civilians

A ‘humanitarian zone’ is expected to remain open on Thursday, allowing residents to leave Deir Hafer and Maskana.

The Syrian army is telling civilians to evacuate parts of the rural Aleppo governorate after accusing the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) of building up troops in the area, following days of deadly fighting inside Aleppo city, as concerns rise over a new front in the simmering battle.

A “humanitarian zone” was expected to remain open on Thursday from 9am local time (6:00 GMT) to 5pm (14:00 GMT), allowing residents to leave Deir Hafer and Maskana in the eastern countryside. The army declared the areas closed military zones and sent in their own reinforcements earlier this week.

At least 23 people have been killed in clashes between the United States-backed, Kurdish-led SDF and the Syrian army that have gripped Aleppo for more than a week. Although a March deal promised to incorporate the SDF into Syrian state institutions, talks over incorporation have since stalled, leading to the renewed conflict.

A ceasefire announced on January 9 allowed SDF fighters to trickle out of Aleppo’s Ashrafieh and Sheikh Maqsoud Kurdish neighbourhoods to parts of northeastern Syria, where the SDF runs a semi-autonomous zone.

In Deir Hafer and Maskana, the military called on the SDF to withdraw to the other side of the Euphrates river, located east of the contested zone. The two sides have exchanged limited fire.

The government has also accused the SDF of carrying out drone strikes in Aleppo city, including one that hit the Aleppo governorate building on Saturday shortly after government officials hosted a news conference at the site.

The SDF, for its part, has accused the army of escalating attacks on infrastructure and facilities in Deir Hafer.

‘Eagerly awaiting’ incorporation deal

On Wednesday, Syria’s military closed off several roads in the al-Safira area of rural Aleppo province “for security reasons and to ensure the safety of citizens”, state news agency SANA reported.

The SDF troop buildup in the area included fighters from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and other “remnants of the former regime”, the agency added.

The PKK carried out a 40-year armed struggle in Turkiye, and Turkish officials said they were closely watching Syria’s latest round of fighting. Nuh Yilmaz, Turkiye’s ambassador to Damascus, travelled to Aleppo this week “to witness the restoration of peace and stability”.

“We are eagerly awaiting the implementation of the [March] agreement without the need for war,” Yilmaz told reporters. “This way, there will be no need for war, fighting or other methods, and we can all focus on a development agenda in peace.”

The Syrian Interior Ministry, meanwhile, released a group of SDF fighters in the Sheikh Maqsoud neighbourhood after securing the defection of an unknown number of SDF fighters.

Video footage broadcast by Al Jazeera Mubasher showed a group of several dozen men leaving a detention centre in Aleppo and boarding buses.

In a statement on Telegram, the ministry wrote those released were “found not to be involved in criminal acts or to have blood on their hands”.

“This step aligns with the state’s policy of opening the doors of return for all those who have gone astray and have not committed crimes against civilians,” it added.

Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa emphasised in an interview aired on state TV on Wednesday that he admired the “courage” of the Kurdish people, arguing that the December 2024 ousting of President Bashar al-Assad was the first “real response” to injustices against the community in decades.

But he also lashed out against the SDF, saying the group has refused to allow civilians to safely evacuate from the recent fighting and has pushed off efforts from the US and France to mediate a ceasefire.

The interview was intended to air on Shams TV in Erbil, the centre of Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region, but was spiked because of al-Sharaa’s hardline stance against the SDF, The Associated Press news agency reported.

Clips from the interview were instead publicised on state TV.

As a ceasefire between the Syrian army and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces collapses, UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric reminded all parties that they’re bound by international humanitarian law to protect civilians.

Civilians were seen fleeing several northern Aleppo neighbourhoods en masse as the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces and the Syrian military escalate their fighting after a breakdown in integration talks. Estimates vary widely, but some have placed the number of evacuees at more than 100,000.

A historic theater in the Russian-occupied Ukrainian city of Mariupol has opened its doors more than three years after it was pummeled in a Russian airstrike that killed hundreds of civilians sheltering inside.

Moscow-installed authorities marked the rebuilding of the Donetsk Academic Regional Drama Theater with a gala concert on the building’s new main stage Sunday night. Images shared by Russian state media outlets showed the building’s marbled pillars and staircases, and dancers wearing traditional Russian headdresses known as kokoshniks performing.

The original theater was destroyed when it was targeted by a Russian airstrike on March 16, 2022, as Moscow’s forces besieged the city in the weeks after their invasion.

An Associated Press investigation later found evidence that the attack killed about 600 people inside and outside the building — almost double an early estimate from the government.

At the time of the strike, hundreds of civilians had sought refuge in the building after weeks of relentless shelling. The word “children” had been written with paint on the street outside the building, large enough to be seen by both pilots and satellites.

Moscow said that Ukrainian forces demolished the theater, a claim that the AP’s investigation refuted.

Russian forces took control of Mariupol’s city center shortly after the strike. The ruins were bulldozed and any remains were taken to the ever-growing mass graves in and around Mariupol.

Mariupol’s Ukrainian city council, which left the city when it was occupied for Ukrainian-controlled territory, called the rebuilding and the opening of the theater “singing and dancing on bones.”

“The ‘restoration’ of the theater is a cynical attempt to conceal the traces of a war crime and part of an aggressive policy of Russification of the city. The repertoire consists largely of works by Russian writers and playwrights,” the council said in a statement on Telegram.

Guests of honor at Sunday’s opening included Denis Pushilin, the Russian-installed head of the partially occupied Donetsk region, and St. Petersburg Gov. Alexander Beglov. Workers from St. Petersburg, which was twinned with Mariupol after Russia took full control of the city in May 2022, aided in the building’s reconstruction.

The Donetsk region, where Mariupol is located, has remained a key battleground throughout the war. Russia illegally annexed it in 2022, though Moscow still doesn’t control all of it. The region’s fate is one of the major sticking points in negotiations to end the war.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres appeals for immediate truce as fighting intensifies in Darfur and Kordofan regions.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called for an immediate ceasefire in Sudan’s brutal civil war, which the UN says has created the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

Guterres’s appeal, made late on Friday, follows a peace initiative presented by Sudan’s Prime Minister Kamil Idris to the UN Security Council on Monday, which called for the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) to disarm.

The plan was rejected by the RSF as “wishful thinking”.

The war erupted in April 2023 when a power struggle broke out between the Sudanese army and the RSF paramilitary group. Since then, the conflict has displaced 9.6 million people internally and forced 4.3 million to flee to neighbouring countries, while 30.4 million Sudanese now need humanitarian assistance, according to UN figures.

UN Assistant Secretary-General Mohamed Khaled Khiari told the UNSC this week that fears of intensified fighting during the dry season had been confirmed.

“Each passing day brings staggering levels of violence and destruction,” he said. “Civilians are enduring immense, unimaginable suffering, with no end in sight.”

The conflict has shifted in recent weeks to Sudan’s central Kordofan region, where the RSF captured the strategic Heglig oilfield on December 8. The seizure prompted South Sudanese forces to cross into Sudan to protect the infrastructure, which Khiari warned reflects “the increasingly complex nature of the conflict and its expanding regional dimensions”.

The RSF has also launched a final push to consolidate full control over North Darfur state, attacking towns in the Dar Zaghawa region near the Chad border since December 24. The offensive threatens to close the last escape corridor for civilians fleeing the country to Chad.

The violence spilled across Sudan’s borders on Friday when a drone attack killed two Chadian soldiers at a military camp in the border town of Tine.

A Chadian military intelligence officer told Reuters news agency the drone came from Sudan, though it remained unclear whether it was launched by the army or the RSF. Chad has placed its air force on high alert and warned it would “exercise our right to retaliate” if the strike is confirmed as deliberate.

Despite the intensifying conflict, the UN achieved a rare breakthrough, saying on Friday that it conducted its first assessment mission to el-Fasher since the city fell to the RSF.

UN Humanitarian Coordinator Denise Brown said the mission followed “months of intense fighting, siege, and widespread violations against civilians and humanitarian workers,” adding that “hundreds of thousands of civilians have had to flee el-Fasher and surrounding areas”.

Earlier this month, Yale University released a report documenting systematic mass killings by the RSF in el-Fasher, with satellite imagery showing evidence of burning and the burial of human remains on a mass scale.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned last week that the fighting was “horrifying” and “atrocious”, telling a news conference that “one day the story of what’s actually happened there is going to be known, and everyone involved is going to look bad”.

Rubio said he wanted the war to end before the New Year, but there is no strong indication that progress has been made.

Prime Minister Idris’s peace plan proposed an immediate UN-monitored ceasefire and complete RSF withdrawal from the roughly 40 percent of Sudan it controls. But an adviser to RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo dismissed the proposal as “closer to fantasy than to politics”.

Upon returning to Port Sudan on Friday, Idris laid down a red line, saying the government would reject international peacekeeping forces because Sudan had been “burned” by them in the past.

People escaping fighting, lack of essential supplies in Heglig area faced with tough humanitarian conditions in search for shelter and safety.

Kosti, Sudan – The flow of displaced people fleeing the fighting in Sudan shows no sign of slowing – the latest hailing from Heglig.

In early December, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) seized the strategic Heglig oilfield in West Kordofan province after its rival, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), withdrew from the area.

Nearly 1,700 displaced people, most of them children and women, escaped the fighting in the southern region and the lack of basic necessities.

Some of them were fortunate enough to board trucks as they fled from their towns and villages in the area. After an arduous journey, the displaced people arrived at their new home – the Gos Alsalam displacement camp in Kosti, a city in the White Nile province.

“We left without anything … we just took some clothes,” said an elderly woman who appeared exhausted and frail.

Inside the camp, the people arriving are faced with extremely harsh humanitarian conditions. Tents are being pitched in haste, but as the number of displaced people grows, so do the immense humanitarian needs. Yet, humanitarian support remains insufficient to cover even the bare minimum.

“We have no blankets or any sheets, nothing. We are old people,” said a displaced elderly woman.

‘I gave birth in the street’

Nearly three years of war between the RSF and SAF have forced 14 million people to flee their homes in a desperate attempt to find shelter and safety away from the heavy fighting that has killed tens of thousands.

Some 21 million across the country are facing acute hunger, in what the United Nations calls the world’s largest humanitarian crisis.

In a small corner of the Gos Alsalam camp, Umm Azmi sits next to her newborn baby. She recalled how she was overtaken by labour on the road and delivered her baby in the open air without any medical assistance.

“I was trying for nine months … but I gave birth in the street – the condition is very difficult,” the mother said.

“I had just given birth, and I had nothing to eat. Sometimes we eat anything we find in the streets,” she added.