Musings From Abroad

US to pressure Security Council to facilitate aid into Sudan from Chad

Published

8 months ago

March 30, 2024

If the Sudanese armed forces do not restore full access to aid in the troubled country, the United States has warned that it will press the UN Security Council to take action to get aid to starving people in Sudan, possibly by authorizing cross-border deliveries from Chad.

The US Ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield stated that the warring parties had both compromised aid operations and disregarded a Security Council resolution calling for an immediate end to hostilities, ahead of the conflict’s first anniversary in Sudan.

“The situation in Sudan remains catastrophic and it is only getting worse,” she told reporters. “People are starving.”

War erupted in Sudan on April 15, 2023, between the Sudanese Army ( SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). More than a million people have fled to neighbouring countries since the brutal conflict in Sudan started in April 2023. Among them are about 378,000 Sudanese refugees and about 48,000 Chadians who were forced to return to eastern Chad.

Thomas-Greenfield accused the SAF of impeding aid from Chad into Sudan’s Darfur region – controlled by the rival RSF – and describing it as “literally a matter of life and death.”

“At the Zamzam camp in North Darfur, a child dies every two hours. Experts warn that in the coming weeks and months, over 200,000 more children could starve to death,” she said, calling on the SAF to immediately fully reopen the border.

“Should they not, the Security Council must take swift action to ensure life-saving aid is delivered and distributed, including – if necessary – through a cross-border mechanism,” Thomas-Greenfield said.

Such an operation has previously been approved by the Security Council; for nine years, it permitted the distribution of humanitarian aid to millions of people, mostly in areas of Syria controlled by the opposition. According to the US, the parties involved in the conflict in Sudan have committed war crimes.

According to US Special Envoy for Sudan Tom Perriello, Washington is considering resuming peace negotiations on Sudan on April 18 in Saudi Arabia

According to UN estimates, 8 million people have fled their homes and nearly 25 million people, or half of Sudan’s population, need aid. The United States claims that the warring parties have committed war crimes.

Musings From Abroad

Finnish court imprisons Nigeria’s Simon Ekpa for aiding terrorism

Published

21 hours ago

November 21, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

Simon Ekpa, a Nigerian separatist leader based abroad, has been placed under detention by the Päijät Häme District Court in Finland on suspicion of inciting others to commit acts of terrorism.

According to the local daily, Helsingin Sanomat, the court rendered the ruling on Thursday following his arraignment by the Central Criminal Police for his involvement in the terror attacks that have afflicted the southeast area of Nigeria.

“The police suspect that the man has promoted his efforts from Finland with means that have led to violence against civilians in the region of South-Eastern Nigeria,” stated Otto Hiltunen, the crime commissioner and investigation head.

“The man has carried out his activity, among other things, on his social media channels.”

Hiltunen also informed the court that the police suspected four additional individuals in Finland of funding Ekpa’s activities.

According to the story, Ekpa is of Nigerian descent and was born in the Finnish city of Lahti.

His offence occurred between August 23, 2021, and November 18, 2024, according to court documents cited in the publication.

Ekpa is not the only person the police have arrested. In February 2023, they caught him at a private Lahtian flat, but he was freed the same day.

Through the Eastern Security Network (ESN) and the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) movement, Ekpa has continued to be outspoken on social media, raising money and agitating for a Biafran nation to secede. In the southeast part of Nigeria, both factions have been involved in acts of violence, murders, and maimings.

Since gaining formal independence in 1960, Nigeria has seen the emergence of several separatist organisations. The latest surge of calls for self-determination among different ethnic groups has been louder under its immediate previous President Muhammadu Buhari.

Musings From Abroad

Malian singer Rokia Traore arrested in Italy, to be sent to Belgium

Published

2 days ago

November 20, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

After Italy’s top court denied her appeal, well-known Malian singer, Rokia Traore, who was detained in Rome in June due to a global child custody dispute, will be sent over to Belgium in the next few days, her attorney announced on Wednesday.

The 50-year-old Traore is a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR and one of Africa’s most well-known vocalists.

“Rokia suffered an injustice. She was arrested without the Belgian criminal court hearing her voice. Now, the battle for Rokia’s rights moves to Brussels,” lawyer Maddalena Del Re said in a statement to Reuters.

The attorney also stated that in its decision late Tuesday, Italy’s Court of Cassation upheld an extradition decision from the European Court of Justice.

Under a European arrest order, Traore was taken into custody on June 20 at the Fiumicino airport in Rome. In October 2023, she was given a two-year prison sentence in Belgium related to a dispute over her daughter’s custody.

She had flown to perform outside Rome’s Colosseum, and she has been imprisoned in Civitavecchia, close to the Italian city, since her detention at Fiumicino.

Lawyer Del Re said that because a conviction was rendered without the defendant’s presence, the Belgian process goes against both international norms and Italian constitutional standards.

After she disregarded a court order to turn over her baby to her Belgian father, the singer’s divorced ex-partner, she was initially taken into custody in France in 2020 on a Belgian arrest warrant.

She disobeyed orders not to leave France until her extradition case was handled by taking a private jet to Mali months after being conditionally released. Mali is where her daughter resides.