm
Transmission: 7-speed PDK auto or 6-speed manual
Fuel economy, combined: 13.8L/100km
On sale: Available to order now
Boulder shooting victims
• Denny Strong, 20
• Neven Stanisic, 23
• Rikki Olds, 25
• Tralona Bartkowiak, 49
• Suzanne Fountain, 59
• Teri Leiker, 51
• Eric Talley, 51
• Kevin Mahoney, 61
• Lynn Murray, 62
• Jody Waters, 65
Attacks on Egypt’s long rooted Copts
Egypt’s Copts belong to one of the world’s oldest Christian communities, with Mark the Evangelist credited with founding their church around 300 AD. Orthodox Christians account for the overwhelming majority of Christians in Egypt, with the rest mainly made up of Greek Orthodox, Catholics and Anglicans.
The community accounts for some 10 per cent of Egypt’s 100 million people, with the largest concentrations of Christians found in Cairo, Alexandria and the provinces of Minya and Assiut south of Cairo.
Egypt’s Christians have had a somewhat turbulent history in the Muslim majority Arab nation, with the community occasionally suffering outright persecution but generally living in peace with their Muslim compatriots. But radical Muslims who have first emerged in the 1970s have whipped up anti-Christian sentiments, something that has, in turn, led to an upsurge in attacks against their places of worship, church-linked facilities as well as their businesses and homes.
More recently, ISIS has vowed to go after the Christians, claiming responsibility for a series of attacks against churches packed with worshippers starting December 2016.
The discrimination many Christians complain about and the shift towards religious conservatism by many Egyptian Muslims over the last 50 years have forced hundreds of thousands of Christians to migrate, starting new lives in growing communities in places as far afield as Australia, Canada and the United States.
Here is a look at major attacks against Egypt's Coptic Christians in recent years:
November 2: Masked gunmen riding pickup trucks opened fire on three buses carrying pilgrims to the remote desert monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor south of Cairo, killing 7 and wounding about 20. IS claimed responsibility for the attack.
May 26, 2017: Masked militants riding in three all-terrain cars open fire on a bus carrying pilgrims on their way to the Monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor, killing 29 and wounding 22. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack.
April 2017: Twin attacks by suicide bombers hit churches in the coastal city of Alexandria and the Nile Delta city of Tanta. At least 43 people are killed and scores of worshippers injured in the Palm Sunday attack, which narrowly missed a ceremony presided over by Pope Tawadros II, spiritual leader of Egypt Orthodox Copts, in Alexandria's St. Mark's Cathedral. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attacks.
February 2017: Hundreds of Egyptian Christians flee their homes in the northern part of the Sinai Peninsula, fearing attacks by ISIS. The group's North Sinai affiliate had killed at least seven Coptic Christians in the restive peninsula in less than a month.
December 2016: A bombing at a chapel adjacent to Egypt's main Coptic Christian cathedral in Cairo kills 30 people and wounds dozens during Sunday Mass in one of the deadliest attacks carried out against the religious minority in recent memory. ISIS claimed responsibility.
July 2016: Pope Tawadros II says that since 2013 there were 37 sectarian attacks on Christians in Egypt, nearly one incident a month. A Muslim mob stabs to death a 27-year-old Coptic Christian man, Fam Khalaf, in the central city of Minya over a personal feud.
May 2016: A Muslim mob ransacks and torches seven Christian homes in Minya after rumours spread that a Christian man had an affair with a Muslim woman. The elderly mother of the Christian man was stripped naked and dragged through a street by the mob.
New Year's Eve 2011: A bomb explodes in a Coptic Christian church in Alexandria as worshippers leave after a midnight mass, killing more than 20 people.
Analysis
Maros Sefcovic is juggling multiple international trade agreement files, but his message was clear when he spoke to The National on Wednesday.
The EU-UAE bilateral trade deal will be finalised soon, he said. It is in everyone’s interests to do so. Both sides want to move quickly and are in alignment. He said the UAE is a very important partner for the EU. It’s full speed ahead - and with some lofty ambitions - on the road to a free trade agreement.
We also talked about US-EU tariffs. He answered that both sides need to talk more and more often, but he is prepared to defend Europe's position and said diplomacy should be a guiding principle through the current moment.
German intelligence warnings
- 2002: "Hezbollah supporters feared becoming a target of security services because of the effects of [9/11] ... discussions on Hezbollah policy moved from mosques into smaller circles in private homes." Supporters in Germany: 800
- 2013: "Financial and logistical support from Germany for Hezbollah in Lebanon supports the armed struggle against Israel ... Hezbollah supporters in Germany hold back from actions that would gain publicity." Supporters in Germany: 950
- 2023: "It must be reckoned with that Hezbollah will continue to plan terrorist actions outside the Middle East against Israel or Israeli interests." Supporters in Germany: 1,250
Source: Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution
'Panga'
Directed by Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari
Starring Kangana Ranaut, Richa Chadha, Jassie Gill, Yagya Bhasin, Neena Gupta
Rating: 3.5/5
Six large-scale objects on show
- Concrete wall and windows from the now demolished Robin Hood Gardens housing estate in Poplar
- The 17th Century Agra Colonnade, from the bathhouse of the fort of Agra in India
- A stagecloth for The Ballet Russes that is 10m high – the largest Picasso in the world
- Frank Lloyd Wright’s 1930s Kaufmann Office
- A full-scale Frankfurt Kitchen designed by Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky, which transformed kitchen design in the 20th century
- Torrijos Palace dome
The%20Killer
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EDirector%3A%C2%A0%3C%2Fstrong%3EDavid%20Fincher%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EStars%3A%C2%A0%3C%2Fstrong%3EMichael%20Fassbender%2C%20Tilda%20Swinton%2C%20Charles%20Parnell%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ERating%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%204%2F5%C2%A0%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
The specs
Engine: 3.0-litre six-cylinder turbo
Power: 398hp from 5,250rpm
Torque: 580Nm at 1,900-4,800rpm
Transmission: Eight-speed auto
Fuel economy, combined: 6.5L/100km
On sale: December
Price: From Dh330,000 (estimate)
Scoreline
Arsenal 3
Aubameyang (28'), Welbeck (38', 81')
Red cards: El Neny (90' 3)
Southampton 2
Long (17'), Austin (73')
Red cards: Stephens (90' 2)
