Region

MOGADISHU — Somalia's parliament elected a veteran politician as speaker of the lower house on Thursday, as the fragile nation edges closer to holding a delayed presidential vote.

The election is well over a year behind schedule, marred by deadly violence and a power struggle between the current president and the prime minister.

Somalia's international partners have been pushing for the process to pick up speed, fearing the delays were distracting from the country's myriad problems including the fight against Al Shabaab insurgents and the threat of famine.

Following the election of the upper house speaker on Tuesday, lawmakers in the lower house chose Sheikh Adan Mohamed Nur, better known as Sheikh Adan Madobe, as speaker in a drawn-out process that extended into two rounds and only concluded in the early hours of Thursday.

The vote took place in a tent inside Mogadishu's heavily-guarded airport complex under tight security, following a spate of attacks in recent weeks by Al Shabaab which has been waging an insurgency against the government for more than a decade.

It had been due to take place on Wednesday but was delayed by a dispute over who should provide security at the venue, highlighting the continuing rifts between President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, better known as Farmajo, and Prime Minister Mohamed Hussein Roble.

Madobe, 66, who had previously served as speaker between 2007 and 2010, secured 163 votes out of the 252 ballots cast. He is not known to be allied with either the president or prime minister.

Farmajo congratulated Madobe, saying in a statement that he hoped his election “becomes a starting point for a greater change that saves the country”.

Roble also offered his congratulations on Twitter, urging the speakers of both houses to “carry out their responsibilities and conduct the presidential election in a transparent, prompt and peaceful manner”.

On Tuesday, 76-year-old Abdi Hashi Abdullahi was reelected speaker of the upper house.

Parliament will now set a date for lawmakers to choose a president — the country has not held a one-person, one-vote election in 50 years.

Farmajo’s mandate expired in February 2021 but in the absence of agreement on elections, he tried to extend his rule by decree, sparking violent street battles in Mogadishu.

Under pressure from the international community, he appointed Roble to seek consensus on a way forward.

But the pair’s disagreements have hindered progress and stoked fears of further instability.

In addition, a crucial IMF three-year $400 million (380 million euros) financial assistance package for Somalia will automatically expire in mid-May if a new administration is not in place.

‘Exercise restraint’ 

On Wednesday, Somalia’s international backers warned that “political tensions and security incidents must not be permitted to disrupt [the election’s] final stages”.

“We urge all Somali leaders to exercise restraint, resolve differences through compromise and avoid escalation of any incidents.”

Polls in Somalia follow a complex indirect model, whereby state legislatures and clan delegates pick lawmakers for the national parliament, who in turn choose the president.

The voting process has seen a number of attacks by the Al Qaeda-linked Al Shabaab which frequently strikes at civilian, military and government targets in Somalia’s capital and elsewhere in the country.

The militants controlled Mogadishu until 2011 when they were pushed out by an African Union force, but still hold territory in the countryside.

RIYADH — The Saudi-led military coalition fighting Yemen's Houthi insurgents announced on Thursday it would free 163 rebel prisoners, a gesture it said was part of efforts to end the brutal seven-year war.

The move came after a Houthi official called this week for both sides to release 200 prisoners before the coming Eid Al Fitr celebrations, marking the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, and several weeks into a fragile truce that has raised hopes of a lasting ceasefire.

"The leadership of the joint forces of the coalition will release 163 Houthi prisoners who participated in the hostilities against the kingdom's lands, as a humanitarian initiative," coalition spokesman Turki Al Malki said in a statement carried by Saudi state media.

Coalition leaders were finalising steps to release the prisoners in coordination with the International Committee of the Red Cross, and the prisoners will be transferred to Yemen's Houthi-controlled capital Sanaa, he said.

The conflict, pitting Yemen's Saudi-backed government against the Houthis, has killed hundreds of thousands of people, and pushed the country to the brink of famine.

It has also featured Houthi strikes on neighbouring Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

But a renewable two-month truce that went into effect in early April has provided a rare respite from violence in much of the country, and has also seen oil tankers begin arriving at the port of Hodeida, potentially easing fuel shortages in Sanaa and elsewhere.

Dire humanitarian crisis 

The truce also involved a deal to resume commercial flights out of Sanaa's airport for the first time in six years, though the inaugural flight planned for Sunday was postponed indefinitely, with each side blaming the other for holding it up.

In late March, just before the truce took effect, the Huthis said they had agreed to a prisoner swap that would free 1,400 of their fighters in exchange for 823 pro-government personnel — including 16 Saudis and three Sudanese.

The last such swap was in October 2020, when 1,056 prisoners were released on each side, according to the Red Cross.

On Saturday, Houthi media reported the rebels had released 42 prisoners.

A Houthi official said they had “presented a new offer to the forces of aggression... which stipulates the release of 200 prisoners from each party before the blessed Eid Al Fitr”.

The Houthis took over Sanaa in 2014, prompting the Saudi-led military intervention to support the government the following year and igniting a war that has caused what the United Nations terms the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

KHARTOUM — Fighting in Sudan's troubled Darfur region has killed more than 200 people in recent days, with the UN human rights chief saying she was "appalled" at the spike in violence.

Members of the Massalit community and Arab fighters have clashed since Friday in and around the West Darfur state capital El Geneina, the latest ethnic violence in the vast, arid and impoverished region long awash with guns.

The fighting, which comes as Sudan grapples with the fallout from a coup six months ago led by army chief Abdel Fattah Al Burhan, has seen hospitals attacked, a police station destroyed and a market burned to the ground, according to the United Nations.

At least 213 people have been killed in three days of violence, according to an official toll from the governor of West Darfur state. The clashes have centred on Krink, a locality of nearly 500,000 people some 1,100 kilometres west of Sudan's capital Khartoum.

West Darfur governor Khamees Abkar called the destruction and death a "massive crime", noting that 201 people were killed and 103 wounded on Sunday alone, in a video published late Tuesday.

It is the latest in several rounds of recent inter-communal clashes, pitting the Massalit — largely settled farmers — against semi-nomadic Arab pastoralist groups.

'Mass casualties' 

"I am appalled," the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet said in a statement Wednesday, demanding "impartial and independent" investigations into the attacks.

"I am concerned that this region continues to see repeated, serious incidents of intercommunal violence, with mass casualties," she said.

Heavy fighting initially erupted on Friday when at least eight people were killed in the Krink region, with gunmen attacking Massalit villages in retaliation for the killing of two comrades, according to the General Coordination for Refugees and Displaced in Darfur, an independent aid group.

The UN said more than 1,000 armed members of the Arab Rizeigat community then swept into the town.

Many militia fighters in the region are heavily armed, often driving pickup trucks mounted with machine guns.

Krink town "was completely destroyed including government institutions," state governor Abkar said. "It is a crime against humanity."

The governor lashed out at government forces tasked with securing Krink and its environs for "withdrawing without any justification" as the main attacks began early Sunday.

The UN humanitarian agency OCHA, quoting local sources, said that the police station in Krink was set on fire, the hospital attacked, and the market was “looted and burned”.

Food aid handouts for more than 60,000 people by the UN’s World Food Programme have been suspended.

“Nearby villages have also been attacked,” the UN added.

Fighting on Monday spread to the state capital El Geneina, where more deaths were reported.

Janjaweed militia accused 

Doctors Without Borders, known by the French acronym MSF, said on Tuesday that several medical workers were killed in the fighting when hospitals were attacked.

“MSF teams have not been able to reach the health facilities we support nor conduct mobile clinic activities,” the aid group said in a statement.

Conflict in Darfur erupted in 2003, when ethnic minority rebels took up arms, complaining of discrimination by the Arab-dominated government of then-president Omar Al Bashir.

Khartoum responded by unleashing the Janjaweed, mainly recruited from Arab pastoralist tribes, who were blamed for atrocities including murder, rape, looting and burning villages.

The scorched-earth campaign left 300,000 people dead and displaced 2.5 million, according to the United Nations.

While the main rebel groups signed a 2020 peace deal, deadly clashes still erupt over land and livestock, as well as access to water and grazing.

In the most recent fighting, witnesses have accused the Janjaweed militia of orchestrating the violence.

According to rights groups, many of the Janjaweed’s members were integrated into the feared paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, commanded by Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, now de facto deputy leader of Sudan.

The Darfur Bar Association, a local civil society group, has called on the UN Security Council to help stem the violence, in a statement condemning the “arbitrary killing of children, women and the elderly”.

At the request of the Sudanese government, a joint UN and African Union mission, UNAMID, ended 13 years of peacekeeping operations in December 2020.

JENIN, Palestinian Territories — Israeli occupation forces killed a Palestinian man in the West Bank flashpoint city of Jenin on Wednesday.

The occupation forces claimed that during the operation at Jenin's refugee camp, troops used "live ammunition" after being targeted with gunfire and explosives by Palestinian "rioters".

The Palestinian health ministry identified the man killed as Ahmad Massad, 18, from Burqin village in the north of the occupied West Bank. He was shot in the head, a hospital official told the official Palestinian news agency WAFA.

The army said 12 people were arrested in the overnight raids at several West Bank locations. The Palestinian Prisoner's Club group put the number of arrests at 17.

More than a thousand people gathered for Massad's funeral in Burqin, and masked gunmen fired volleys into the air as his body was taken from his family home.

A band with the logo of the Palestinian armed movement Islamic Jihad was wrapped around his forehead.

Israeli forces have stepped up operations in recent weeks in the West Bank, particularly around Jenin, where there are active fighters from several Palestinian armed groups.

During the overnight operation, the forces said they also delivered a demolition notice to Hazem’s family home.

The destruction of assailants’ homes is a common Israeli practice, and condemned by critics as an illegal form of collective punishment.

Hours after the demolition notice was handed over, the father appeared in a video that then circulated widely in Palestinian media.

He accused Israel of labelling all Palestinian youths as “terrorists” and told a small crowd, speaking at an unknown location, that “we will defeat them, God willing and soon”.

Confrontations between Israeli forces and Palestinians are common in the West Bank, a territory occupied by Israel since 1967.

Violence has intensified in the territory and in Israel, at a time the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and the Jewish holiday of Passover overlapped this month.

A total of 26 Palestinians and three Israeli Arabs have died.

Massad’s death follows that of another Palestinian killed on Tuesday, when Israeli forces stormed a West Bank refugee camp near Jericho.

Violent confrontations have also rocked Al Aqsa Mosque compound in Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem, sparking fears of another conflict after last year’s 11-day war between Israel and armed groups in the Gaza Strip.

Following Al Aqsa confrontations, isolated rocket fire towards Israel from the Gaza Strip resumed, prompting Israeli reprisals on targets linked to Hamas, the Islamist group which controls the coastal enclave.

Palestinians have been angered by an uptick in Jewish visits to Al Aqsa Compound, Islam’s third-holiest site. 

In an apparent attempt to ease tensions, Foreign Minister Yair Lapid said Sunday that Israel was committed to the “status quo” at Al Aqsa, meaning an adherence to long-standing convention allowing Jews to visit the compound but not pray there.

Concerns of fresh Al Aqsa confrontations are building, though, ahead of Friday prayers at the compound, with the end of Ramadan approaching in early May.

The Palestinian movement Islamic Jihad in a statement Wednesday called on followers “to escalate the resistance in all its forms”.

KHARTOUM — At least 213 people were killed in three days of violence between Arab and non-Arab groups in Sudan’s West Darfur, the state governor said, giving the first official toll for recent clashes.

West Darfur has been gripped by days of deadly fighting largely centred in Krink, a locality of nearly 500,000 people and mostly inhabited by the African Massalit tribe.

“This massive crime left around 201 killed and 103 wounded” on Sunday alone, said West Darfur governor Khamees Abkar in a video published late Tuesday.

The violence first broke out on Friday and escalated when armed men attacked villages of the non-Arab Massalit in retaliation for the killing of two tribesmen, according to the General Coordination for Refugees and Displaced in Darfur, an independent aid group.

At least eight people were killed on Friday, Abkar said, confirming a death toll for that day already reported by the aid group.

The state governor blamed government forces tasked with securing Krink and its environs for “withdrawing without any justification” as the main attacks began early Sunday.

Krink town “was completely destroyed including government institutions”, Abkar said. “It is a crime against humanity.”

The fighting on Monday spread to Geneina, the provincial capital of West Darfur.

Witnesses have accused the Janjaweed militia of orchestrating the violence.

The Janjaweed was an Arab militia which gained notoriety for its role in the repression of an ethnic minority rebellion in Darfur in the early 2000s under then autocrat Omar Al Bashir.

According to rights groups, many of its members were later integrated into the feared paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, commanded by Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, now de facto deputy leader of Sudan.

The General Coordination for Refugees and Displaced in Darfur on Monday reported a combined death toll of 180 for the fighting around Krink and in Geneina, including four killed in the state capital on Monday.

Abkar on Wednesday confirmed to AFP that four were killed on Monday, taking the total toll to at least 213.

On Tuesday, Doctors Without Borders, known by the French acronym MSF, said several medical workers were killed in the fighting as hospitals were attacked.

Consequently, “MSF teams have not been able to reach the health facilities we support nor conduct mobile clinic activities” in Geneina and cannot return to Krink, the aid group said in a statement.

The conflict in Darfur that began in 2003 killed more than 300,000 people and displaced 2.5 million, according to the UN.

The region remains awash with weapons and has seen a renewed spike in deadly violence in recent months triggered by disputes mainly over land, livestock and access to water and grazing.

The latest violence comes as Sudan grapples with fallout from a coup in October last year led by army chief Abdel Fattah Al Burhan.

BEIRUT — Lebanon's government on Tuesday tasked the armed forces with investigating how an overpacked migrant boat capsized, a tragedy some survivors have blamed on the military.

At least six people were killed late Saturday in the Mediterranean Sea off the northern port city of Tripoli in the country's deadliest such maritime incident in years.

The circumstances were not entirely clear, with some on board claiming the navy rammed their boat, while officials have insisted the smugglers attempted reckless escape manoeuvres.

The government in an emergency session "tasked army command with conducting a transparent investigation into the circumstances behind the incident under the supervision of the relevant judicial authority", said Information Minister Ziad Makari.

The announcement came after survivors took to TV stations and social media to accuse the military of insulting passengers aboard the vessel and then deliberately cracking its hull.

The disaster ignited widespread public anger just weeks before May 15 parliamentary elections in the small country hit by a severe economic crisis in recent years.

The Lebanese armed forces said 48 people were rescued, but it has remained unclear exactly how many would-be asylum seekers were crammed onto the boat when it set off.

The United Nations refugee agency UNHCR said the boat was carrying at least 84 people when it capsized about 5.5 kilometres off the coast.

Families have reported at least 23 still missing, all women and children, according to Tripoli Port Director Ahmad Tamer.

They include seven Syrians and two Palestinians, Tamer said.

Lebanon was once a transit point for asylum seekers from elsewhere in the Middle East who were hoping to reach the European Union island state of Cyprus, 175 kilometres away.

However, Lebanon's unprecedented economic crisis that has plunged millions into poverty is driving growing numbers of its citizens to also attempt the perilous crossing.

The UN says more than 1,500 people have tried to leave Lebanon illegally by sea since the start of 2021.