Survivors bury dead after RSF attack devastates Sudan village
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Arab News
4 hours ago
- Arab News
Three killed, 12 injured as gunmen target passenger bus in southwestern Pakistan
QUETTA: Three people were killed while 12 others were injured in Pakistan's southwestern Kalat district on Wednesday, police and an official confirmed, after unidentified men opened fire on a passenger bus headed toward Quetta. Kalat Station House Office (SHO) Habibullah Baloch said unidentified armed men shot indiscriminately at a passenger bus from Karachi headed toward Quetta on Wednesday. The attack took place near Nimragh Cross in Kalat district, located on the N-25 highway connecting Balochistan to the southern port city of Karachi. 'Three passengers, residents of Karachi, were killed in the attack and 12 others were wounded,' Baloch told Arab News, adding that the injured were shifted to the District Hospital Kalat for treatment. The police official said the attackers did not stop the bus to check the National Identity Cards (NICs) of the passengers before firing at them, adding that the gunmen 'sprayed' the vehicle with bullets. He said dozens of passengers were traveling in the bus, adding that most of them were residents of Karachi. Balochistan government spokesperson Shahid Rind condemned the attack in a statement. 'The security forces have surrounded the area and a hunt for the attackers is underway,' Rind said. The latest attack has taken place after gunmen abducted and killed nine people last week when they stopped two passenger buses on a highway in Balochistan's Zhob and Loralai districts. Those buses were traveling from Quetta to the eastern Punjab province. Balochistan, Pakistan's largest but most impoverished province, has been the site of a long-running insurgency that has intensified in recent months, with separatist militants attacking security forces, government officials and installations and people from other provinces, particularly Punjab, the country's most populous and prosperous province and a major recruitment base for the military. The Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) is the strongest of a number of insurgent groups operating in the mineral-rich region bordering Afghanistan and Iran. The group accuses the central government of stealing their resources to fund development in Punjab and other parts of the country. The federal government denies the allegations and says it is working for the uplift of local communities in Balochistan, where China has been building a deep-sea port as part of its Belt and Road Initiative. Pakistan accuses India of backing separatists in Balochistan as well as religiously motivated militant groups, like the Pakistani Taliban, in its northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. New Delhi denies the allegations. Balochistan has seen a rise in militant attacks since last year. Last August, nearly two dozen passengers were killed after BLA militants forcibly removed them from Punjab-bound buses in a string of coordinated attacks in Balochistan. Another seven Punjabi commuters were offboarded from buses and killed in Balochistan's Barkhan district in February this year. In March, BLA separatists hijacked a train that carried hundreds of passengers near Balochistan's Bolan Pass, which resulted in the deaths of 23 soldiers, three railway employees and five passengers. At least 33 insurgents were also killed.
Arab News
6 hours ago
- Arab News
US sends third-country deportees under secrecy to the small African kingdom of Eswatini
CAPE TOWN: The United States sent five men it describes as 'barbaric' criminals to the small African nation of Eswatini in an expansion of the Trump administration's largely secretive third-country deportation program, the US Department of Homeland Security said Tuesday. The US has already deported eight men to another African country, South Sudan, after the Supreme Court lifted restrictions on sending people to countries where they have no ties. The South Sudanese government has declined to say where those men, also described as violent criminals, are after it took custody of them nearly two weeks ago. In a late-night post on X, Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said the men sent to Eswatini, who are citizens of Vietnam, Jamaica, Cuba, Yemen and Laos, had arrived on a plane, but didn't say when or where. She said they were all convicted criminals and 'individuals so uniquely barbaric that their home countries refused to take them back.' The men 'have been terrorizing American communities' but were now 'off of American soil,' McLaughlin added. McLaughlin said they had been convicted of crimes including murder and child rape and one was a 'confirmed' gang member. Her social media posts included mug shots of the men and what she said were their criminal records. They were not named. Like in South Sudan, there was no immediate comment from Eswatini authorities over any deal to accept third-country deportees or what would happen to them in that country. Civic groups there raised concerns over the secrecy from a government long accused of clamping down on human rights. 'There has been a notable lack of official communication from the Eswatini government regarding any agreement or understanding with the US to accept these deportees,' Ingiphile Dlamini, a spokesperson for the pro-democracy group SWALIMO, said in a statement sent to The Associated Press. 'This opacity makes it difficult for civic society to understand the implications.' It wasn't clear if they were being held in a detention center, what their legal status was or what Eswatini's plans were for the deported men, he said. An absolute monarchy Eswatini, previously called Swaziland, is a country of about 1.2 million people between South Africa and Mozambique. It is one of the world's last remaining absolute monarchies and the last in Africa. King Mswati III has ruled by decree since 1986. Political parties are effectively banned and pro-democracy groups have said for years that Mswati III has crushed political dissent, sometimes violently. Groups like SWALIMO have called for democratic reforms. Pro-democracy protests erupted in Eswatini in 2021, when dozens were killed, allegedly by security forces. Eswatini authorities have been accused of conducting political assassinations of pro-democracy activists and imprisoning others. Because Eswatini is a poor country with a relative lack of resources, it 'may face significant strain in accommodating and managing individuals with complex backgrounds, particularly those with serious criminal convictions,' Dlamini said. While the US administration has hailed deportations as a victory for the safety and security of the American people, Dlamini said his organization wanted to know the plans for the five men sent to Eswatini and 'any potential risks to the local population.' US is seeking more deals The Trump administration has said it is seeking more deals with African nations to take deportees from the US Leaders from some of the five West African nations who met last week with President Donald Trump at the White House said the issue of migration and their countries possibly taking deportees from the US was discussed. Some nations have pushed back. Nigeria, which wasn't part of that White House summit, said it has rejected pressure from the US to take deportees who are citizens of other countries. The US also has sent hundreds of Venezuelans and others to Costa Rica, El Salvador and Panama, but has identified Africa as a continent where it might find more governments willing to strike deportation agreements. Rwanda's foreign minister told the AP last month that talks were underway with the US about a potential agreement to host deported migrants. A British government plan announced in 2022 to deport rejected asylum-seekers to Rwanda was ruled illegal by the UK Supreme Court last year. 'Not a dumping ground' The eight men deported by the US to war-torn South Sudan, where they arrived early this month, previously spent weeks at a US military base in nearby Djibouti, located on the northeast border of Ethiopia, as the case over the legality of sending them there played out. The South Sudanese government has not released details of its agreement with the US to take deportees, nor has it said what will happen to the men. A prominent civil society leader there said South Sudan was 'not a dumping ground for criminals.' Analysts say some African nations might be willing to take third-country deportees in return for more favorable terms from the US in negotiations over tariffs, foreign aid and investment, and restrictions on travel visas.
Arab News
6 hours ago
- Arab News
IMF says Egypt makes mixed reform progress, cites state dominance of economy
CAIRO: Egypt's progress on structural reforms under an $8 billion International Monetary Fund loan agreement has been mixed, the fund said, citing the public sector's continued dominance of the economy as a problem. In its long-delayed staff report for the fourth review of Egypt's program, the IMF said there had been limited headway in reducing the role of state- and military-owned firms which enjoy preferential treatment in the form of tax exemptions, access to prime land and cheap labor. These companies remain largely shielded from public scrutiny, with 'very limited transparency about their financial condition,' the fund said. Egypt's reliance on a state-led growth model, centered on mega-projects and public investment, was curbing job creation and stifling the private sector in an increasingly volatile global environment, it said. 'The resulting financial and resource distortions have left Egypt with a large informal economy and few buffers against growing global financial, geopolitical and climate shocks,' the fund said. The report was published late Tuesday, four months after the board approved the review and unlocked a $1.2 billion disbursement. Total disbursements are around $3.5 billion. The 46-month facility was signed in March 2024 following more than a year of severe foreign currency shortages and inflation that peaked at 38 percent in September 2023. The fund said last week it would merge the fifth and sixth program reviews into one later this year to give Egypt more time to implement critical reforms. The fund forecast that Egypt's external debt would rise from $162.7 billion in 2024/25 to $202 billion by 2029/30. Public debt overall 'poses a high risk of sovereign stress,' it said, urging authorities to broaden the tax base, phase out untargeted subsidies and increase oversight of off-budget entities such as the state oil company EGPC and the urban development authority NUCA. The report also cited 'persistent and successive external shocks' that it said had 'complicated policy execution,' including the war in Sudan which has pushed hundreds of thousands to flee to Egypt, as well as trade disruptions in the Red Sea which reduced foreign exchange inflows from the Suez Canal by $6 billion last year. Egypt finance minister reacts Egypt's Finance Minister Ahmed Kouchouk said on Wednesday he is confident Egypt is hitting targets set by the IMF over the country's $8 billion loan programme and expects the next review to be completed by September or October. "Both sides, are working on the expectation that this should be happening in September, October," Kouchouk said on the sidelines of an event at the London Stock Exchange. "The IMF is after certain targets - and that's what's important." A successful agreement on a review and subsequent sign off by the Fund's executive board triggers payment of a tranche. Kouchouk also said he expected the government to complete three to four privatisation transactions before the end of the current financial year that started earlier this month. The IMF has made increasing the role of the private sector in the economy a requirement of an expanded $8 billion loan, and Egypt's cabinet said earlier this year it would offer stakes in military-owned companies through its sovereign wealth fund to help comply with the Fund's requirements. "It will be across a lot of sectors, but we have shared also a very strategic plan, a medium-term plan with the international institutions, including the IMF and others, with a very clear, visible timeline," added Kouchouk.
