Sudan civil war: Losing a baby, rescuing a child and dodging air strikes in Darfur
"You feel fear, you feel like you are already dead," the 21-year-old told the BBC, adding that he saw three bodies on the way.Another woman, Khadija Ismail Ali, told the BBC that "bodies were scattered all over the streets". She said 11 members of her family were killed during the shelling of el-Fasher, and three children died during their four-day journey from the city to Tawila. "The children died from thirst along the way," Khadija said. Her family's village, el-Tarkuniya, was attacked last September by RSF-allied militias, who stole their harvest. They fled to the famine-stricken Zamzam camp, and then to el-Fasher and now to Tawila.Medical charity Alima said the gunmen took the land and farms of most families when attacking villages. Severe malnutrition, especially among children arriving in Tawila, had reached an alarming level, it added.Alawia said her sister dropped the little food they were carrying while fleeing the air strikes and shelling that they encountered after passing Shaqra."It was leftover beans with a little salt we had carried in our hands to feed the children," she said.
Without food or water, they trudged on and met a woman who told them they could find water in a nearby village. The family set off after midnight for the village, but little did they know that they were walking into an area controlled by RSF fighters."We greeted them, but they did not answer. They told us to sit on the ground and they searched our belongings," Alawia recalled.The fighters took the 20,000 Sudanese pounds ($33; £24) that was all the family still had, along with the clothes and shoes that they were carrying."My shoes weren't good, but they still took them," Alawia said.She added that the RSF gunmen refused to give them water, so they all pressed on until they reached el-Koweim village. There, they spotted a well guarded by RSF fighters. "We asked for water for at least the orphaned child, but they refused," Alawia said, adding that she tried to push her way to the well, but the men assaulted her and beat her back.Thirsty and exhausted, the family kept walking until reaching Tawila, where Alawia said she collapsed and was rushed to hospital.She was discharged after being treated. Marwan was also treated for the injuries he had sustained during the beating. Alawia said they then searched for relatives of the infant they had rescued, and after finding some of them, handed over the child. Alawia and her family are now living in Tawila, where a family has welcomed them into its home."Life is OK, thank God, but we worry about the future," Alawia told the BBC. Marwan said he wanted to go abroad so that he could continue with his education and start a new life.This is something that millions of Sudanese have done, as their lives have been shattered by a war that shows no sign of ending.
More BBC stories on Sudan war:
Sudan in danger of self-destructingFear, loss and hope in Sudan's ruined capitalFrom prized artworks to bullet shells: how war devastated Sudan's museums
Go to BBCAfrica.com for more news from the African continent.Follow us on Twitter @BBCAfrica, on Facebook at BBC Africa or on Instagram at bbcafrica
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Telegraph
3 hours ago
- Telegraph
The youngest victims of the 12-day war
Rayan Qasemian was too small for the oxygen mask used by doctors in Tehran to try and save his life. His entire body was wrapped in brown bandages and wires attached to his tiny head. Machines beeped and buzzed all around him as oxygen flowed. Just hours earlier, an Israeli missile struck his apartment building, killing his mother and father. His older brother was injured and also died in hospital. In a video broadcast by Iranian media, the boys' grandfather was seen walking through the rubble, speaking to reporters. Holding up a photo of Rayan on his phone, he said: 'We were on the third floor when they hit the sixth. I rushed Rayan Qasemian to the hospital and took this picture.' It would be the last picture of Rayan alive. At just two months old, he became the youngest victim of Iran and Israel's 12-day war. The true scale of Iran's death toll is only just coming to light as the country has blocked access to most of the internet and any information available is heavily censored. But it is believed that Rayan was one of 38 children killed. At his funeral on June 26, a small coffin draped in the Iranian flag was carried by mourners attending the service. A photograph from the cemetery showed that he was buried in the same grave as his mother Zohreh. 'She was a doctor,' Rayan's grandfather said of his mother. 'She spoke to her nurses before the strikes and told them not to wait for her.' The family's story has been widely shared by Iranian media, but foreign journalists are not allowed into the country to tell such painful stories – or verify the numbers. Iran has claimed that 935 people were 'martyred' in Israeli airstrikes that targeted Tehran's nuclear facilities, military sites and air defences. But the missiles also killed civilians: bank clerks, social workers visiting prisoners and a mother who had brought her five-year-old son to work because nursery was closed. Other victims included Taha Behruzi and Alisan Jabbari, both seven, from Tabriz, who were ready for their first day of school with packed bags and notebooks. Instead, they were killed by shrapnel from a downed Israeli drone as they played outside their homes. Alisan's mother said: 'My seven-year-old was playing – unaware of the enemy's dirty world – when the attack began. 'He was hit in the head. I bent down to hug him and at that moment, I was wounded too. I took the child to the courtyard... We both rolled in blood and he died in my arms.' In Isfahan, 13-year-old Fatemeh Sharifi was killed alongside her younger brother Mojtaba and their parents. Ehsan Qasemi, a 16-year-old from Qom's Salarieh district, was killed in his home. Amir Ali Chatr-Anbarin, a student in year eight at Shahid Ali Akbar School in central Lahijan, was visiting relatives in northern Astaneh-ye Ashrafiyeh when he too was killed in a strike. His parents, safe at home in Lahijan, were told by a phone call that their son would never return from his overnight stay. In Tehran, year four student Servin Hamidian, from Shahid Beheshti Elementary School, died with his mother when Israeli bombs fell on the capital. Ali, four, Fatemeh, 10, and Reyhaneh, 14, were killed alongside their mother and grandparents as Israeli forces struck their home to target their father Mostafa Sadati-Armaki, a nuclear scientist. All seven members of the Sadati-Armaki family were killed. A funeral banner in a local mosque showed nine photos of the family, with the additional two being relatives killed when Saddam Hussein attacked Iran in the 1980s. Asghar Jahangir, Iran's judiciary spokesman, placed the death toll at 935 people, including 132 women. The scale of civilian casualties has drawn sharp criticism from Iranian officials, who have argued that Israel's actions constituted war crimes. Esmaeil Baghaei, the foreign ministry spokesman, said the country would transfer evidence to international organisations, demanding accountability for what he called acts of aggression against innocent civilians. While the Islamic Republic has described them as martyrs and state media has broadcast solemn ceremonies honouring the dead, many ordinary Iranians have directed their anger not at foreign enemies, but at the man who has ruled their nation for nearly four decades. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, faced a crisis of legitimacy even before missiles rained down on Iranian soil. The very people he claimed to be protecting have increasingly blamed him for the devastation that has befallen their homeland. Analysts have said the grievances are multifaceted but centred on what many Iranians see as Khamenei's fundamental miscalculations. Firstly, his commitment to the destruction of Israel is an ideological position that most Iranians do not share, surveys have suggested. Secondly, his pursuit of nuclear weapons capability, which he believed would render his regime untouchable, has instead brought crushing international sanctions. The economic toll has been devastating. Iran, which was once among the world's major oil exporters, has been reduced to a shadow of its former prosperity. The Iranian rial has collapsed, inflation has soared and millions of people have struggled to afford basic necessities. Young people, who make up the majority of Iran's population, have seen their futures constrained by an economy crippled under decades of confrontation with the West. Reza, a resident of central Isfahan, which was hit hard in the strikes as it is home to one of the country's main nuclear sites, said the Israeli attacks have shifted public sentiment. While many blamed the regime for bringing war to their doorsteps, he said there was a new-found unity among Iranians in the face of foreign threats. He told The Telegraph: 'Many people who once supported the regime are now blaming it for dragging us into this war. We used to watch conflicts unfold across the Middle East on TV and thank God we lived in a safe country. 'But believe me, I haven't slept in two weeks. Every time I doze off, a loud bang jolts me awake. We didn't ask for this – this wasn't the people's war. It was the regime that pushed us into it. 'They talk about a ceasefire but that's meaningless. That taboo has been broken. Now Israel can strike whenever it wants.' But Reza said the attacks revealed something that made him proud. 'People who disagreed with the regime and its supporters stood together against the foreign enemy,' he said. 'Defending Iran matters more to me than defending or supporting the Islamic Republic. I won't give up even one wajab [about a foot] of Iranian soil.' Across the country, communities have mobilised to support one another. In towns and villages, residents have opened their homes to those displaced by airstrikes. Shopkeepers have lowered prices on essential goods and neighbours have gone door to door offering help to those in need.
Reuters
3 hours ago
- Reuters
Kenya looks to privatise state assets to draw private-sector investments, says President Ruto
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Reuters
4 hours ago
- Reuters
Surge in Afghans driven from Iran in spy hunt after Israel attacks
KABUL, July 2 (Reuters) - Afghan citizen Enayatullah Asghari watched dismayed after Israel and Iran launched strikes on each other last month, as the Gulf nation where he had sought refuge turned more hostile, work on Tehran building sites dried up and he was accused of spying. Asghari, 35, is among tens of thousands of Afghans whom Iran has deported home in the past few weeks, in the fallout of a conflict the United Nations says risks further destabilising Afghanistan, already battling a humanitarian crisis. "It is hard to even find a place to rent, and if you find one, the price is unaffordable ... and there is no work at all," Asghari said at the end of his family's long journey back to western Afghanistan. He said he had no idea what to do next in his home country, marooned in international isolation since the Islamist Taliban militia took over in 2021. The United Nations refugee agency estimates Iran deported home an average of more than 30,000 Afghans each day during the war, up 15-fold from about 2,000 earlier. "We've always striven to be good hosts, but national security is a priority, and naturally illegal nationals must return," Iran's government spokesperson Fatemeh Mohajerani said on Tuesday. That did not mean expulsion, however, but rather a return to their homeland, the spokesperson added, without mention of a hunt for spies. There was no immediate comment from the Afghanistan government. Before a ceasefire was struck last week in their 12-day war, Iran and Israel traded strikes, which the U.S. joined with an attack on Iran's uranium-enrichment facilities. On national security grounds, Iran had already been cracking down this year on foreign nationals, including Afghans, but stepped up its efforts during the conflict, deported Afghans and humanitarian officials said in interviews. Iranian authorities estimated about 2.6 million Afghans were living in the country without legal documentation in 2022, following the fall of Kabul as U.S.-led foreign forces withdrew. "They saw us as suspected spies and treated us with contempt," Asghari said. "From ordinary people to the police and the government, they were always saying you Afghans are our first enemies, you destroyed us from inside." In an interview, Arafat Jamal, the UNHCR representative for Afghanistan, said he was concerned about the pushback, as anger at the strikes could have spilled over on Afghans in Iran. "They have undergone a very frightening war, we understand that but we also feel that perhaps the Afghans are being scapegoated and some of the anger is being taken out on them," he told Reuters in Kabul. He warned of increasing concern of a "pefect storm" brewing for Afghanistan as neighbouring Pakistan also pushed back displaced Afghans in a huge repatriation drive begun in 2023. Compounding Afghanistan's woes, its economy, crippled by sanctions on the banking sector since the Taliban took over, now faces severe aid cuts by Western capitals, he added. "This is a recipe for a great amount of instability in the region for sure," said Jamal. UNHCR's Afghanistan operations have received less than a quarter of the funding needed this year. Afghanistan's aid program has shrunk to just $538 million from $3.2 billion three years ago. More than 1.2 million Afghans have returned from Iran and Pakistan this year, often with just the clothes on their backs and any belongings they could carry. Iran says it will keep up the action on illegal immigrants. "We have legal migrants, many of them poets, writers, doctors, skilled workers and don't want to push everyone out," the government spokesperson added. "But when it comes to illegals, national policies that have been taken will be implemented." Ahmad Fawad Rahimi, 26, said he had a valid work visa for Iran but decided to return last month as his family worried about the war. En route he was picked up and placed in a detention camp, where he said inmates received little food and water, had their mobile telephones taken from them during their stay and were then charged high prices for transport across the border. "Before the war, at least we would receive a warning the first time, and on the second arrest we would be deported," he said. "But now we are all treated as spies. They say Afghans have sided with their enemies and must go back."
