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A renegade Congolese soldier stands at an outpost in Eastern Congo deserted town of Kanyabayonga December 16, 2004 which is deserted due to clashes in the area. The Democratic Republic of Congo has replaced its army commander in the eastern province of North Kivu, the scene of days of fighting between government reinforcements and rebel units, authorities said.
Humanitarian truce extended in Congo
A humanitarian truce in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo between government troops and M23 rebels backed by neighboring Rwanda was extended by 15 days, to Aug. 3, but fighting in the area continues, and the prospect of a wider conflict looms.
The background: Over a hundred rebel groups are fighting for control of mineral-rich regions in the eastern DRC along the Rwandan border. M23, formed by deserters from the DRC army, is the most powerful of the groups – its decision to launch an offensive to capture the provincial capital of Goma in 2022 reignited a decades-long conflict in DRC that has so far displaced more than 3 million people.
Rwanda’s history of ethnic tensions is part of the story. Thirty years ago, Rwanda’s Hutu majority committed a genocide against the Tutsi minority. Rwanda says some of the DRC-backed militias around Goma, such as the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, are composed of Hutu genocidaires who escaped across the border to avoid justice.
The UN, meanwhile, says Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame, a Tutsi, has deployed up to 4,000 troops to fight alongside the M23, against DRC forces.
Risk of regional outbreak. Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi has threatened war against Rwanda in retaliation for Kagame’s involvement.
Sudanese families wait outside a hospital while doctors and medical staff strike to protest late salaries, bringing the struggling health sector in the city of Port Sudan to almost a complete halt as thousands of displaced Sudanese flooded the city due to the raging war in Khartoum, Sudan, August 20, 2023.
Sudan’s paramilitaries shut key city’s last hospital
In moreterrible news for civilians in Sudan, fighting in the country’s civil war has forced the closure of el-Fasher’s last open hospital. This city is the final stronghold of government forces fighting the RSF, a paramilitary group. Hundreds of thousands of civilians are sheltering in the city.
On Saturday, RSF fighters reportedly opened fire, looted drugs and medical equipment, assaulted hospital staff, and stole an ambulance. The hospital had repeatedly come under RSF fire over the past two weeks.
The civil war has killed at least 15,000 people since April 2023, and nearly nine million have been displaced. The RSF is a collection of what was once the Janjaweed militia groups, which have committed atrocities in Darfur. Both the RSF and government forces have been accused of crimes against civilians during this conflict.
Doctors, with support fromMédecins Sans Frontières, a medical relief organization, will try to shift hospital operations to a rundown Saudi-built hospital further from the frontlines, but that building doesn’t yet have electricity, fuel, or water. An MSF spokesperson says trapped and injured civilians in the city will not receive basic care for at least a week.
Palestinians inspect the site of an Israeli strike on a house, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip May 7, 2024.
Biden threatens to cut off some weapons to Israel if Rafah invaded
“We’re not going to supply the weapons and the artillery shells used” in a seemingly imminent Israeli invasion of Rafah, US President Joe Biden said in a CNN interview Wednesday, his toughest language on Israel yet.
Still, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu doesn’t seem all that intimidated. Israel massed armor and troops on the outskirts of Rafah Thursday morning, after seizing the city’s crossing into Egypt on Wednesday. Over a million civilians are sheltering in the last Gazan city Israeli troops have not entered, but Netanyahu seems determined to take out the remaining Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad militants based there.
Meanwhile, CIA director William Burns has been shuttling between Jerusalem and Cairo for urgent cease-fire negotiations that the US hopes could save untold numbers of civilians. Earlier this week Hamas said it would accept a cease-fire agreement, but it was modified in ways Israel found unacceptable.
If Biden does follow through with his threat, we’re watching for further acrimony in the already inflamed relationship with Netanyahu, as well as how his rivals with better reputations at the White House, like Benny Gantz, react.
Ukraine will define the future of NATO
Carl Bildt, former prime minister of Sweden, shares his perspective on European politics from Stockholm.
How is the role of NATO evolving now as the 75th anniversary of the organization coming up?
Well, it's going to be Ukraine that's going to be defining the future of NATO. Two issues most immediately: One, if NATO can take on a stronger role for coordinating military aid to Ukraine, that's been done so far by an ad hoc coalition and US support; there’s a proposal on the table for taking that over. The second is, of course, what Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg proposed on the day of the ministerial meeting in Brussels, to set up a very large fund for financing the military support in the years to come. We'll see how these two proposals evolve over the time period up until the Washington summit. And then there's, of course, the big issues of Ukraine membership.
How will the willingness of different countries to give military support be affected by what we've seen in terms of attacks on humanitarian aid in the last ten days?
Obviously, a negative impact, and a vivid debate, not least in the UK, over this decision. But I think most will be dependent upon how Israel will react, whether it will change its way of operating in terms of allowing humanitarian access of a sufficient quantity in and respecting the rights of humanitarian workers and truly respecting military law. Open questions, remains to be seen,- NATO bares its teeth ›
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People take cover from gunfire near the National Palace, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti March 21, 2024.
Haitians flee capital en masse
Intense violence in Port-au-Prince led over 33,000 Haitians to flee the city in the last two weeks alone, according to the United Nations.
Gangs attacked two specialized police bases in Port-au-Prince on Saturday and continue to make advances. Over 2,500 people have been killed in the fighting this year. Violence has kept the air and seaports shuttered all month, making it difficult for aid organizations to bring supplies in. The World Food Programme now says Haiti faces a record level of food insecurity.
Small signs of hope. The transitional council meant to replace outgoing Prime Minister Ariel Henry saw a key breakthrough last week when former Senator Jean-Charles Moïse reversed his position and accepted a seat. All seven voting members are now in place, and could name a president as soon as next week.
Progress toward setting up a government could also remove impediments to the Kenyan-led intervention force that has been stalled and delayed for months. We’re watching for who ends up in charge, and whether Haitians buy into this unelected government.
FILE PHOTO: A member of Sudanese armed forces looks on as he holds his weapon in the street in Omdurman, Sudan, March 9, 2024.
Famine looms in Sudan
As much of the world focuses on conflicts raging in Ukraine and Gaza, the ongoing war in Sudan has generated what a senior UN official said last week was “one the worst humanitarian disasters in recent memory.”
The numbers speak for themselves. Nearly a year of war between Sudan’s army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces has killed tens of thousands, forced eight million from their homes, and left more than 18 million people facing acute food insecurity. Some 730,000 Sudanese children are now suffering from severe malnutrition. Famine looms as a real possibility in the coming weeks.
FILE PHOTO: Palestinians carry bags of flour they grabbed from an aid truck near an Israeli checkpoint, as Gaza residents face crisis levels of hunger, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Gaza City, February 19, 2024.
As Gazans face starvation, aid organizations struggle to help
The humanitarian crisis in Gaza amid the Israel-Hamas war is dire, and it’s being exacerbated by the convoluted array of logistical and political obstacles that aid organizations are facing.
With nearly two million people displaced from their homes and the specters of starvation and disease looming, here’s a look at the challenges aid organizations face to save lives.
Who’s on the ground in Gaza? Even before Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, the economically-devastating Israeli blockade on Gaza, which is backed by Egypt, left 80% of people in the enclave dependent on international aid, according to the UN.
Between 2014 and 2020, the United Nations spent close to $4.5 billion in Gaza, largely through its agency for Palestinian refugees known as UNRWA. Qatar also provided well over $1 billion in aid to the territory before the war, with Israel’s approval.
The Red Cross, World Food Program (WFP), World Health Organization (WHO), Doctors Without Borders, and the Red Crescent have all also remained active in Gaza during the war in various capacities, but with significant limitations. The WFP, for example, recently announced it is suspending deliveries to north Gaza — where one-in-six children are estimated to be malnourished — due to security concerns such as gunfire and people attempting to break into trucks carrying aid.
A dire situation. As the reported death toll from the fighting in Gaza creeps toward 30,000, an estimated 1.9 million people — over 80% of the territory’s population — have been displaced by the war, more than half of whom are sheltering in the enclave’s south. The UN says the entire population is at risk of famine, while preventable diseases are killing people as the health system collapses.
Israel has placed severe restrictions on the flow of aid into Gaza since the war began, and the military has faced allegations of targeting aid delivery trucks. Prior to the war, roughly 500 trucks entered Gaza per day. From February 1 to 23, an average of 93 trucks per day entered Gaza, and there were seven days when 20 or fewer trucks made it in, according to UNRWA.
“This situation in Gaza is extremely dire because there is no safe place for Gazans to move from — no ‘escape valve,’” says Paul Spiegel, Director of Johns Hopkins Center for Humanitarian Health. “Furthermore, the severe restrictions of basic lifesaving goods into Gaza — fuel, water, food and medicines, combined with the attacks on health facilities — make it very difficult for people to survive.”
Meanwhile, over a dozen countries — including the US — have frozen funding to UNRWA after Israel alleged that 12 of its employees participated in the Oct. 7 attack. UNRWA fired the employees implicated and has launched an inquiry.
Philippe Lazzarini, UNRWA’s commissioner general, on Thursday warned that the agency has reached a “breaking point… at a time of unprecedented humanitarian needs in Gaza.”
If the war in Gaza escalates, more than 85,000 people could die over the next six months on top of the death toll so far, according to projections in a new report from Spiegel and a group of fellow epidemiologists. The report projected that thousands will still die even if a cease-fire is reached.
“UNRWA remains the organization with the biggest footprint and capability to deliver aid in Gaza, by far. If UNRWA reduces its services substantially, many more people will die,” says Spiegel.
The beach, Red Sea State, Port Sudan, Sudan.
Sudan’s lost sea access worsens humanitarian disaster
Since fighting between rival military factions in Sudan erupted last April, nearly 8 million people have been displaced, and 24 million require urgent food aid. But the crisis now may begin to beggar description as the country loses access to its Red Sea coast and migrants stream across its borders.
Refugee influx. Over 400,000 Sudanese refugees have fled to Libya, where they face long waits for registration, leading many to turn to smugglers to attempt dangerous Europe-bound sea crossings. Their first destination is Italy, with nearly 6,000 Sudanese refugees arriving there in 2023.
Numbers are expected to soar this year, prompting Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni to urge support for investments designed to disincentivize migration. Meloni unveiled a plan last month to enhance energy cooperation with African states and assist them in areas including health and education, at a cost of 3 million euros annually for four years.
Impact of Houthi attacks. Houthi attacks in the Red Sea have cut off Sudanese ports and are disrupting aid shipments, forcing humanitarian agencies to reroute deliveries at significantly higher costs. Some shipments are delayed, others are stuck altogether, and still more face exorbitant air-freight costs. Aid workers describe the situation as "catastrophic" and fear mass starvation is imminent.