Sudan paramilitaries claim key zone bordering Egypt, Libya
KHARTOUM: Sudan's paramilitary Rapid Support Forces said Wednesday its fighters seized a strategic zone on the border with Egypt and Libya, as the regular army announced its withdrawal from the area.
The announcements came a day after the army accused forces loyal to eastern Libyan commander Khalifa Haftar of launching a cross-border attack alongside the RSF, the first allegation of direct Libyan involvement in the Sudanese war.
'As part of its defensive arrangements to repel aggression, our forces today evacuated the triangle area overlooking the borders between Sudan, Egypt and Libya,' army spokesman Nabil Abdallah said in a statement.
Since April 2023, the war in Sudan has pitted army chief Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan against his erstwhile ally Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, who leads the RSF.
In a statement on Wednesday, the RSF said its fighters had 'liberated the strategic triangle area,' adding that army forces had retreated southward 'after suffering heavy losses.'
The army said on Tuesday that Haftar's troops in coordination with the RSF attacked its border positions in a move it called 'a blatant aggression against Sudan.'
The war has effectively split Sudan in two, with the army holding the center, east and north, while the paramilitaries and their allies control nearly all of Darfur and parts of the south.
The fighting has killed tens of thousands and displaced 13 million, including four million who fled abroad, triggering what the United Nations has called the world's worst humanitarian crisis.
Efforts by international mediators to halt the fighting have so far failed, with violence continuing to escalate across the western Darfur region and the Kordofan region in the country's south.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Arab News
3 hours ago
- Arab News
Sacrificing tomorrow's survival in favor of today's foreign exchange
Countries in the Mediterranean appear trapped in a calculated, self-inflicted crisis. Those on southern shores systematically drain finite-capacity aquifers to cultivate luxury exports for foreign consumers, while simultaneously surrendering their food security to volatile global grain markets. This is not environmental misfortune but an engineered outcome of decades of policy choices prioritizing export revenues and external interests over national water resilience and domestic sustenance. The sheer magnitude of this engineered dependency defies sustainability. Consider Egypt, for instance, which is already categorized as a water-scarce country. It holds the dubious distinction of being the planet's single largest importer of wheat, spending billions in precious foreign currency simply to secure the basic flour it needs for its state-subsidized bread, a cornerstone of social stability consumed by millions daily. Yet, simultaneously, Egypt ranks among the world's Top 12 exporters of citrus fruits, potatoes, strawberries, and cotton. Each of these crops demands a staggering amount of irrigation in an environment where every drop of water is contested. Exporting a single tonne of strawberries or a bale of Egyptian cotton effectively ships thousands of precious cubic meters of the nation's dwindling water reserves, primarily to European supermarkets. What emerges is a financial calculus that reveals a profound distortion; the collective annual revenue generated by these 'high-value' agricultural exports falls drastically short of covering the colossal, ever-increasing bill for imported wheat. This gap is further widened by population growth and the immense fiscal burden of bread-subsidy programs, which are essential, yet unsustainable, props for fragile social contracts. It is a pattern replicated across other parts of the Mediterranean's southern shores. Morocco, for instance, in the midst of persistent droughts severe enough to mandate water rationing in urban areas, paradoxically functions as a mega-exporter of water-thirsty tomatoes, citrus, melons, berries, and avocados. Its primary trading partner for this exchange is Europe, eerily perpetuating an extractive dynamic disguised as free trade. Meanwhile, lucrative profits flow to private exporters and satisfy European consumer demand for off-season luxury produce, but the true cost is borne by depleted aquifers and communities facing shrinking water quotas. Similarly, Jordan, drawing down the shared Al-Dissi aquifer that is under the strain of scarcity, channels high-quality groundwater into growing peaches and nectarines, again for export. A common trend begins to emerge in which water-thirsty goods are prioritized over achieving relative domestic food sovereignty. Israel has even managed to take things a step further. Jerusalem not only leverages its prowess and contested control over land and water resources to dominate high-value fruit exports to supportive European markets. Capitalizing on an ongoing 'avocado boom,' while exerting near total control over the food supplies of subjugated neighboring territories, it essentially weaponizes sustenance and robs surviving Gazans of the ability to achieve food and water security on their own terms. So why do states persist in these self-destructive exchanges, given the region's acute water distress amid the worsening effects of climate change? It is a slow-bleed crisis in which the most vulnerable are the first to pay as aquifer levels fall and soaring bread prices rip up social contracts. Hafed Al-Ghwell Firstly, follow the water — and the money. The conversion of arid landscapes into export-oriented plantations did not happen spontaneously; it was engineered through decades of deliberate policy shifts. Beginning in the 1970s and accelerating into the 1980s, international financial institutions imposed structural adjustment programs that demanded the privatization of state assets, the dismantling of farming subsidies, and wholesale reorientation toward foreign exchange generation. This created an agricultural aristocracy: large-scale agribusinesses and politically connected landowners who secured preferential access to subsidized water and prime land. In Egypt, while smallholders faced crippling energy price hikes for irrigation pumps following subsidy cuts mandated by the International Monetary Fund, forcing many to abandon farming, elite exporters flourished by cultivating water-guzzling strawberries bound for European supermarkets, using state-subsidized infrastructure. This contrasts sharply with the diffuse, long-term societal cost of depleted aquifers and a staggering national food import bill. Egypt's annual wheat expenditure alone dwarfs the collective revenue from its famed citrus and potato exports. Today, exporters form a potent lobby, thereby ensuring policies continue to prioritize their water-intensive cash crops over staples for local consumption, directly undermining national food resilience. Secondly, a dangerous technological fatalism appears to have invaded the region's policy-setting circles. Wealthier countries have conjured a myth of infinite hydrological adaptation through massive, energy-intensive seawater desalination projects. This creates a convenient illusion for leaders in less affluent, and increasingly parched, countries that future megaprojects will absolve them from the need to confront the unsustainable water exports of today. This partly explains why drought-stricken Morocco continues to expand its water-thirsty avocado orchards. And, why Jordan continues to extract water from non-renewable aquifers at rates far exceeding the ability to replenish, to supply farms growing fruit for export while clinging to hopes of large-scale desalination, despite lacking the fiscal capacity or sources of sustainable energy to deploy it meaningfully. Such cognitive dissonance is jarring, since present-day policymakers actively accelerate water depletion for short-term export gains, while banking on unaffordable or ecologically questionable technologies to bail them out later. This 'magical thinking' ignores a harsh arithmetic: the energy cost and environmental footprint of desalinating seawater for basic survival would be exponentially higher than the water that is effectively, and recklessly, exported today in every tonne of off-season berries or citrus fruit. The end result is a system that functions as a slow-motion crisis transfer, extracting irreversible natural capital from the South to subsidize stability and abundance in the North. European consumers gain year-round access to affordable luxury: Moroccan winter strawberries retailing for €2.50 ($3) a kilogram in Parisian supermarkets; Israeli avocados shipped to Dutch tables; all irrigated with water sourced from aquifers that might require millennia to replenish. Simultaneously, Southern Mediterranean elites and transnational agribusinesses secure reliable profits. Moroccan tomato exporters and Egyptian cotton magnates operate with state-subsidized water allocations that distort true resource costs. Meanwhile, the ecological and economic foundations of water-stressed countries undergo systematic erosion. Fossil aquifers are drained. Local food systems atrophy as once-thriving milling industries across Iraq, Syria and Palestine have collapsed, forcing 'Fertile Crescent' countries to become flour importers despite their proximity to the historical heartlands of wheat. Water flows perpetually uphill toward power and capital. The true cost of this — which can be measured in depleted water reserves, escalating import bills, lost agricultural resilience, and the deepening vulnerability of the majority — is borne by the populations and the very ecological stability of these countries. Each tonne of exported citrus uses 560 cubic meters of irreplaceable Egyptian groundwater. Each hectare of Moroccan avocados consumes 1.5 million liters a year, while the taps of the local population run dry. It is a system that sacrifices tomorrow's survival in favor of today's political quietism and foreign exchange — a slow-bleed crisis in which the most vulnerable are the first to pay as aquifer levels fall, deserts advance and soaring bread prices rip up social contracts. Addressing this requires a dismantling of the political economy that privileges water exports over conservation and local nourishment — a task that demands much more courage than simply investing in the next desalination plant.
Asharq Al-Awsat
3 hours ago
- Asharq Al-Awsat
Egypt Strengthens Cooperation with Africa to Tackle Water Challenges
Egypt is continuing to strengthen its cooperation with African nations to confront the pressing challenges of water and food security. 'Water issues are a shared challenge that grows more severe due to climate change and resource scarcity, especially given Egypt's near-total dependence on Nile water,' Egyptian Minister of Irrigation Hani Sewilam said, according to an official statement by the Egyptian Cabinet on Friday. Speaking on behalf of the Prime Minister during a celebration at the Djibouti Embassy in Cairo marking Djibouti's 48th independence anniversary, Sewilam emphasized that cross-border cooperation, rooted in principles of international law, is the optimal path to ensure sustainable water resources. Egypt frequently raises the issue of water security, particularly amid the ongoing crisis over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, which Ethiopia has built on the main tributary of the Nile since 2011 to generate electricity. Egypt and Sudan fear it will impact their water shares. Ambassador Salah Halima, former Assistant Foreign Minister and Deputy Chairman of the Egyptian Council for African Affairs, stressed that water security is closely linked to river management and dam operations. He told Asharq Al-Awsat that Egypt consistently underscores the importance of respecting international laws and agreements on managing water resources and criticized Ethiopia's unilateral actions to impose a de facto situation regarding the dam. Halima added that achieving water security requires cooperation among states in managing water resources and constructing dams, noting that Egypt has valuable experience African nations can benefit from. Egypt faces a water deficit estimated at 30 billion cubic meters annually. Its share of Nile water amounts to 55.5 billion cubic meters per year, while consumption exceeds 85 billion cubic meters. The shortfall is covered by groundwater extraction, seawater desalination projects, and recycling agricultural drainage water, according to the Ministry of Irrigation. On Friday, Sewilam highlighted the longstanding ties between Egypt and Djibouti as an example of cooperation amid complex regional and global challenges requiring greater unity and shared vision. He noted that the regional and international context demands an understanding of the magnitude of challenges, ranging from security and peace to sustainable development and socio-economic stability, especially in the Arab and African regions. Egypt is finalizing a memorandum of understanding with Djibouti's Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources to cooperate in fields such as integrated water resources management, desalination technologies, groundwater recharge, capacity building, knowledge exchange, and joint research. In parallel, Egyptian Minister of Agriculture Alaa Farouk reaffirmed Egypt's commitment to working with African countries to develop more efficient, inclusive, and sustainable agricultural value chains. Speaking during FAO meetings in Rome, he said that strengthening these chains is central to food security, economic growth, and job creation, particularly in rural areas. Farouk also discussed promoting Egyptian investment in Africa to boost agricultural development and food security across the continent.
Al Arabiya
6 hours ago
- Al Arabiya
US sanctions on Sudan over alleged chemical weapons use take effect
US sanctions on Sudan's government -- imposed over what Washington says was the use by Khartoum's military of chemical weapons in the country's bloody civil war last year -- have taken effect. The sanctions -- which include restrictions on US exports, arms sales and financing to the government in Khartoum -- are to remain in place for at least one year, the US government said in a notice published Friday in the Federal Register. Assistance to Sudan will be terminated 'except for urgent humanitarian assistance and food or other agricultural commodities or products,' it said. However, certain measures will be partially waived because 'it is essential to the national security interests of the United States' to do so, it added. 'The United States calls on the Government of Sudan to cease all chemical weapons use and uphold its obligations' under the Chemical Weapons Convention, an international treaty signed by nearly all countries that prohibits their use, the State Department said last month when it announced the sanctions. The New York Times reported in January that Sudan's military had used chemical weapons on at least two occasions in remote areas its war with the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). Citing anonymous US officials, the newspaper said that the weapon appeared to be chlorine gas, which can cause severe respiratory pain and death. Khartoum has denied using chemical weapons. In practical terms, the effect will be limited as both Sudan's military chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his adversary and former deputy, RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, are already under US sanctions. A power struggle between the army and RSF erupted into full-scale war in April 2023 with devastating consequences for the already impoverished country. The conflict has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced 13 million, creating what the United Nations describes as the world's worst humanitarian crisis.
