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Sudan largest humanitarian crisis ever recorded: IRC report

Sudan largest humanitarian crisis ever recorded: IRC report
Nearly 9 million of those are displaced within Sudan, most in areas with decimated infrastructure and facing the threat of mass starvation. (AFP)
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Updated 11 December 2024

Sudan largest humanitarian crisis ever recorded: IRC report

Sudan largest humanitarian crisis ever recorded: IRC report
  • Report highlights 20 countries at greatest risk of humanitarian deterioration, with Sudan ranking highest

CAIRO: Sudan has become the “biggest humanitarian crisis ever recorded” after 20 months of devastating war between rival generals, the International Rescue Committee said in a report released Wednesday.

“The country accounts for 10 percent of all people in humanitarian need, despite being home to less than 1 percent of global population,” the New York-based organization said in their 2025 Emergency Watchlist.

Since April 2023, a war between the Sudanese regular army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces has killed tens of thousands of people and uprooted 12 million.

Nearly 9 million of those are displaced within Sudan, most in areas with decimated infrastructure and facing the threat of mass starvation.

Across the country, nearly 26 million people — around half the population — are facing acute hunger, according to the United Nations.

Famine has already been declared in the Zamzam displacement camp in the western Darfur region, and the United Nations has said Sudan is facing the worst humanitarian crisis in recent memory.

IRC’s report highlights the 20 countries at greatest risk of humanitarian deterioration, with Sudan ranking highest on the list for the second year in a row.

They said a total of 30.4 million people were in humanitarian need across the northeast African country, making it “the largest humanitarian crisis since records began,” the IRC said.

There is no end to the war in sight, with both parties intensifying strikes on residential areas in recent weeks.

The IRC warned of total “humanitarian collapse,” as the health crisis was set to worsen and both sides continued to “choke humanitarian access.”

Around 305 million people worldwide are in need of humanitarian support, according to IRC, with 82 percent of them in watchlist areas such as the occupied Palestinian territories, Myanmar, Syria, South Sudan and Lebanon.

“It is clear that ‘the world is on fire’ is a daily reality for hundreds of millions of people,” IRC chief David Miliband said.

“The world is being cleaved into two camps: between those born in unstable conflict states, and those with a chance to make it in stable states.”


Iraq’s first industrial-scale solar plant opens in Karbala desert to tackle electricity crisis

Iraq’s first industrial-scale solar plant opens in Karbala desert to tackle electricity crisis
Updated 20 September 2025

Iraq’s first industrial-scale solar plant opens in Karbala desert to tackle electricity crisis

Iraq’s first industrial-scale solar plant opens in Karbala desert to tackle electricity crisis
  • Iraq is opening its first industrial-scale solar plant in Karbala province. This marks a significant step in the government’s push to expand renewable energy in a country

KARBALA: Iraq is set to open the country’s first industrial-scale solar plant Sunday in a vast expanse of desert in Karbala province, southwest of Baghdad.
It’s part of a new push by the government to expand renewable energy production in a country that is frequently beset by electricity crises despite being rich in oil and gas.
“This is the first project of its type in Iraq that has this capacity,” said Safaa Hussein, executive director of the new solar plant in Karbala, standing in front of row after row of black panels. From above, the project looks like a black-clad city surrounded by sand.
The plant aims to “supply the national network with electricity, and reduce the fuel consumption especially during the daytime peak load, in addition to reducing the negative environmental impact of gas emissions,” he said.
The newly opened solar plant in Karbala will eventually be able to produce up to 300 megawatts of electricity at its peak, said Nasser Karim Al-Sudani, head of the national team for solar energy projects in the Prime Minister’s Office. Another project under construction in Babil province will have a capacity of 225 megawatts, and work will also begin soon on a 1,000 megawatt project in the southern province of Basra, he said.
The projects are part of an ambitious plan to implement large-scale solar power projects in an effort to ease the country’s chronic electricity shortages.
Deputy Minister of Electricity Adel Karim said Iraq has solar projects with a combined capacity of 12,500 megawatts either being implemented, in the approval process, or under negotiation. If fully realized, these projects would supply between 15 percent and 20 percent of Iraq’s total electricity demand, excluding the semi-autonomous northern Kurdish region, he said.
“All the companies we have contracted with, or are still negotiating with, will sell us electricity at very attractive prices, and we will in turn sell it to consumers,” Karim said, although he declined to disclose the purchase rates.
Despite its oil and gas wealth, Iraq has suffered from decades of electricity shortages because of war, corruption and mismanagement. Power outages are common, especially in the scorching summer months. Many Iraqis have to rely on diesel generators or suffer through temperatures that exceed 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit) without air conditioning.
Currently, Iraq produces between 27,000 and 28,000 megawatts of electricity, Karim said, while nationwide consumption ranges from 50,000 to 55,000 megawatts. Power plants fueled by Iranian gas contribute about 8,000 megawatts of the current supply.
Iraq’s heavy reliance on imported Iranian gas, as well as electricity imported directly from Iran to meet its electricity needs, is an arrangement that risks running afoul of US sanctions.
Earlier this year, Washington ended a sanctions waiver for direct electricity purchases from Iran but left the waiver for gas imports in place.


More Americans say Israel has gone too far in the Gaza conflict

More Americans say Israel has gone too far in the Gaza conflict
Updated 19 September 2025

More Americans say Israel has gone too far in the Gaza conflict

More Americans say Israel has gone too far in the Gaza conflict
  • And 45 percent of US adults now say it’s “extremely” or “very” important for the US to provide humanitarian relief to Palestinians in Gaza, similar to Americans’ views at the start of the war but up slightly from 41 percent in March

WASHINGTON: At a moment of growing international alarm about the humanitarian situation in Gaza, more US adults view Israel’s military action in the Palestinian territory as excessive than at the beginning of the war, according to a new poll.
About half of Americans say the military response from Israel in the Gaza Strip has “gone too far,” according to the survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. That’s up from November 2023, when 40 percent said Israel’s military action had gone too far. That AP-NORC poll was conducted shortly after the Oct. 7, 2023, assault on Israel.
But at the same time, Americans overall, particularly Republicans, are less likely to say that negotiating a ceasefire should be a high priority for the US government than they were just a few months ago when the US was holding ceasefire talks with Hamas.
The shift in American attitudes about Israel’s actions comes as Israel begins an expanded ground offensive on Gaza City. Israel is facing increased international scrutiny over its conduct in Gaza, with a team of independent experts commissioned by the UN’s Human Rights Council this week announcing it has concluded that Israel is committing genocide.
“The level of innocent women and children suffering,” said Renee Hollier, of Lafayette, Louisiana, who described herself as a political independent and mother of a toddler. 
“There’s just no justification for this kind of suffering to continue.”
The poll found a bipartisan uptick in Americans finding Israel’s military response has “gone too far.”
About 7 in 10 Democrats say this now, up from 58 percent in November 2023.  And roughly half of independents say the same, compared with about 4 in 10 in the earlier measure. 
Republicans have also moved slightly, from 18 percent to 24 percent.
Concern about overreach from Israel was high in January 2024, when 50 percent of US adults said Israel had “gone too far,” but that fell slightly as the war continued.
And 45 percent of US adults now say it’s “extremely” or “very” important for the US to provide humanitarian relief to Palestinians in Gaza, similar to Americans’ views at the start of the war but up slightly from 41 percent in March.
Miguel Martinez, 55, of Miami, said it remains critical for the Republican administration to prioritize humanitarian relief even as it backs the Israeli military’s effort to defeat Hamas. 
Martinez supports Israel’s aim to defeat Hamas, but he’s concerned that the conflict is dragging on.
“Not everyone there is the enemy,” said Martinez, a Republican who said he broadly approves of Trump’s handling of the conflict. “Those people need help.”
In interviews, Americans across the political spectrum were dour about the prospects of the US mediating a lasting ceasefire. 
“There’s an all-or-nothing attitude on both sides,” Martinez said of Israel and Hamas. 
“Any resolution, any ceasefire, it’s hard to see it being anything more than temporary.”
Democrats are more likely to prioritize negotiations on an independent Palestinian state
Larry Kapenstein, 71, a Democrat from Middletown, Pennsylvania, said he’s worried about the conflict’s long-term ramifications for Israel’s economy and standing in the world.
“I side with Israel, and I think they’re in the right in this, but I think Netanyahu has just taken this too far,” Kapenstein said. “There’s got to be a better way.”
About 3 in 10 US adults said it is “extremely” or “very” important to negotiate the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, unchanged from January 2024. But that belief is especially pronounced among Democrats: About half now say this is highly important, up from 41 percent in 2024. That compares with 19 percent of independents and 14 percent of Republicans.
The survey also found slightly less support for military aid for Israel.
About 2 in 10 US adults said it is “extremely” or “very” important for the US to provide aid to Israel’s military to fight Hamas, down from 36 percent at the war’s start. The decline has been particularly dramatic among Democrats, from 30 percent at the war’s beginning to 15 percent now.

 


Significant rise in civilian killings in Sudan war this year, says UN

Significant rise in civilian killings in Sudan war this year, says UN
Updated 20 September 2025

Significant rise in civilian killings in Sudan war this year, says UN

Significant rise in civilian killings in Sudan war this year, says UN
  • Humanitarian situation worsening, ICRC warns
  • Many of the deaths reported in RSF-controlled Darfur

GENEVA: Sudan has seen a significant rise in civilian killings during the first half of this year due to growing ethnic violence, largely in the western region of Darfur, the UN human rights office said on Friday.

The conflict that erupted in Sudan in April 2023 between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces has unleashed waves of ethnically-driven killings, caused mass displacement, and created what the UN has called the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
At least 3,384 civilians were killed between January and June, mostly in Darfur, according to a new report by the Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights. The figure is equivalent to nearly 80 percent of the civilian casualties in Sudan documented last year. 
Throughout the war, casualty numbers have been hard to track because of the collapse of local health services, fighting, and communications breakdowns, among other reasons.
“Every day we are receiving more reports of horrors on the ground,” OHCHR Sudan representative Li Fung said in Geneva.
The majority of killings resulted from artillery shelling as well as air and drone strikes in densely populated areas, the report said.
It noted many deaths occurred during the RSF’s offensive on the city of El-Fasher, the last holdout of its rivals in Darfur, as well as on the Zamzam and Abu Shouk camps for displaced people in April.
At least 990 civilians were killed in summary executions in the first half of the year, the report found, with the number between February and April tripling. That was driven mainly by a surge in Khartoum after the army and allied fighters in late March recaptured the city previously controlled by the RSF, the OHCHR said.
“One witness who observed SAF search operations in civilian neighborhoods in East Nile, Khartoum, between March and April, said that he saw children as young as 14 or 15 years of age, accused of being RSF members, summarily killed,” OHCHR spokesperson Jeremy Laurence said.
Fung said ethnicity was a motivating factor for violence, which she described as very concerning.
She explained that certain ethnic communities were being targeted because they are associated with the leadership of the SAF and RSF, building upon decades of discrimination and division between different groups and identities in the diverse nation.
Both sides in Sudan’s war have repeatedly denied deliberately attacking civilians.
The humanitarian situation in Sudan was dire and worsening, said Patrick Youssef, Africa regional director for the International Committee of the Red Cross and Red Crescent.
Sudan faces its worst cholera outbreak in four years across the country, with 2,500 cases reported in Khartoum since June, he said.
“We really pray that it’s contained within days or weeks ... My worst nightmare would be a bigger spread in Khartoum, if the populations want to return back to Khartoum,” he said.


Gaza civil defense says 450,000 Palestinians have fled Gaza City

Gaza civil defense says 450,000 Palestinians have fled Gaza City
Updated 19 September 2025

Gaza civil defense says 450,000 Palestinians have fled Gaza City

Gaza civil defense says 450,000 Palestinians have fled Gaza City
  • The Israeli military said it estimated “approximately 480,000” people had fled the city

GAZA CITY: Gaza’s civil defense agency said Friday that 450,000 Palestinians have fled Gaza City since Israel began its offensive to seize the territory’s largest urban center.
“The number of citizens displaced from Gaza to the south has reached 450,000 people since the start of the military operation on Gaza City in August,” said Mohamed Al-Mughayir, an official of the rescue force, which operates under Hamas authority
The Israeli military, which has called on residents to evacuate as it presses its ground assault, had told AFP that it estimated “approximately 480,000” people had fled the city.


Civilians make up vast majority of Gaza deaths since March, report finds

Civilians make up vast majority of Gaza deaths since March, report finds
Updated 20 September 2025

Civilians make up vast majority of Gaza deaths since March, report finds

Civilians make up vast majority of Gaza deaths since March, report finds
  • Israeli advance into Gaza City raises risk of more large-scale casualties

LONDON: Nearly 94 percent of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in Gaza since March have been civilians, according to data released on Friday from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data organization.

The figure is among the highest recorded during the conflict and comes as Israeli forces advance into Gaza City, forcing up to a million people to evacuate and raising the risk of further large-scale civilian casualties.

among Hamas and allied groups using reports from the Israeli military, local and international media, and statements from Hamas over a six-month period.

The report said: “Since March 18, Israel claims it killed more than 2,100 operatives, though ACLED data indicates that the number is closer to 1,100, and includes Hamas’ political figures, as well as fighters from other groups.”

More than 16,000 Palestinians have been killed since Israel broke a two-month ceasefire in March, according to UN statistics, equal to 15 out of every 16 deaths.

The report highlighted a sharp rise in building demolitions, with 500 incidents recorded in the six months since March, compared with 698 in the preceding 15 months.

A senior Israeli officer there is “a tension” between protecting civilians and the “demands of fast-moving military operations,” adding: “We are fighting a very different war from any previous conflict anyone has fought anywhere in the world … We are now fighting in Gaza to ensure that Hamas is not ruling Gaza.”

ACLED noted that Israeli airstrikes have killed at least 40 senior Hamas commanders since March.

Ameneh Mehvar, ACLED’s senior analyst for the Middle East, said: “Hamas has been weakened undoubtedly and does not think they can now stop or defeat Israel and push them out of Gaza through military force.

“At this point Hamas is trying to preserve what is left of the movement.”

The group now largely operates in Gaza City and Deir Al-Balah, relying on booby-trapped buildings and roadside bombs to inflict casualties.

The report also said there is no evidence of Hamas systematically stealing UN aid, though some smaller nongovernmental organization assistance may have been diverted.

“Israel has created conditions of chaos and violence around aid distribution,” ACLED said, warning that the long-term Israeli strategy appears aimed at degrading Hamas while pushing Gaza toward unlivable conditions and obstructing Palestinian sovereignty.