Region

TEHRAN — Iran, largely shunned by western tourists, is making a push to attract visitors from wealthy Gulf Arab states and other nearby countries to boost its sanctions-hit economy.

The Islamic republic is also drawing more visitors from Russia and China to its ancient sites that date back to the Persian empire and the fabled Silk Road, industry figures say.

Iran’s Beijing-brokered diplomatic thaw this year with Saudi Arabia paved the way for direct flights, and Tehran is also seeking closer ties with other countries from Egypt to Morocco.

The slow but steady change is noticable at major tourist sights where more visitors can now be heard speaking not English, French or German, but Arabic, Chinese and Russian.

“In the past, we were receiving many tourists from Europe but now those numbers have seen a sharp decline,” said one Tehran travel agency owner, 46-year-old Hamid Shateri.

Europeans are “afraid of visiting Iran”, he said, after years of tensions over the country’s contested nuclear programme and after Western government warnings against travelling there.

“These days, mostly Chinese and Russian people visit Iran’s historical sites and spectacular scenery and Arab tourists, especially from Iraq, come to attend religious ceremonies.”

Years of isolation 

Iran has long attracted foreign visitors with its ancient splendours including the cities of Shiraz, Isfahan and Mashhad and its 2,500-year-old Persepolis complex.

It has deserts and snow-capped mountains as well as Gulf and Caspian Sea coastlines, and prides itself on its cuisine and tradition of hospitality.

A steady stream of mainly European visitors long kept coming despite the strict dress code for women and bans on alcohol and nightlife after the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

As the largest Shiite Muslim power, Iran also hosts a steady stream of religious pilgrims, many from neighbouring Iraq, to its ancient shrine cities of Mashhad and Qom.

There were high hopes for a lucrative boost to tourism after Iran and major powers struck a landmark deal in 2015 to restrict its nuclear programme in return for sanctions relief.

But those hopes were dashed three years later when the then US president Donald Trump unilaterally pulled out of the agreement.

Bad news has spiralled since, including the COVID pandemic that hit Iran early and hard.

Last year, mass protests rocked the country, sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini after her arrest for allegedly flouting the dress rules, before authorities put down the women-led “riots”, which they blamed on hostile forces abroad.

Iran has also jailed several Europeans, prompting multiple Western countries to advise their citizens against all travel there, many citing the risk of “arbitrary detention”.

Last year Iran attracted 4.1 million foreigners — less than half the figure for 2019 and accounting for just 0.4 per cent of tourist trips worldwide, says the UN World Tourism Organisation.

Tehran has now launched a push to rebuild tourism, including by drawing people from the United Arab Emirates and Qatar to the Gulf islands of Kish and Qeshm, which boast beaches, luxury hotels and cheap shopping.

Renewed push Iran has also sought to attract more visitors from neighbouring Armenia and Azerbaijan, despite recent tensions between Baku and Tehran.

“Setting up tourism exhibitions in other countries, advertising through their media and hosting international events are among the programmes to promote tourism,” said Majid Kiani, the CEO of northwest Iran’s Aras Free Zone.

UNESCO last month added the region’s colourful Aras rock formations to its Global Geoparks network.

The area around the geological park, also hailed for its diverse ecosystem, hosted “more than 1.2 million tourists” during this year’s Nowruz new year season, Kiani said.

Armenians are now visiting the 9th-century monastery of Saint Stepanos, a UNESCO World Heritage site with vivid murals of biblical scenes and ornate facades.

“Many Armenian tourists come to visit the historic church,” said local Archbishop Krikor Chiftjian, prelate of the Diocese of the Iranian provinces of East and West Azerbaijan.

Tourism analyst Babak Babali said there was much potential, given that in the 2010s Azerbaijanis routinely visited the region for healthcare, creating “a sizeable medical tourism industry”.

More broadly, some observers see signs of easing tensions, pointing to Iran’s recent release of several European prisoners, although others remain in detention.

Babali said that, while “these steps signal Tehran’s intention to deescalate tensions, it will take a while before this gets reflected in the number of tourists from Europe”.

Shateri, the Tehran tour guide, also said Iran has some way to go before western visitors return in great numbers.

“Iran needs to improve its international relations and show the world that it has a peace-seeking nature if it wants to attract more tourists,” he said.

DOHA — Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida visited gas-rich Qatar on Tuesday to wrap up a Gulf tour centred on energy security and cooperation with Tokyo's main suppliers.

He was making the first visit to Doha by a Japanese premier in 10 years.

Kishida arrived in Qatar from the United Arab Emirates after starting his tour in Saudi Arabia where he met the de facto leader, Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman.

During his tour, Kishida and Gulf leaders discussed "how to deal with energy challenges" in the face of unstable supply due to Russia's Ukraine invasion, the prime minister told a Doha press conference. 

Japan relies almost entirely on imports for its crude oil, with Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar accounting for the bulk of its supplies.

But as the oil-producing Gulf states move towards cleaner energy sources, Japan said it is hoping to offer its greener and renewable energy technologies to assist their decarbonisation efforts.

"By combining respective strengths of Gulf states and Japan, oil producers in the Middle East will be transformed to global green energy hubs, exporting decarbonised energy and critical minerals," Kishida told reporters.

"Cooperation will be enhanced in respect to the production of hydrogen, ammonium," and decarbonisation technology, said the prime minister, the first from Japan to make a Gulf tour since Shinzo Abe in 2020.

'Energy security' 

Earlier on Tuesday, Kishida and Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al Thani discussed "developments related to energy security and supplies," the Qatari leader said in a statement.

The Doha visit comes with Japanese companies negotiating new long-term LNG supply contracts with Qatar, according to Bloomberg.

It said Japan's LNG importers have not signed a contract with Qatar since 2014, and that Qatari LNG deliveries to Tokyo dropped by more than 60 per cent last year.

Japan’s top LNG importer, Jera, did not renew contracts that expired in 2021 for gas supply of 5.5 million tonnes per year, Bloomberg said.

Since Russia’s Ukraine invasion Japan has faced “potential LNG disruption”, said Takafumi Yanagisawa, a researcher with Japan’s Institute of Energy Economics.

“Japan needs to secure more LNG from Qatar,” he told AFP, arguing that a deal would provide Tokyo with “stable and reliable LNG supply”.

China has inked some of the industry’s longest-running contracts with Qatar. Last month, Doha announced a 27-year deal to supply 4 million tonnes annually to the China National Petroleum Corporation.

It matches the terms of a November deal with China’s Sinopec as the longest ever seen in the industry.

China, Japan, South Korea and other Asian countries are the main market for Qatari gas, which has been increasingly sought by European countries too since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine early last year.

By expanding activities at North Field, which has the world’s biggest natural gas reserves and extends under the Gulf into Iranian territory, Qatar expects to raise its LNG production by at least 60 per cent, taking it to 126 million tonnes a year by 2027.

BAGHDAD — Despite punishingly high temperatures, dozens of Iraqis took to the streets of Baghdad on Tuesday to protest water and electricity shortages, and to blame Turkey for reduced flow of rivers.

Designated by the United Nations as one of the five countries in the world most touched by some effects of climate change, Iraq is experiencing its fourth consecutive summer of drought.

“We have come to peacefully protest and demand water from the government and the source countries,” Najeh Jawda Khalil told AFP around midday as temperatures neared 50ºC.

“The agricultural regions and marshes are gone,” said Khalil, who travelled to the Iraqi capital from the central province of Babylon for the march. “There is neither electricity nor water.”

In addition to declining rainfall and rising temperatures, Iraqi authorities say upstream dam construction by Turkey and Iran has affected the volume of water in the Tigris and Euphrates rivers through Iraq.

“If the Turkish government continues to deprive Iraqis of water, we will move towards internationalising the water problem and boycotting Turkish products,” read a sign at the demonstration.

Summer in Iraq is a prime example of the convergence of multiple crises weighing down the lives of the 43-million strong population: rising temperatures, severe water shortages and a dilapidated electricity sector — exacerbated by rampant corruption and public mismanagement.

“Twenty years and the electricity crisis repeats itself every year,” read another banner, referring to the time passed since the fall of Saddam Hussein in a US-led invasion.

Ravaged by decades of conflict, oil-rich Iraq relies on Iranian gas imports for a third of its energy needs.

Generally, power cuts can last up to 10 hours a day. But every summer when the thermometer climbs, the supply of public electricity worsens.

Only those who can afford it are able to connect their houses to neighbourhood generators to make up for the poor supply.

Water shortages have fuelled tensions between Turkey and Iraq, which demands Ankara release more water from upstream dams along the rivers.

“Currently, Iraq only receives 35 per cent of its water rights. This means that Iraq has lost 65 per cent of its water, whether it’s from the Tigris or the Euphrates,” Khaled Chamal, the spokesman for the Ministry of Water Resources, has told AFP.

In the summer of 2022, the Turkish ambassador to Baghdad sparked outrage after accusing Iraqis of wasting water and urging “the modernisation of irrigation systems”.

Experts say he may have a point. Iraqi farmers flood their fields, rather than irrigate them which is more efficient.

TRIPOLI — An Arab rights group called on Monday for international help for 360 sub-Saharan migrants who Libyan authorities say were rescued after having been abandoned in the desert by Tunisian police on the border with Libya.

The Cairo-based Arab Organisation for Human Rights (AOHR) said it welcomed Libya's reception of the migrants who had "experienced difficult humanitarian conditions" before being picked up by Libyan border guards.

"According to Libyan border guards, 360 migrants including women and children need urgent humanitarian and medical aid," the AOHR's Libya chapter said, urging Libyan authorities to "authorise the concerned organisations — the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and the International Organisation for Migration [IOM] — to meet them and help with legal procedures".

The IOM in Libya said on Monday it had provided "emergency humanitarian assistance to migrants rescued at the border with Tunisia".

It said "191 migrants were provided with hygiene kits, clothes, mattresses & screened for medical, protection and psychosocial assistance".

Libya's interior ministry said on Monday it had "documented the expulsions by the Tunisian authorities towards the Libyan border" and posted a video on Facebook showing migrants telling their stories.

On Sunday, Libyan border patrols rescued dozens of migrants who had been abandoned in the desert without water, food or shelter near the border with Tunisia, AFP journalists said.

The migrants, whom the border guards said had been abandoned by Tunisian police, were found in an uninhabited area near Al Assah 150 kilometres west of Tripoli and around 15 kilometres inside Libyan territory.

An AFP team at the border saw the visibly exhausted and dehydrated migrants sitting or lying on the sand and using shrubs to try to shield themselves from scorching summer heat that topped 40°C. 

Hundreds of migrants from sub-Saharan African countries were forcibly taken to desert and hostile areas bordering Libya and Algeria after racial unrest in early July in Sfax, Tunisia's second-largest city.

The trouble flared after the July 3 killing of a Tunisian man in an altercation between locals and migrants.

The port of Sfax is a departure point for many migrants from impoverished and violence-torn countries seeking a better life in Europe by making a perilous Mediterranean crossing.

The Tunisian Red Crescent said it has provided shelter to at least 630 migrants who had been taken after July 3 to the militarised border zone of Ras Jedir, north of Al Assah, on the Mediterranean coast.

On Sunday, Tunisia and the European Union signed a memorandum of understanding for a “strategic and comprehensive partnership” that includes financial assistance of 10 million euros to help deal with irregular migration.

DUBAI — Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Monday discussed clean energy cooperation with top officials during a visit to the UAE, host of this year's UN climate talks.

Kishida's visit to the United Arab Emirates, which will host COP28 in November-December, is part of the first Gulf tour by a Japanese premier since the late Shinzo Abe in 2020.

Japan relies almost entirely on imports for its crude oil, with Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar accounting for the bulk of its supplies.

But as the oil-producing Gulf states move towards cleaner energy sources, especially ahead of COP28, Japan is hoping to offer its greener and renewable energy technologies to assist their decarbonisation efforts.

Kishida flew in from Saudi Arabia, where he met de facto leader Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Sunday. After talks with UAE President Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan in Abu Dhabi, he will head to Qatar on Tuesday.

On Monday, Sheikh Mohammed said he held "fruitful and constructive discussions" with Kishida in Abu Dhabi on "developing bilateral relations and advancing the comprehensive strategic partnership between our two countries".

The leaders "affirmed the commitment of both countries to enhancing cooperation on climate action, decarbonisation efforts, and clean energy in the lead-up to COP28", according to a joint statement carried by the COP28 team. 

The Japanese premier later met with COP28 president Sultan Al Jaber, who is also the head of the UAE oil giant ADNOC.

They discussed “unlocking further global cooperation to utilise more cutting-edge technologies to scale up climate action and accelerate the transition towards a net zero economy”, said a COP28 statement.

‘Decarbonisation technologies’ 

During his UAE visit, the Japanese premier plans to offer Japan’s “cutting-edge decarbonisation technologies” as part of a green energy initiative for the Middle East, he said in an open letter carried by the UAE’s official WAM news agency.

Under the initiative, the UAE and Japan “will be well placed to collaborate in the related fields of hydrogen and ammonia production and utilisation as well as carbon recycling”, Kishida added.

Shigeto Kondo, a senior researcher with The Institute of Energy Economics in Japan, said that Tokyo and Gulf states were “initiating their own strategy for carbon neutrality”.

“Japan and the Gulf states think that climate actions should be realistic, and blue hydrogen and ammonia are one of the realistic solutions to climate change for the time being,” he told AFP.

On Sunday, Kishida discussed energy security and decarbonisation with senior Saudi officials including Prince Mohammed in the Red Sea city of Jeddah.

During the meeting with Prince Mohammed, Tokyo and Saudi Arabia agreed to launch the “Lighthouse Initiative for Clean Energy Cooperation”, according to the official Saudi Press Agency. 

“The initiative will support the ongoing efforts that Saudi Arabia is undertaking to become a hub for clean energy,” said a joint statement carried by SPA on Monday.

It will focus on areas including hydrogen, ammonia, recycled carbon fuels and carbon capture technology, the statement said.

GCC trade deal 

Saudi Arabia is the biggest oil exporter to Japan, fulfilling 40 per cent of its total needs, the kingdom’s Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz Bin Salman said on Sunday.

During Kishida’s visit, Saudi Arabia and Tokyo signed 26 cooperation agreements, including in the fields of energy and green energy, according to the state-run Al Ekhbariya TV. 

The six-member Gulf Cooperation Council and Japan on Sunday also announced the resumption of Free Trade Agreement (FTA) negotiations, according to a GCC statement. 

The GCC-Japan FTA negotiations began in Tokyo in September 2006 but talks were suspended in 2009. 

Japan’s prime minister was due to visit Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar in August last year, but he postponed the trip after contracting the coronavirus. 

His visit comes at a time of deepening engagement between the region and China, which brokered a shock detente between Gulf rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran in March.

CAIRO — Sudanese refugee Mohannad had only been in Cairo a few weeks when his landlady told him he would have to pay triple the rent if he wanted to keep his apartment.

He had arrived with his wife and three children in the Egyptian capital — 2,000 kilometres north of his home in Khartoum — two weeks after the brutal war between Sudan’s rival generals broke out on April 15.

As Egypt said more than 250,000 people crossed in from Sudan — fleeing ceaseless air strikes, street battles, rampant looting and sexual violence — property owners in Cairo saw an opportunity.

Mohannad, 35, signed a six-month lease for a furnished apartment for 6,000 Egyptian pounds ($195) per month — the average monthly income for an Egyptian family, according to official figures.

But “my landlady told me that the rent had gone up to 18,000 pounds,” said Mohannad, who like others interviewed by AFP gave only his first name to protect his privacy.

At around the same time, he found out his home in the Sudanese capital had been broken into and looted.

When he refused the increase, “she said she had other Sudanese takers who were willing to pay 25,000 pounds”.

“She would cut off the electricity and water, and get her kids to throw things at us,” he said.

Fed up, Mohannad and his family eventually packed up and left.

Many others reported similar ordeals in Egypt, where its worst-ever economic crisis has pushed property owners to squeeze a profit wherever they can — including from war refugees.

‘Nothing left to rent’ 

Inflation in Egypt hit a record high of 36.8 per cent in June, and the pound has lost half its value against the US dollar since early last year.

Purchasing power in the import-dependent economy has been slashed as families struggle to make ends meet.

New arrivals face the same hardships, with realtors reporting a sharp increase in demand in the satellite city of 6 October, west of Cairo. 

Sudanese families scramble to find housing there, near the offices of the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR.

Within weeks, “there was nothing left to rent, after a period of stagnation on the local market”, said Mohamed, an independent realtor who asked to be identified by first name only, fearing scrutiny by authorities.

And rents have soared well above market prices.

“The average rent for a furnished apartment used to be 7,000-8,000 pounds, now it’s up to 10,000 and more the closer you are to the UNHCR offices,” the realtor told AFP.

Another broker, who also requested anonymity, said rent prices in the traditionally well-off neighbourhood of Heliopolis in eastern Cairo used to be similar to 6 October rates before the influx of Sudanese refugees, but within months have climbed to 12,000 pounds.

Ashraf, a Sudanese man in his 40s, managed to rent an unfurnished apartment for his family of nine in Hadayek Al Ahram, a working class neighbourhood near the Giza pyramids.

But within a week of moving in, “prices for the same type of unit had gone up from 3,500 to 5,000”, he told AFP.

‘On the street’ 

The main cause of the surge in prices across Cairo is not the arrival of many Sudanese, according to real estate market analyst Mahmud Al Lithy Nassef.

“As residents of central Cairo move out of the city to new satellite cities, they’ve converted their old units to sources of revenue,” he said.

The analyst pointed to past surges in demand.

Iraqis, Yemenis and Syrians have all flocked to Egypt to escape conflicts in their countries, and yet the local market had always stabilised, he said.

But until it does, some refugees are being left with nowhere to turn.

“I met a Sudanese woman who had been sleeping on the street with her children and her luggage,” said Mohannad, who found a flat in Hadayek Al Ahram.

“Her landlord raised the rent, she couldn’t afford it,” he told AFP.

According to Mohannad, the woman was waiting for her husband, who is one of thousands camped at a border crossing between Sudan and Egypt, waiting to be issued an entry visa.

TEHRAN — Iranian authorities have shuttered an educational centre accused of “inciting riots” during last year’s mass demonstrations triggered by the death in custody of a young woman, state media reported on Monday.

Nationwide protests rocked Iran following the September death of a 22-year-old Iranian Kurd, Mahsa Amini, in police custody after her arrest over violating the Islamic republic’s strict dress code.

“We prepared and issued a warrant for the closure of Gaj centre following the directive of the minister of education,” state news agency IRNA quoted Ahmad Mahmoudzadeh, head of Iran’s non-governmental schools, as saying.

Mahmoudzadeh said Gaj had “incited riots” during a Persian literature exam for students, without elaborating.

Iran’s reformist newspaper Shargh daily reported that Gaj had cited excerpts from revolutionary poems by prominent dissident Farrokhi Yazdi.

Gaj centre, founded in 2002, has won multiple awards over the years for its publications.

Last year’s protests saw hundreds of people killed, including dozens of security personnel, and thousands arrested in connection with what officials labelled as “riots” fomented by foreign countries after Amini’s death.

Seven men have been executed in protest-related cases involving killings and other violence against security forces.

On Sunday, Iran’s police said it has restored morality police patrols to deal with women who “insist” on violating the dress code.

TEHRAN — Iranian police on Sunday relaunched patrols to catch the increasing number of women leaving their hair uncovered in public in defiance of a strict dress code, state media reported. 

The report comes exactly 10 months after the September 16 death in custody of Mahsa Amini, 22, triggered nationwide protests and saw morality police largely disappear from the streets, while more and more women flouted the law.

Amini, an Iranian-Kurd, had been arrested by morality police for allegedly violating the dress code, which requires women to cover their head and neck in public.

While the morality police withdrew, authorities have taken other measures to enforce the law. These included the closure of businesses whose staff do not conform to the rules, and installing cameras in public places to track down offenders.

But starting Sunday, the traditional approach is being tried again, state media said.

"The police will launch car and foot patrols to warn, take legal measures, and refer to the judiciary those who disobey police orders and disregard consequences of dressing against the norms," the official IRNA news agency quoted police spokesman Saeed Montazer Almehdi as saying.

Online images have shown female police officers, clad in all-black chadors, berating and arresting women whose heads were uncovered. AFP could not independently verify the authenticity of the images.

The dress code has been in place since the aftermath of the Islamic revolution of 1979. Offenders face fines or prison terms of up to two months.

But Iran's reformist newspaper Shargh reported on Sunday that four women have received additional punishment including attending "psychological classes", and driving bans.

During the months of protest, which Tehran generally labelled as foreign-instigated "riots", thousands of Iranians were arrested and hundreds killed including dozens of security personnel.

Iran's conservatives, who dominate the country's parliament and leadership, have passionately defended the dress code but, with many Iranians demanding change, in May the judiciary and the government proposed a "Support for the Culture of Hijab and Chastity" bill, which sparked heated debate within the country.

The text proposes increased fines for "any person removing their veil in public places or on the Internet" but withdraws the threat of a prison sentence.

Within Iran's leadership "there is no consensus on the hijab", as some favour repression, while others "believe that other means must be tried", Sociologist Abbas Abdi has said.

The United States, Britain and the European Union have imposed several rounds of sanctions on Iran over its response to the protest movement.

GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories — Israel returned a boat to a Gaza fisherman it had seized for allegedly breaching the limits of the Palestinian enclave's fishing zone, an NGO said on Sunday, following an Israeli court order.

Israeli authorities had called for the vessel, belonging to fisherman Mohammad Al Hissi, to be permanently confiscated, triggering fears of more such seizures off the Gaza Strip.

But a Haifa court last month ordered that the boat be returned to Hissi even as legal proceedings continued, according to Gisha, the Israeli group defending the Gazan.

Hissi received his vessel on Friday, Gisha said.

According to Miriam Marmur, public advocacy director at Gisha, the Israeli navy had seized Hissi's boat in November 2022.

She also told AFP the navy had seized another boat belonging to Hissi's relative Jihad Al Hissi in February 2022 — but it had been released in September.

The court case against Israeli authorities demanding the two boats be permanently seized is ongoing, Marmur added.

While it ordered the boats be returned until the end of proceedings, "the court also subjected the release of the boats to onerous conditions, including a substantial financial deposit", Gisha said in a separate statement.

Mohammad Al Hissi was unreachable for comment but his relative Jihad said the court order was still "unfair".

"The decision is unfair because we paid a large amount of money in addition to our loss of not being able to fish" since the boats were seized, he told AFP.

Contacted by AFP, the Israeli forces had no immediate comment.

The navy had seized the vessels off Gaza, claiming they had breached restrictions enforced by Israel.

The authorities later called for the boats to be permanently confiscated in what Gisha said was a "first of its kind" request.

"Israel has no authority to seize boats engaging in fishing for sustenance and income in Gaza's sea space, much less to permanently confiscate them," Gisha said.

The issue is crucial for thousands in the blockaded Palestinian territory of 2.3 million people, where fishing in the Mediterranean Sea remains one of the few economic lifelines.

The fishing zone allowed by Israel currently extends only to the heavily fished areas between about 11 to 28 kilometres off the Gaza coast.

The court battle comes amid a rise in Israel’s temporary seizures of fishing boats suspected of smuggling or breaching the fishing zone.

Last year saw 23 boat confiscations, the highest number since 2018, according to the Palestinian non-governmental group Al Mezan.

Israel says its land, air, and sea blockade of Gaza is needed to protect it from rocket and other attacks from Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that rules the enclave.

Palestinians argue it is an effective siege that has crippled Gaza’s economy and further impoverished its people.

WAD MADANI, SUDAN — Air strikes pummelled Khartoum on Sunday and fighting raged in Sudan's western Darfur region, witnesses said, as a three-month war between the army and rival paramilitaries showed no signs of abating.

In the capital's east and northwest, army fighter jets "targeted bases" belonging to the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) who "responded with anti-aircraft weapons," witnesses told AFP.

RSF drones targeted Khartoum's largest military hospital, according to witnesses. A similar attack Saturday on the same facility left five dead and 22 injured, the army said.

The war between army chief Abdel Fattah Al Burhan and his former deputy, RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, has claimed at least 3,000 lives and displaced over 3 million people since it erupted on April 15.

In Darfur, a vast region which has seen some of the worst of the fighting, witnesses on Sunday reported "heavy clashes using various types of weapons" in the town of Kas.

Residents of Kas, about 80 kilometres northwest of the South Darfur state capital of Nyala, said houses were broken into and looted by RSF fighters.

The paramilitaries in a statement hailed their "victory" in the town.

Darfur, home to around a quarter of Sudan's 48 million people, has seen entire towns razed to the ground, with reports of mass civilian deaths and ethnically charged assassinations blamed on the RSF and allied Arab militias.

On Saturday, the RSF said it "categorically refutes" a recent report by Human Rights Watch that detailed the summary execution of "at least 28 ethnic Massalit" — a non-Arab minority group — and the "total destruction of the town of Misterei" in West Darfur state.

The RSF blamed the violence on “longstanding tribal conflict” and said it “strictly adheres” to “international humanitarian law”.

The paramilitary force stemmed from the Janjaweed militia, which was armed and unleashed against ethnic minority rebels in Darfur in the early 2000s.

That conflict killed more than 300,000 people and displaced 2.5 million, the UN estimates.

Atrocities committed at the time led the International Criminal Court to charge former dictator Omar Al Bashir with offenses including genocide.

The court’s chief prosecutor has launched a new investigation into suspected war crimes in the current fighting, including sexual violence and civilians being targeted for their ethnicity.