Civilians
Gunmen kill 20 farmers in Sudan
File Photo Gunmen killed at least 20 people, including children, who were visiting their farms in Sudan’s war-torn Darfur region for the first time in years, a tribal chief said Saturday. “Two months ago the government organised a meeting between the original landowners and those who took their fields” during the long-running war in Darfur, Ibrahim Ahmad, told AFP by telephone. “An agreement was reached whereby the landowners would return to their fields — but armed men came on Friday and opened fire, killing 20 people, including two women and children.” The killings took place in Aboudos, some 90 kilometres south of Nyala, the capital of South Darfur province, the tribal chief said. Around 20 people were wounded in the attack, he said. The death toll “could well increase, because some of ...
10 Nigerian soldiers shot dead by terrorists in Borno – report
Jihadists shot dead 10 Nigerian soldiers in two incidents in the country’s restive northeast on Monday, security sources said. The assailants gunned down eight troops in an attack on a military convoy near Kumulla village, roughly 40km southwest of regional capital Maiduguri, two sources told AFP. Both sources spoke on anonymity because they were not authorised to pass on information to the media. Hours later, two soldiers were killed in a separate “firefight” after a military patrol encountered a group of insurgents in Kolore village, around 50km west of Maiduguri, the sources said. The latest losses for the Nigerian military come after at least 35 troops were killed last week in an attack by fighters loyal to the so-called Islamist State group near Kumulla. Jihadists have waged a decade-...
Saudi coalition shoots down Houthi ballistic missiles and drones
The Saudi-led military coalition said on Tuesday it intercepted and destroyed drones and missiles launched against the kingdom by Houthi rebels in Yemen, including one fired towards the capital Riyadh. The Iran-aligned Houthis said they would announce details of a “major attack” on Saudi Arabia on their Al Masirah TV, amid ongoing fighting in Yemen where the rebels took control of the northern province of Al-Jawf earlier this year. “The joint coalition forces managed … to intercept and destroy a ballistic missile launched by the terrorist Houthi militia from Sanaa towards Riyadh in a deliberate hostile operation,” coalition spokesman Turki al-Maliki said on state media. The Saudi military said it also brought down “eight booby-trapped unmanned aircraft to target civilian objects and civili...
Roadside bomb kills seven in Afghanistan
Seven civilians were killed by a roadside bomb linked to the Taliban in northern Afghanistan, officials said Tuesday, even as authorities pressed for peace talks with the militants. The blast struck a small truck carrying a group of labourers late Monday in the volatile district of Khan Abad, in the province of Kunduz. No group claimed responsibility, but Kunduz provincial spokesman Esmatullah Muradi pointed the finger at the Taliban. “The Taliban usually plant roadside bombs to target security forces, but their bombs usually kill civilians,” he told AFP. Two of six others wounded in the blast were in critical condition, said district chief Hayatullah Amiri. Earlier this year, a United Nations report said more than 10,000 people were killed or wounded in the war in 2019 alone. Overall viol...
Sudan summons Ethiopia envoy over deadly cross-border attack
Sudan has summoned the Ethiopian embassy’s chargé d’affaires over a border attack by suspected Ethiopian rebel fighters that killed and wounded several Sudanese army personnel and civilians, Khartoum said in a statement on Saturday. Thursday’s attack targeted a camp in the eastern city of al-Qadarif, the official SUNA news agency said. A Sudanese military spokesman blamed fighters “supported by Ethiopia” for the attack, according to SUNA. There was no immediate comment from Addis Adaba. Some Ethiopian groups have used farmland in the Sudanese al-Fashqa border region for decades. The former Sudanese government of deposed veteran leader Omar al-Bashir turned a blind eye, but the current transitional authorities in Khartoum are trying to expel the groups. On Friday, Sudan’s army spokesman, Ge...
Newborn baby tests positive for coronavirus in Russia
A baby was born with the coronavirus in Russia’s Caucasus region, health officials were quoted by TASS news agency as saying on Sunday, to a mother who is also infected. The birth in the North Ossetia city of Beslan follows one in mid-April in Peru, which health officials there said was the second known case of a COVID-19 positive newborn worldwide. In North Ossetia, “a pregnant woman was infected by the coronavirus, and her baby was born infected”, a regional health ministry spokesman was quoted by the state agency TASS as saying. “They are now at home, their state is satisfactory,” the spokesman added. The head of the hospital’s maternity unit, Hassan Tagaiev, was quoted by local television as saying that 17 of 35 women who were about to give birth there had tested positive for COVID-19....
