Region

DUBAI — Authorities in Yemen have arrested a suspect in the killing of a World Food Programme (WFP) staffer in Taez province, a security official told AFP on Saturday.

Moayad Hameidi, the head of the UN agency's office in Taez, was killed in a shooting on Friday in the nearby city of Turbah, the Rome-based WFP has confirmed.

"The perpetrator of the criminal assassination of the United Nations employee in the city of Turbah in Taez [province]... has been in the city of Taez since 2017, after fleeing Aden due to security operations against Al Qaeda operatives," the security official said late Friday.

Speaking on condition on anonymity, the Taez province official was unable to confirm whether the suspect belonged to the extremist group.

The official later told AFP that the man previously identified as the main suspect had been arrested, while another suspect was still at large.

"Fifteen other members of a terrorist organisation active in the Turbah region" were also at large, the source added.

Aden has been the seat of Yemen's internationally recognised government since Iran-backed Houthi rebels seized the capital Sanaa in 2014.

The conflict escalated the following year when a Saudi-led coalition intervened in support of the government.

Fighting has eased over the past year, although sporadic attacks continue.

Taez is controlled by the government but is surrounded by areas under Houthi control.

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and militants loyal to the Daesh group have thrived in the chaos of Yemen's war.

The Saudi-led coalition as well as the United States and UAE-backed forces have clamped down on militants in Yemen.

In an initial statement on Friday, the WFP said it was "deeply saddened" by the death of its employee.

The agency later announced , "Moayad Hameidi, a Jordanian national, died shortly after being transferred to hospital".

He "was shot and killed by unknown gunmen on Friday afternoon in Turbah", it added.

"A dedicated humanitarian, Hameidi, had worked for WFP for 18 years, including a previous stint in Yemen as well as time in Sudan, Syria, and Iraq."

WFP's Yemen country director, Richard Ragan, said: "Any loss of life in humanitarian service is an unacceptable tragedy."

The UN special envoy for Yemen, Hans Grundberg, said in a tweet: "Our deepest condolences go out to Moayad's family, friends, and colleagues. And we mourn his tragic loss with the humanitarian community in Yemen."

In 2018, Lebanese aid worker Hanna Lahoud, who worked for the International Committee of the Red Cross, was killed by unknown assailants in Taez province.

WAD MADANI, Sudan — In a war-devastated district of Sudan's capital, Abbas Mohammed Babiker says he and his family have only been able to eat once a day. Now even that is in doubt, but on Sunday a citizens' support group issued an urgent appeal for donations to help people like him.

"We only have enough for two more days," Babiker said from Khartoum North, where residents said at least one person, a local musician, has already died from hunger.

Since April 15, battles between Sudan's army led by Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, headed by Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, have killed more than 3,900 people, according to the latest toll from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project.

More than 2.6 million people have been internally displaced, mostly from Khartoum, the International Organisation for Migration said.

Thousands who remain in the capital, particularly in Khartoum North, are trapped at home without water since the local water station was damaged at the start of the war.

Residents say there is only intermittent electricity and food has nearly run out.

Across the country, about one-third of the population already faced hunger even before the war began, said the UN's World Food Programme. Despite the security challenges, the agency says it has reached more than 1.4 million people with emergency food aid as needs intensify.

"With the fighting, there is no market any more and anyway we have no money," said another resident of Khartoum North, Essam Abbas.

To help them, the local "resistance committee", a pro-democracy neighbourhood group, issued its emergency appeal.

"We have to support each other, give food and money and distribute to those around us," the committee wrote on Facebook.

In adjacent Omdurman, Khartoum's other battle-scarred sister city, locally known violinist Khaled Senhouri "died from hunger" last week, his friends wrote on Facebook.

In his own online posts, Senhouri had said he was unable to leave home because of the fighting and had tried to hang on with the supplies that he had. It wasn't enough.

WAD MADANI, Sudan — At least 20 Sudanese civilians have been killed by rocket fire on residential areas of one of Darfur's main cities and by shelling near hospitals in North Kordofan state, lawyers and medics said on Saturday.

The doctors' union said that since on Friday morning shells had struck near four hospitals in the North Kordofan state capital El Obeid, killing four civilians and wounding 45.

In the South Darfur state capital Nyala, the local lawyers' union said that rocket fire had killed 16 civilians.

The Darfur region, already ravaged by brutal conflict in the early 2000s, has seen some of the worst of the violence since fighting erupted in mid-April between Sudanese rival generals vying for power.

"During an exchange of rocket fire between the army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), 16 civilians were killed on Friday, according to a preliminary toll," the lawyers' union said.

And at least one man was killed by a sniper, it added.

In the West Darfur capital of El Geneina, near Chad, snipers have reportedly been targeting residents from rooftops since fighting began, and tens of thousands have fled across the border.

The war, which broke out in the capital Khartoum on April 15 and spread to Darfur later that month, has left at least 3,000 dead across Sudan, according to a conservative estimate.

It pits army chief Abdel Fattah Al Burhan against his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, commander of the paramilitary RSF.

Fighting in Darfur, an RSF stronghold, has recently concentrated around Nyala, after brutal clashes in El Geneina where the United Nations had reported atrocities.

Battles have also continued in and around Khartoum. Residents reported on Saturday the first army air strikes on villages in the Al Jazirah state, just south of the capital.

The fertile land between the White Nile and Blue Nile rivers now hosts several hundred thousands of the estimated 3.3 million people the war has displaced.

If fighting expands into Al Jazirah, they may be forced to flee again.

The humanitarian workers who support them would have to move as well, but fear the many bureaucratic challenges in relocating their operations.

Analysts say both warring sides would like to see the battlefield expand.

"The RSF has held the upper hand in Khartoum since the early days of the war, but that advantage is only growing more apparent," the International Crisis Group (ICG) think tank said.

The army on July 15 launched a major offensive in North Khartoum, flattening entire suburban neighbourhoods with air raids, "but it failed spectacularly", the ICG said.

The RSF, meanwhile, are trying to seize the main Darfur-Khartoum road to ensure a constant supply of fighters and weapons.

Both Burhan and Daglo have representatives in Saudi Arabia, where truce talks have in theory been taking place.

But on Friday, the government in Khartoum denied "any information concerning a near truce".

NABLUS, Palestinian Territories — Israeli forces shot dead on Thursday a Palestinian near a Jewish shrine in the occupied West Bank city of Nablus, Palestinian officials said, as the army claimed troops had come under attack.

"A citizen was killed by the occupation [Israeli] bullets in Nablus," the Palestinian ministry said in a statement, adding three others were wounded and taken to hospital.

The statement did not elaborate on the identity of the deceased.

The Israeli forces said their forces had "operated to secure the coordinated entrance of Israeli civilians to Joseph's Tomb in the city of Nablus".

The Israeli forces regularly escort Jewish pilgrims to the holy site, while Palestinians claim the visits are a provocation.

The army added that "armed Palestinians burned tyres, hurled explosive devices and rocks, and fired towards the security forces".

"The forces responded with live fire and riot dispersal means," the Israeli statement said.

There was no immediate word on any casualties on the Israeli side.

The incident came amid rising tensions in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since the 1967 Six-Day War.

The territory has seen recently a string of Palestinian attacks targeting Israeli forces or settlers, and violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinians.

Witnesses in Nablus told AFP dozens of Palestinians set fire to tires and threw explosive devices and stones at soldiers escorting a group of Israelis to the religious site on the city's outskirts.

The pilgrims were headed to the revered tomb — a site of frequent violence — believed to be the final resting place of the biblical Patriarch Joseph.

Violence linked to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict this year has killed at least 196 Palestinians, 27 Israelis, one Ukrainian and one Italian, according to an AFP tally compiled from official sources from both sides.

They include, on the Palestinian side, combatants and civilians, and on the Israeli side, mostly civilians and three members of the Arab minority.

The West Bank is home to nearly 3 million Palestinians, as well as around 490,000 Israelis who live in settlements considered illegal under international law.

BAGHDAD — Iraq on Thursday expelled Sweden's ambassador after a man stomped on a copy of the Koran at a Stockholm demonstration just hours after the Swedish embassy in Baghdad was torched over the planned protest.

Sweden-based Iraqi refugee Salwan Momika, 37, stomped and kicked the Koran but left the protest without burning it, just weeks after he set fire to pages of the book outside Stockholm's main mosque.

Sweden and other European countries have previously seen protests where far-right and other activists, citing free speech protections, damage or destroy religious symbols or books, commonly sparking protests and heightening diplomatic tensions.

Around the time of Thursday's protest in Stockholm, Iraqi Prime Minister Mohamed Shia Al Sudani "instructed the Swedish ambassador in Baghdad to leave Iraqi territory", according to a statement by his office.

It said the decision was "prompted by the Swedish government's repeated permission for the burning of the holy Koran, insulting Islamic sanctities and the burning of the Iraqi flag".

Overnight protesters had breached and set fires within the compound of the Swedish embassy in Baghdad and clashed with riot police, prompting an emergency meeting with the prime minister.

The Iraqi government strongly condemned the embassy attack but also issued a warning to Sweden if it allowed the second Koran burning protest to go forward.

Baghdad had informed Stockholm “that any recurrence of the incident involving the burning of the Holy Koran on Swedish soil would necessitate severing diplomatic relations”, according to a statement from Sudani’s office.

Swedish police had granted a permit for the protest in line with Swedish legislation on the rights to freedom of assembly and speech.

“The constitution states that a lot is needed to deny a person a permit for a public gathering so the day before yesterday we granted a permit for a private individual to protest,” Ola Osterling with the Stockholm police told AFP.

On June 28, Salwan Momika also burnt pages of the Koran, outside a Stockholm mosque, sparking a wave of indignation and anger across the Muslim world.

Hundreds massed at the Baghdad embassy, as they had done in response to the previous Stockholm protest, scaled the walls and torched parts of it.

Rock-throwing protesters then clashed with Iraqi riot police who used electric batons and water cannon to disperse them.

One protester, Hassan Ahmed, told AFP that “we mobilised today to denounce the burning of the Koran, which is all about love and faith”.

Some raised the Koran in the air, others held up portraits of Sadr and of his late father, Mohamed Al Sadr, a revered cleric in the majority Shiite country.

Calm has returned by morning, when police blocked the road leading to the embassy, and the full extent of the fire damage was not yet clear.

Sweden’s foreign ministry told AFP that all of its employees in Baghdad were “safe” during the unrest.

Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom later said Iraq’s charge d’affaires would be summoned.

“What has happened is completely unacceptable and the government condemns these attacks in the strongest terms,” he said in a statement.

“Iraqi authorities have an unequivocal obligation to protect diplomatic missions and personnel under the Vienna Convention.”

Sudani “strongly condemned burning the Swedish embassy in Baghdad, viewing it as a serious security breach requiring immediate action”, the Iraqi government statement said.

“Those accountable for security must be held responsible,” it added, as an Iraqi security source told AFP about 20 protesters had been taken into custody.

Iraq also said it “reaffirms its commitment to ensuring the security and protection of all diplomatic missions, vowing to confront any attacks targeted at them”.

Momika staged his previous Koran burning in front of Stockholm’s largest mosque during Eid Al Adha, a holiday celebrated by Muslims around the world.

That incident prompted followers of Sadr to briefly storm the Swedish embassy in Baghdad the following day.

The powerful cleric has repeatedly mobilised thousands of demonstrators.

WAD MADANI, Sudan — Air strikes, street battles and artillery fire shook Sudan's capital Khartoum and the major southern city of El Obeid on Thursday, witnesses told AFP.

"Artillery fire targeted paramilitary bases of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF)," said a resident of El Obeid, 350 kilometres  southwest of Khartoum.

Fighting between the RSF and the regular army, led by feuding generals, has killed at least 3,000 people and displaced more than 3.3 million since April 15.

Army jets on Thursday were striking paramilitaries, who were responding with anti-aircraft fire, said another El Obeid resident, who asked not to be named for security reasons.

In Khartoum's south, witnesses reported three air raids in the early morning.

"The blasts were terrifying," one of them told AFP.

The army on Wednesday accused the RSF of targeting a residential area of the capital in a drone strike that left "14 civilians dead and 15 injured".

Residents told AFP at least 13 civilians were killed.

The conflict pits army chief Abdel Fattah Al Burhan against his former deputy, RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Daglo.

'Victory or martyrdom' 

Burhan on Tuesday appeared in rare video footage shortly after an audio recording of Daglo was released.

In the video clip of less than one minute, Burhan, carrying a pistol and an automatic rifle, and donning a T-shirt and cargo pants, is seen in the army headquarters as he greets the army top brass.

The massive complex in central Khartoum has been the site of frequent clashes between the warring sides.

Daglo was last seen in a short video clip the paramilitaries shot in the early days of the conflict that is now in its fourth month.

But he has released several audio recordings since, the latest on Monday evening in which he told Sudanese he was willing to "choose peace" but remained "ready for war".

The combatants loyal to him would fight until "victory or martyrdom", Daglo said.

The RSF chief also mentioned the vast western region of Darfur, which in the early 2000s saw a bloody war and which has been hit by some of the worst violence in the new conflict.

The paramilitaries have labelled the Darfur bloodshed “tribal conflicts”, while rights campaigners blame the RSF and allied Arab militias for reported atrocities including rape, looting and the mass killings of ethnic minorities.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has opened a new probe into alleged war crimes in Darfur, its Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan said last week.

He warned against “allowing history to repeat itself” in Darfur, where 300,000 people were killed in a conflict from 2003 that led the ICC to charge former leader Omar al-Bashir with genocide.