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KHARTOUM — The death toll from a crackdown on Sudanese protesters Sunday rose to two, medics said Tuesday, while a government ministry said two women were raped in the chaos.

On Monday medics had reported a first shooting death in the previous day's street violence, while the health ministry reported 125 protesters injured, many by tear gas inhalation.

On Tuesday, the independent Sudan Doctors' Committee reported the additional death. It said Abdelmoneim Mohamed Ali, 28, was killed with "a bullet in the head" in Omdurman, Khartoum's twin city.

Security forces cracked down Sunday as hundreds of thousands marched, marking three years since the start of mass demonstrations that led to the ouster of veteran strongman Omar Al Bashir.

The protesters rallied against the northeast African country's military chief General Abdel Fattah Al Burhan, who led a coup on October 25.

Nationwide, at least 47 people have been killed in street clashes in the past two months, according to the Committee.

Two women demonstrators were raped in Sunday's protest, said Suleima Ishaq, head of the Combating Violence Against Women unit at the Ministry of Social Development, without saying who were the suspected perpetrators.

"One woman filed a report with the authorities while the other woman refused taking legal steps," Ishaq told AFP.

The army on Monday insisted in a statement it supports "free and fair elections" in 2023.

However, the Forces for Freedom and Change, the umbrella group which spearheaded the protests against Bashir, has called for more demonstrations on December 25 and 30.

By Tony Gamal-Gabriel and Mohammed Salim
Agence France-Presse

MOSUL, Iraq — Left in ruins by extremists, Iraq’s once-celebrated Mosul museum and its 2,500-year-old treasures are being given a second life thanks to restoration efforts backed by French experts.

Ancient artefacts in the museum were smashed into little pieces when Daesh group fighters seized the northern city of Mosul in 2014 and made it their seat of power for three years.

“We must separate all the fragments... It’s like a puzzle, you try to retrieve the pieces that tell the same story,” said restoration worker Daniel Ibled, commissioned by France’s famous Louvre Museum, which is supporting Iraqi museum employees.

“Little by little, you manage to recreate the full set.”

When the Daesh was in control, they filmed themselves taking hammers to pre-Islamic treasures they deemed heretical, proudly advertising their rampage in a video published in February 2015.

The largest and heaviest artefacts were destroyed for the sake of their propaganda, but smaller pieces were sold on black markets the world over.

The scars of their destruction remain today.

On the ground floor of the museum, the twisted iron bars of the foundation poke through a gaping hole.

In other rooms, stones of various sizes are scattered, some bearing etchings of animal paws or wings. Others show inscriptions in cuneiform script.

The smallest of these fragments — no bigger than a fist — are lined up on a table, and experts are hard at work sorting through them.

For now, their efforts are focused on a winged lion from the city of Nimrud, jewel of the Assyrian empire, two “lamassu” — winged bulls with human heads — and the base of the throne of King Ashurnasirpal II.

Giant jigsaw puzzle 

These pieces, many dating back to the first millennium BC, are being revived with financing from the International Alliance for the Protection of Cultural Heritage in Conflict Areas (ALIPH).

Alongside the Louvre, efforts are also being made by Washington’s Smithsonian Institution, which provides training for the museum’s teams, as well as the New York-headquartered World Monuments Fund, which is tasked with restoring the building.

The base of the Assyrian king’s throne, covered in cuneiform writing, appears almost fixed.

Some pieces are held together by elastic bands or small metallic rings.

“The base of the throne was pulverised into more than 850 pieces,” said museum official Choueib Firas Ibrahim, an expert in Sumerian studies. “We have reassembled two-thirds of them.”

For some pieces, writing fragments or straight lines help the teams put them together like a giant jigsaw.

“We read the inscriptions on this base, and we were able to restore the pieces to their place,” said restorer Taha Yassin.

But other pieces without “a flat surface or inscriptions” make them virtually indistinguishable and are more complicated, Yassin added.

Empty spaces 

One year after Iraqi troops recaptured Mosul in 2017, the museum received an urgent grant in a bid to restore it to its former glory.

After delays due to the coronavirus pandemic, museum director Zaid Ghazi Saadallah said he hopes the restoration works will be finished within five years.

But many gaps will remain and posters on walls identify the lost artefacts.

“Most pieces are destroyed or looted,” Saadallah said.

Iraq has suffered for decades from the pillaging of its antiquities, particularly after the US-led invasion in 2003, as well as during the later Daesh takeover.

But the current government says it has made the repatriation of artefacts a priority.

The Louvre has tasked 20 people to help the restoration efforts, said Ariane Thomas, director of the Louvre’s Department of Near Eastern Antiquities.

After three missions this year, seven French experts will take turns visiting Iraq to help guide the restoration process, undertaken with about 10 museum employees.

Once the restoration work is complete, an online exhibition will be held to unveil the work.

“When we said that with time, money and know-how, we could revive even the most damaged of works, this proves it,” Thomas said.

“Works that were completely destroyed have started to take form once again.”

KHARTOUM — A Sudanese protester was shot dead during a "savage" crackdown on mass pro-democracy rallies on Sunday, medics said, and 125 others were injured according to the health ministry.

Security forces fired tear gas canisters, and live rounds into the air, as hundreds of thousands marched, three years since the start of mass demonstrations that led to the ouster of veteran strongman Omar Al Bashir.

On Monday, the independent Doctors' Committee said 28-year-old Majzoub Mohammad Ahmad was shot and killed with "a bullet in the chest".

Nationwide, at least 46 people have been killed and scores wounded in the past two months, according to the Committee.

The health ministry said late Sunday that "123 people were injured in Khartoum and two in Kassala", a city in the east of Sudan.

Many of the injuries were from inhalation of acrid tear gas, including during clashes between the police and protesters near the presidential palace.

Demonstrators there had chanted slogans against military chief General Abdel Fattah Al Burhan, who led a coup on October 25.

The generals had initially detained civilian leader Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok for weeks under effective house arrest, but reinstated him on November 21 and promised elections for July 2023.

But the move alienated many of Hamdok's pro-democracy supporters, who dismissed it as providing a cloak of legitimacy for Burhan's coup.

The army on Monday insisted it backed "the democratic choice for the people" and supported "free and fair elections", a spokesman said in a statement.

Security forces on Monday maintained a barricade of bridges across the Nile River linking Khartoum with the cities of Omdurman and North Khartoum.

The Forces for Freedom and Change (FFC) — an umbrella group which spearheaded the protests against Bashir — have urged people to continue to reject military power, calling for more demonstrations on December 25 and 30.

KHARTOUM — Tens of thousands of Sudanese protesters rallied Sunday to mark three years since the start of mass demonstrations that led to the ouster of Omar Al Bashir, as fears mount for the democratic transition.

Security forces fired tear gas at a huge crowd of protesters near the republican palace in the capital Khartoum, chanting slogans against the current military chief, General Abdel Fattah Al Burhan, who led a coup on October 25.

"The people want the downfall of Burhan", protesters shouted.

The generals had initially detained civilian leader Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok for weeks under effective house arrest, but reinstated him on November 21.

But the move alienated many of Hamdok's pro-democracy supporters, who dismissed it as providing a cloak of legitimacy for Burhan's coup.

Hamdok, who has argued he wants to avoid further bloodshed, warned late Saturday of "the country's slide toward the abyss", urging restraint from the protesters.

"We're facing today a sizeable regression in the path of our revolution that threatens the security of the nation, its unity and its stability," Hamdok said.

Protest organisers have however vowed, in a key slogan, "No negotiation, no partnership and no legitimacy".

Previous protests against the military takeover have been forcibly dispersed by the security forces.

Nationwide, at least 45 people have been killed and scores more wounded, according to the independent Doctors' Committee.

On Sunday, authorities shut off bridges linking the capital Khartoum with its twin city Omdurman, but large crowds still gathered.

“The numbers are huge and security forces can’t control them,” said Mohamed Hamed, who saw the protests in Omdurman.

Military in ‘complete control’ 

December 19 has a particular resonance in Sudanese history.

Not only was it the day in 2018 when thousands launched mass protests that ended Bashir’s three decades in power, it was also the day in 1955 when Sudanese lawmakers declared independence from British colonial rule.

Following Bashir’s ouster, a joint military-civilian transitional government took power but the troubled alliance was shattered by Burhan’s power grab.

“The coup has put obstacles in the way of the democratic transition and has given the military complete control over politics and the economy,” Ashraf Abdel-Aziz, chief editor of the independent Al Jarida newspaper, told AFP.

Sudan’s military dominates lucrative companies specialising in everything from agriculture to infrastructure projects.

The prime minister said last year that 80 per cent of the state’s resources were “outside the finance ministry’s control”.

“The security apparatus has won out over political institutions. The success of a democratic transition rests on political action being the driving force,” Abdel-Aziz said.

Khaled Omer, a minister in the ousted government, said the coup was a “catastrophe” but also “an opportunity to rectify the deficiencies” of the previous political arrangement with the army.

He warned that anything could happen over the next few months with the military still firmly in power.

“If the main political actors don’t get their act together and the miliary establishment doesn’t distance itself from politics... then all scenarios are on the table,” Omer said.

Gains unravelling 

The November 21 agreement also set July 2023 as the date for Sudan’s first free elections since 1986.

Hamdok said he partnered with the military to “stop the bloodshed” that resulted from its crackdown on protests, and so as not to “squander the gains of the last two years”.

But those achievements have been unravelling, as the political turbulence in Khartoum rekindles conflicts in Sudan’s far-flung regions that Hamdok’s government had made a priority to resolve.

A peace deal signed with key rebel groups last year saw the main conflict in Darfur subside, but the region remains awash with weapons and nearly 250 people have been killed in ethnic clashes over the past two months.

Some of the Arab militias — that Bashir’s government used as a counterinsurgency force in its infamous campaign in the early 2000s against ethnic minority rebels — have been integrated into the security apparatus.

Critics say the deal did nothing to bring them to account.

BAGHDAD — Two rockets targeted Baghdad’s ultra-secure Green Zone that houses the US embassy early Sunday, Iraq’s security forces said in a statement.

“The Green Zone in Baghdad was the target of two Katyusha rockets. The first was shot down in the air by C-RAM defence batteries, the second fell in a square, damaging two vehicles,” the statement said.

A security source told AFP that the shot down rocket fell near the US embassy, while the second came down roughly 500 metres  away.

Previously, the source told AFP that two rockets had been shot down near the US embassy.

Captain Bill Urban, spokesman for the US Central Command, told AFP the incident caused no casualties.

He said no shots hit the embassy or the so-called Union III area where US-led coalition forces are based.

No one claimed responsibility for the attack.

In recent months, dozens of rocket assaults or drone bomb attacks have targeted American troops and interests in Iraq.

The attacks are rarely claimed but are routinely pinned on pro-Iran factions.

The latest rocket fire comes after the announcement this week of the end of the “combat mission” in Iraq of the US-led coalition against the Daesh group.

But roughly 2,500 American soldiers and 1,000 coalition soldiers will remain deployed in Iraq to offer training, advice and assistance to national forces.

Pro-Iran factions in Iraq are calling for the departure of all US forces stationed in the country.

Sunday’s attack also coincides with the 10th anniversary of the departure of US troops from Iraq on December 18, 2011, after the invasion and overthrow of former president Saddam Hussein in 2003.

Washington then deployed its troops to the country in 2014 to fight Daesh, which had captured large swathes of the nation in a lightning offensive.

At the beginning of November, Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al Kadhemi escaped unharmed in an unclaimed drone bomb attack which targeted his official residence in the Green Zone.

In September, an “armed drone” attack targeted Erbil international airport in Iraqi Kurdistan, where a base hosts coalition troops.

BEIRUT — Six people, including four women, were killed in Syria’s Al Hol camp for displaced persons by the Daesh group in December, a Britain-based war monitor group said on Sunday.

The camp, which is controlled by the Kurdish-led autonomous administration in north-eastern Syria, houses about 62,000 displaced persons, including relatives of Daesh fighters.

About 93 per cent are women and children, and about half come from Iraq.

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which has a wide network of sources in Syria, “six assassinations were committed” in the camp by Daesh cells since the start of December.

The last victim to date was shot dead on Saturday.

The victims include three Iraqis — two men and one woman — as well as two Syrian women and one woman whose identity is unknown, the observatory said.

Since the start of the year, the number of killings in the camp has been on the rise.

Some 86 people were killed, including 63 Iraqi refugees who resided in Al Hol, according to the monitor’s toll.

Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman warned that “chaos and insecurity persist within the camp”, labelling it a “ticking time bomb” in comments to AFP.

In March, the Kurdish-led authorities launched a major operation in the camp during which they arrested 125 alleged Daesh members.

The UN has repeatedly warned of the deteriorating security conditions in Al Hol, which has also seen breakout attempts in recent months.

The overcrowded camp hosts about 10,000 foreign women, children and relatives of terrorists.

Since the fall of Daesh’s self-styled “caliphate” in March 2019, Syria’s Kurds and the United Nations have repeatedly urged foreign countries to repatriate their nationals held in northeast Syria.

But most western countries have refused to repatriate their nationals from the camp.

Calls by the Kurdish administration for the formation of international tribunals for the fighters have also been overlooked.

MGHIRA, Tunisia —  “When I see plastic, I see money,” says Tarek Masmoudi, owner of one of the few recycling companies in Tunisia, where a waste crisis is threatening widespread social unrest.

Recycling is almost non-existent in the North African country, which produces 2.6 million tonnes of waste each year.

Some 85 per cent of that ends up in landfills, while much of the rest winds up in informal dumps, says Tunisian waste management expert Walim Merdaci.

But with many facilities close to overflowing and neighbouring communities up in arms, the crisis is already stoking tensions.

In November, a man died as security forces fired tear gas to disperse protesters demanding the closure of a stinking landfill they say has spread deadly diseases and health problems to their town of Agareb, near second city Sfax.

That could be a worrying sign of things to come as, according to expert Wassim Chaabane, most of the country’s 11 official dumping grounds are due to close by the end of 2022.

That has authorities scrambling to find new sites.

In the capital Tunis, home to about 2.7 million people, the situation is particularly urgent.

The Bordj Chakir dump, Tunisia’s biggest, receives more than 3,000 tonnes of rubbish a day and is close to overflowing.

From waste to wealth 

But where others see a crisis, Masmoudi sees an opportunity.

Every day, a steady stream of minivans and small trucks bring to his facility in Mghira, near Tunis, bales of plastic waste to be weighed, sorted and cut into fine chips for industrial use.

Much is collected by hand from the streets and bins of the capital by “barbechas”, informal waste pickers.

Masmoudi’s firm African Recycling deals with 6,000 tonnes of waste a year.

The 42-year-old directly employs around 60 people, many of them women, and indirectly provides work to roughly 200 — no small achievement in a country suffering 18 per cent unemployment.

Between four and 7 per cent of Tunisia’s waste is recycled, according to official figures.

But Masmoudi, standing by his sleek white four-wheel-drive, said the waste market was growing fast.

“Recycling is a sector where a lot remains to be done, but which could create jobs and wealth in Tunisia.”

The situation is similar in neighbouring Algeria, where experts say as much as 60 per cent of household waste from the country’s 43 million population goes to unregulated dumps.

Samira Hamidi, a member of Algeria’s semi-independent advisory body CNESE, says “less than 7 per cent of waste is recycled”.

Just 5,000 people are employed in Algeria’s recycling sector, according to official figures.

In Tunisia, after a decade of political paralysis since a 2011 revolution, Masmoudi says the waste management system reflects a lack of strategy and vision.

Firms like his are blocked from collecting trash directly, as “municipalities own the rubbish”, he says.

“The state pays 150-200 dinars [$52-$70] per tonne of waste that goes to landfill. We’re paying money to bury something that’s worth a fortune.”

But implementing a system of sorting could take years, according to Chaabane.

“Tunisia’s waste management system is hopeless at all levels, but especially when it comes to collection.”

The national waste management agency recently admitted that it lacks the resources.

Running out of time 

Merdaci, the other expert, says Tunisian authorities want to bring in a combination of mechanical and biological methods to treat waste, compacting and composting it whilst collecting methane, gas which can be used as fuel.

But initial projects will take two years to get off the ground.

“Time is running out,” he says.

Merdaci called for “a tax to pay for waste management and to make everyone pay for what they produce” as a means for municipalities to deal with waste.

Each Tunisian produces on average 365 kilogrammes of waste per year, yet taxpayers are charged no more than 28 cents for its management.

Chaabane says urgent solutions are needed, and adds that incineration was “the best option for cities” if clean energy is used.

But that option would not come cheaply, with incinerators costing some $280 million each.

To Merdaci, the outlook is grim.

“We’ve had 10 years of political instability, a decade without any decisions, problems with those living near dumps, and a lack of money. Success is nil.”