Humanitarian

A senior Sudanese diplomat has accused the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) of committing war crimes in the country’s North Darfur state, as survivors who escaped the city of el-Fasher recounted mass killings and sexual assault by the paramilitary troops.

Sudan’s ambassador to Egypt, Imadeldin Mustafa Adawi, made the allegations on Sunday as he accused the United Arab Emirates (UAE) of helping the RSF paramilitary group in the ongoing civil war.

The Gulf state denies the claim.

Adawi’s remarks followed an earlier statement by Sudanese Prime Minister Kamil Idris, who told the Swiss newspaper Blick that the RSF should be tried in the international courts.

But Kamil rejected the “illegal” idea of foreign troops being deployed to his country, which has been ravaged by a civil war between the RSF and the Sudanese army since April 2023.

The calls for action come a week after the RSF seized the capital of North Darfur, el-Fasher, after an 18-month siege and starvation campaign, resulting in thousands of reported civilian deaths. The city was the Sudanese army’s last stronghold in the region.

In the days since its capture, survivors have reported mass executions, pillaging, rape and other atrocities, sparking an international outcry.

The Sudanese government said that at least 2,000 people were killed, but witnesses said the real number could be much higher.

Tens of thousands of civilians are still believed to be trapped in the city.

“The government of Sudan is calling on the international community to act immediately and effectively rather than just make statements of condemnation,” Adawi told reporters during a news conference in the Egyptian capital, Cairo.

The envoy urged the world to designate the RSF as a “terrorist” organisation, as well as condemn RSF “for committing massacres amounting to genocide” and denounce “its official regional financier and supporter, the United Arab Emirates”.

He also said that Sudan would not take part in talks led by Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United States and the UAE to end the conflict if the latter remains part of the negotiations.

“We do not consider them [the UAE] as a mediator and someone reliable on the issue,” Adawi stressed.

Mass killings, sexual assault

The UAE, however, denies allegations that it is supplying the RSF with weapons.

At a forum in Bahrain’s capital, Manama, an Emirati presidential adviser said that the Gulf state wants to help end the war, and acknowledged that regional and international powers could have done more to prevent the conflict in Sudan.

“We all made the mistake, when the two generals who are fighting the civil war today overthrow the civilian government. That was, in my opinion, looking back, a critical mistake,” Anwar Gargash said.

Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and the US, as mediators, have all condemned the mass killings and called for increased humanitarian assistance.

As the world’s worst humanitarian crisis further spirals into chaos, residents who managed to escape el-Fasher recalled their harrowing experience.

Adam Yahya, who fled with four of his children, told Al Jazeera that his wife was killed in an RSF drone strike shortly before el-Fasher fell. He said that he and his children barely had time to mourn before they found themselves on the run from the paramilitary group.

“The streets were full of dead people. We made it to one of the sand barriers set up by the RSF. They were shooting at people, men, women and children, with machineguns. I heard one saying, ‘Kill them all, leave no one alive’,” Yahya recounted.

“We ran back and hid. At night, I slowly crept out with my children and crossed the barrier. We walked to a village, where someone took pity on us and gave us a ride to the camp here.”

Another 45-year-old woman in the displacement camp of Al Dabbah in Sudan’s Northern State told Al Jazeera that RSF fighters sexually assaulted her.

The woman, who only gave her first name, Rasha, said she left her daughters at home when the RSF seized the army headquarters on Sunday and went to look for her sons.

“The RSF asked me where I was going, and I told them I’m looking for my sons. They forced me into a house and started sexually assaulting me. I told them I’m old enough to be their mother. I cried,” she said.

“They then let me go, and I took my daughters and fled, leaving my sons behind. I don’t know where they are now,” she said.

“We just fled and ran past dead bodies till we crossed the barrier and reached a small village outside el-Fasher,” she added.

Aid agencies, meanwhile, said that thousands of people are unaccounted for after fleeing el-Fasher.

Caroline Bouvard, the Sudan country director for Solidarites International, said that only a few hundred more people have turned up in Tawila, the closest town to el-Fasher, in the past few days.

“Those are very small numbers considering the number of people who were stuck in el-Fasher. We keep hearing feedback that people are stuck on the roads and in different villages that are unfortunately still inaccessible due to security reasons,” she said.

Bouvard said there is a “complete blackout” in terms of information coming out of el-Fasher after the RSF takeover, and that aid agencies are getting their information from surrounding areas, where up to 15,000 people are believed to be stuck.

“There’s a strong request for advocacy with the different parties to ensure that humanitarian aid can reach these people or that, at least, we can send in trucks to bring them back to Tawila,” she added.

Many people remain unaccounted for while camps and towns surrounding el-Fasher are overwhelmed too.

Millions of people across war-ravaged Sudan, particularly its western parts, remain in dire need of humanitarian aid as key generals show no intention of ending the civil war amid ongoing violence and killings in North Darfur’s el-Fasher.

International aid agencies called on Sunday on the Sudanese armed forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) to facilitate increased entry of aid while a roadmap by mediators has failed to produce a ceasefire so far.

A week after the paramilitary force seized el-Fasher, the state capital of North Darfur, after an 18-month siege and starvation campaign, the situation remains catastrophic.

Tens of thousands of civilians are still believed to be trapped in the final major city in the western region of Darfur to fall to the RSF while thousands more are unaccounted for after fleeing el-Fasher.

Only a fraction of those who fled on foot from el-Fasher have made it to Tawila, a town roughly 50km (30 miles) away.

Speaking to Al Jazeera from Tawila, an official with a France-based aid agency said only a few hundred more people have turned up in the town over the past few days.

“Those are very small numbers considering the number of people who were stuck in el-Fasher. We keep hearing feedback that people are stuck on the roads and in different villages that are unfortunately still inaccessible due to security reasons,” said Caroline Bouvard, Sudan country director for Solidarites International.

Bouvard said there is a “complete blackout” in terms of information coming out of el-Fasher after the RSF takeover and aid agencies are getting their information from surrounding areas where up to 15,000 people are believed to be stuck.

“There’s a strong request for advocacy with the different parties to ensure that humanitarian aid can reach these people or that at least we can send in trucks to bring them back to Tawila.”

Many of the people who have managed to survive numerous RSF checkpoints and patrols to reach Tawila have reported seeing mass executions, torture, beatings and sexual violence. Some were abducted by armed men and forced to pay a ransom on pain of death.

Many more have been forcibly displaced to the al-Dabbah refugee camp in Sudan’s Northern State. Some have been there for weeks.

Reporting from the camp, Al Jazeera’s Hiba Morgan said over the past few days, more displaced people have poured in from el-Fasher, exacerbating the humanitarian situation.

People are in need of food, clean water, medication and shelter as many are sleeping out in the open. Thousands more could turn to the camp as well as other surrounding areas over the coming days as people flee the slaughter by RSF fighters.

The United States, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Egypt, as mediators, have all condemned the mass killings and called for increased humanitarian assistance.

“The RSF must stop engaging in retribution and ethnic violence; the tragedy in El Geneina must not be repeated,” the US Department of State said in a statement on Saturday in reference to the massacre of Masalit people in West Darfur’s capital.

“There isn’t a viable military solution, and external military support only prolongs the conflict. The United States urges both parties to pursue a negotiated path to end the suffering of the Sudanese people,” it said in a post on X.

US lawmakers have also called for action from Washington in the aftermath of the el-Fasher takeover by the RSF.

Republican Senator Jim Risch of Idaho, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on Friday called for the US to officially designate the RSF as a “foreign terrorist organisation”.

This week, legislators from over 120 national parliaments are meeting in Geneva to assess the world’s collective response to humanitarian crises.

Unprecedented rates of armed violence and forced displacement, together with climate change, public health emergencies, and food insecurity, have combined with the disintegration of our systems for international solidarity.

This has created a toxic cocktail that is causing untold suffering and costing lives.

The numbers are staggering. More than 122 million people are forcibly displaced, and almost 310 million people need humanitarian assistance.

As is so often the case, the vulnerable are the most brutally affected. One in every five children in the world—approximately 400 million—are living in or fleeing conflict zones.

Children caught up in crises often face the double jeopardy of losing their homes and their education.

Before entering parliament, I was a teacher, drawn to the profession because I knew how crucial education is to children.

But education is often the first casualty during crises and too frequently neglected by an overstretched and underfunded humanitarian system.

As a result, 234 million crisis-affected children and adolescents need urgent educational support, and over 85 million are out of school.

Depriving children in these contexts of an education robs them not just of the opportunity to learn the vital skills they need for life but also to a platform to receive life-saving services like food, water, and basic health care.

Thankfully, in many crisis situations where governments lack the resources to provide education, local and international non-government organisations step in and help ensure that children get the chance to go to school.

However, the drastic cuts to development and humanitarian assistance that many countries have made this year are putting this vital work at risk.

Projections indicate that total official development assistance for education may decline by USD3.2 billion by 2026, representing a nearly 25 percent decrease from 2023 – which could potentially displace another six million children from school in the coming months.

Earlier this year, humanitarian appeals were slashed by up to 90 percent in Sudan and Chad, leaving 33 million adults and children in need of life-saving assistance, without any support.

Despite a record number of refugees, the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, has received only a quarter of the funding that it needs in 2025, forcing it to halt or suspend about $1.4 billion in programs and to slash more than one-third of its education budget.

In the refugee camps that host Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, up to half a million boys and girls are now left without any form of schooling.

Ninety per cent of the world’s refugees live in low- and middle-income countries whose education systems already struggle to ensure every child is in school and learning.

In such cases, it is evident that host countries need support from the international community to provide the refugees they are hosting with access to education.

Education is also what crisis-affected communities want. Displaced parents and children consistently identify access to quality education as one of their highest-priority concerns.

Despite the enduring hardships they face, the determination of displaced communities to provide their children with an education is inspiring. They deserve our support.

That is why I am proud that Denmark, where I am a member of the national parliament, has affirmed its commitment to provide aid funding at or above the UN target of 0.7% of its gross national income (GNI).

With crises and conflicts multiplying around the world, it is more necessary than ever to strengthen international solidarity, and I hope that Denmark can inspire others to renew their commitment to solidarity through development cooperation and humanitarian assistance.

Tragically, a lack of funding is not the only threat to humanitarian response. The most fundamental humanitarian norms are being challenged in today’s war zones.

Current conflicts show, in appalling and devastating ways, the significant challenges facing international humanitarian law in providing effective and meaningful protection for people affected by armed conflicts.

Once again, education proves the point.

In 2022 and 2023 – the latest years for which comprehensive data is available – there were around 6,000 reported attacks on education and incidents of military use of schools and universities, harming more than 10,000 students and educators globally.

This represents a 20% increase on the previous two years, and the fear is that the number and severity of attacks on education personnel, facilities, and schools has continued to grow.

But there is a different way.

In 2015, Argentina and Norway launched the Safe Schools Declaration with the objective of avoiding military use of schools and strengthening the protection of children and education in conflict. It has since been adopted by 121 states.

Meanwhile, just last year, the International Committee of the Red Cross launched a global initiative to galvanize political commitment to international humanitarian law (IHL). Some 89 states have signed up to support the initiative.

International cooperation, like these initiatives, to address global challenges, has never been more critical.

As the institutions that represent the people, parliaments are uniquely positioned to mobilize political will, champion inclusive governance and dialogue, challenge narratives, and be the voice of the most vulnerable.

Parliaments are also key actors in translating global humanitarian norms into domestic legislation and policy, scrutinizing government action over humanitarian commitments, and allocating resources to tackle pressing humanitarian challenges.

Right now, parliamentary diplomacy – MPs from different parliaments talking and working together – has the opportunity to play a pivotal role in reinforcing multilateral values such as inclusion, solidarity, cooperation, shared responsibility, and the rules-based international order.

This week’s meeting of national parliaments in Geneva won’t solve the multiple crises we face, but it might just begin the process of reminding us that the challenges we face are global in nature and need global solutions, and forging new people-to-people relationships to do precisely that.

Hunger is neither a natural condition of humankind nor an unavoidable tragedy: it is the result of choices made by governments and economic systems that have chosen to turn a blind eye to inequalities – or even of promoting them.

The same global order that denies 673 million people access to adequate food also enables a privileged group of just 3,000 billionaires to hold 14.6 percent of global gross domestic product (GDP).

In 2024, the wealthiest nations helped drive the largest surge in military spending since the end of the Cold War, reaching $2.7 trillion that year. Yet they failed to deliver on their own commitment: to invest 0.7 percent of their GDP in concrete actions to promote development in poorer countries.

Today, we see situations not unlike those that prevailed 80 years ago, when the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations was created. Unlike then, however, we are not only witnessing the tragedies of war and hunger feeding into each other, but also facing the urgent climate crisis. And the international order established to address the challenges of 1945 is no longer sufficient to address today’s problems.

Global governance mechanisms must be reformed. We need to strengthen multilateralism, create investment flows that promote sustainable development, and ensure that states have the capacity to implement consistent public policies to fight hunger and poverty.

It is essential to include the poor in public budgets and the wealthy in the tax base. This requires tax justice and taxing the superrich, an issue we managed to include for the first time in the final declaration of the G20 Summit, held in November 2024, under Brazil’s Presidency. A symbolic but historic change.

We advocate for this practice around the world — and we are implementing it in Brazil. Our Parliament is about to approve substantial tax reform: for the first time in the country, there will be a minimum tax on the income of the wealthiest individuals, exempting millions of lower-income earners from paying income tax.

During our G20 Presidency, Brazil also proposed the Global Alliance against Hunger and Poverty. Although recent, the initiative already has 200 members — 103 countries and 97 partner foundations and organisations. This initiative is not just about exchanging experiences, but about mobilising resources and securing commitments.

With this alliance, we want to enable countries to implement public policies that truly reduce inequality and ensure the right to adequate food. Policies that deliver rapid results, as seen in Brazil after we made the fight against hunger a government priority in 2023.

Official data released just a few days ago show that we have lifted 26.5 million Brazilians out of hunger since the beginning of 2023. In addition, Brazil has been removed, for the second time, from the FAO’s Hunger Map, as laid out in its global report on food insecurity. A map we would not have returned to if the policies launched during my first two terms (2003-10) and President Dilma Rousseff’s (2011-16) had not been abandoned.

Behind these achievements lie a set of coordinated actions on multiple fronts. We have strengthened and expanded our national income transfer programme, which now reaches 20 million households and supports 8.5 million children aged six and below.

We have increased funding for free meals in public schools, benefitting 40 million students. Through public food procurement, we have secured income for small-scale family farmers, while offering free, nutritious meals to those who truly need them. In addition, we have expanded the free supply of cooking gas and electricity to low-income households, freeing up room in family budgets to strengthen food security.

None of these policies, however, is sustainable without an economic environment that drives them. When there are jobs and income, hunger loses its grip. That is why we have adopted an economic policy that prioritises wage increases, leading to the lowest unemployment rate ever recorded in Brazil. And to the lowest level of per capita household income inequality.

Brazil still has a long way to go before achieving full food security for its entire population, but the results confirm that state action can indeed overcome the scourge of hunger. These initiatives, however, depend on concrete shifts in global priorities: investing in development rather than in wars; prioritising the fight against inequality instead of restrictive economic policies that for decades have caused massive concentration of wealth; and facing the challenge of climate change with people at its core.

By hosting COP30 in the Amazon next month, Brazil wants to show that the fight against climate change and the fight against hunger must go hand in hand. In Belem, we aim to adopt a Declaration on Hunger, Poverty, and Climate that acknowledges the profoundly unequal impacts of climate change and its role in worsening hunger in certain regions of the world.

I will also take these messages to the World Food Forum and to the meeting of the Council of Champions of the Global Alliance against Hunger and Poverty, events I will have the honour of attending today, the 13th, in Rome, Italy. These are messages that show that change is urgent and possible. For humanity, which created the poison of hunger against itself, is also capable of producing its antidote.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

Haiti’s transitional leader Laurent Saint-Cyr told the 80th UNGA Haiti faces a “modern-day Guernica,” with rampant killings, rapes, and mass hunger. He urged urgent, large-scale international action to defend democracy, protect children, and secure Haiti’s right to peace.

Colombian President Gustavo Petro told the UNGA the world must end the “genocide in Gaza,” blasting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the US, and Europe as genocidal. He also tied US strikes on Caribbean boats to wider abuses driven by racism and domination.

Much of the affected region has become mostly inaccessible to the UN and aid groups, with Doctors Without Borders describing the area as a ‘black hole’ in Sudan’s humanitarian response. 

Sudan has appealed for international aid after a landslide destroyed an entire village in the western Darfur region, killing more than 1,000 people in one of the deadliest natural disasters in recent history in the country beset by a brutal civil war.

The village of Tarasin was “completely levelled to the ground,” the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/A), the rebel group that controls the area, said as it appealed to the United Nations and international aid groups for help to recover the bodies on Tuesday.

The tragedy happened on Sunday in the village, located in Central Darfur’s Marrah Mountains, after days of heavy rainfall.

“Initial information indicates the death of all village residents, estimated to be more than 1,000 people,” the rebel group said in a statement. “Only one person survived,” it added.

The ruling Sovereign Council in Khartoum said it mourned “the death of hundreds of innocent residents” in the Marrah Mountains landslide. In a statement, it said “all possible capabilities” have been mobilised to support the area.

Luca Renda, the UN humanitarian coordinator in Sudan, said he was “deeply saddened” by the reported landslide, adding that the UN and its partners were mobilising to support affected communities at the scene.

A local emergency network, which has been providing support to communities across Sudan during the war, said its teams recovered the bodies of at least nine people on Tuesday. Search teams were facing challenges to reach the area because of bad weather and a lack of resources, it added.

Mohamed Abdel-Rahman al-Nair, a SLM/A spokesman, told The Associated Press news agency that the village where the landslide took place is remote and accessible only by foot or donkeys.

Tarasin is located in the central Marrah Mountains, a volcanic area with a height of more than 3,000 metres (9,840 feet) at its summit. A World Heritage Site, the mountain chain is known for its lower temperatures and higher rainfall than surrounding areas, according to UNICEF. It is located more than 900 kilometres (560 miles) west of the capital, Khartoum.

Sunday’s landslide was one of the deadliest natural disasters in Sudan’s recent history. Hundreds of people die every year in seasonal rains that run from July to October. Last year’s heavy rainfall caused the collapse of a dam in the eastern Red Sea State, killing at least 30 people, according to the UN.

News of the disaster came as Sudan’s continuing war – now in its third year – plunges the country further into one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, with famine already declared in parts of Darfur.

People fleeing clashes between the government-aligned Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in North Darfur state had sought shelter in the Marra Mountains, and food and medication were in short supply, the Reuters news agency reported.

Much of the region has become mostly inaccessible for the UN and aid groups, with Doctors Without Borders (known by its French acronym MSF) describing the area as a “black hole” in Sudan’s humanitarian response.

The International Organization for Migration on Tuesday called for safe access and the scaling-up of support to the area.

Factions of the SLM/A have pledged to fight alongside the SAF against the RSF.

Fighting has escalated in Darfur, especially in el-Fasher, since the army took control of Khartoum from the RSF in March.

El-Fasher has been under RSF siege for more than a year, as the paramilitary force is seeking to capture the strategic city, the last major population centre held by the army in the Darfur region.

The paramilitaries, who lost much of central Sudan, including Khartoum, earlier this year, are attempting to consolidate power in the west and establish a rival government.

Sudan’s civil war saw a number of developments on the battlefield as well as in diplomacy and the humanitarian crisis.

Sudan’s civil war between the Sudanese armed forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary has produced the largest humanitarian crisis in the world.

Estimates suggested tens of thousands of people have died from combat and thousands more have perished from disease and hunger brought on by the war, now well into its third year.

There have been many significant military and political developments this month. Here are the key updates:

Fighting and military control

• The SAF is consolidating its control over the capital, Khartoum, which it took from the RSF in March. It also holds the central and eastern regions of Sudan, including its wartime capital of Port Sudan on the Red Sea.
• The RSF controls most of the sprawling western region of Darfur and much of the Kordofan region to the south.
• The RSF continues to besiege North Darfur’s capital, el-Fasher, where the SAF has its last Darfur garrison. If el-Fasher falls, the RSF will rule over a stretch of land roughly the size of France in western Sudan.
• The RSF has escalated attacks on el-Fasher and on nearby displacement camps, including the Abu Shouk camp, where 190,000 people from around Darfur have sought shelter.
• It has also erected massive sand berms around el-Fasher from the north, west and east, effectively creating a “kill-box,” according to recent satellite imagery obtained by the Yale Humanitarian Research Hub.
• The RSF is working to expand its control in Kordofan by working with a new ally, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N), headed by Abdelaziz al-Hilu. The two allied in February to counter the SAF on the battlefield.
• With the help of the SPLM-N, the RSF retains control over most of West and South Kordofan, giving them cross-border access to South Sudan.
• SAF controls the most strategic city in North Kordofan, el-Obeid, which the RSF is besieging. The SAF needs to hold onto el-Obeid to keep the RSF from threatening central Sudan.

Humanitarian crisis

• The RSF has trapped an estimated 260,000 civilians, including 130,000 children, in el-Fasher, turning the city into an “epicentre of child suffering”, according to UNICEF.
• Most are surviving on animal fodder known as ambaz – the residue of pressed oil seeds, such as peanuts, sesame, and sunflower – which they grind into a paste; however, even this is running low.
• About one-third of the children in Mellit, a city the RSF controls near el-Fasher, are severely malnourished, according to figures obtained by Relief International and shared with Al Jazeera. That is more than double the World Health Organization’s threshold for a malnutrition emergency.
• A cholera outbreak is compounding the humanitarian crisis across the vast region of Darfur, according to Adam Rojal, internally displaced people spokesperson in Darfur. On August 30, he said the water-borne disease killed nine people that day and infected a total of 9,143 people, with 382 deaths, since the epidemic first started in June 2025.
• Food convoys from the United Nations and other nongovernmental organisations rarely reach the neglected region of Darfur due to road closures and bureaucratic impediments. Human rights groups and local activists accuse both sides of weaponising food.
• The World Food Programme told Al Jazeera that it provides electronic cash assistance to vulnerable people in North Darfur, but no food convoys have reached the region for more than a year.
• A UN food convoy was hit by a drone strike in North Darfur on Friday, the second aid convoy in three months to be targeted. The RSF and SAF traded blame for the attack.
• There is a similar hunger emergency in South Kordofan due to an RSF siege on the cities of Dilling and Kadugli.

Diplomacy and political developments

• RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo was reportedly sworn in as president of the parallel “Peace government” on August 31 in South Darfur’s capital, Nyala. SAF hit the city with a drone strike on the same day.
• A secret meeting reportedly took place in Switzerland between SAF Commander-in-Chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and a United States adviser in mid-August, ostensibly to discuss a plan to end the war, according to Sudan experts and media outlets. The US has not confirmed the talks.
• A week after the secret meeting, al-Burhan retired several senior military officers, some of whom reportedly belong to Sudan’s political Islamist movement, which ruled the country for 30 years with former President Omar al-Bashir at the helm. Experts believe al-Burhan is under external pressure to dilute the influence of prominent figures tied to the al-Bashir government.

US, Saudi Arabia, UAE and others urge warring sides to halt fighting and allow aid into Sudan, including famine-struck areas.

United States-led mediators have said they are “appalled” by the continuously deteriorating humanitarian situation in Sudan, where a brutal civil war is raging into its third year, and called for urgent action by the warring parties to protect civilians.

The mediators, known as the Aligned for Advancing Lifesaving and Peace in Sudan (ALPS) Group, include the US, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, among others.

“The ALPS group urgently reiterates that international humanitarian law must be fully respected. This includes the obligations to protect civilians, including humanitarian personnel, their premises and assets, as well as to allow and facilitate rapid and unimpeded humanitarian access to all those in need,” the ALPS Group said in a statement on Wednesday.

The group said it was also appalled by “the growing number of people in situations of severe malnutrition and famine, and by the wide range of access impediments that are delaying or blocking the response in key areas”.

It added that the situation was especially urgent in the North Darfur and Kordofan regions.

“Civilians continue to pay the highest price for this war,” it said.

Sudan has been ravaged by violence and hunger since the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) went to war in April 2023.

The country in effect is split in two, with the army controlling the north, east and centre of Sudan and the RSF dominating nearly all of Darfur and parts of the south.

Nearly 25 million people in Sudan face dire hunger, with millions cut off from lifesaving aid, according to the United Nations.

The UAE has been accused of championing the RSF, including by sending weapons, something it strongly denies.

The plea for Sudan comes as the US faces global criticism for its support of Israel in the genocidal war on Gaza, which is also facing an Israeli-induced famine.

Maiduguri, Nigeria – Sometimes, it feels to Zara Ali as though her daughter was born already sick in the womb.

On a recent weekday, the 30-year-old mother clutched the ill toddler in her lap as she sat outside a government hospital in Maiduguri, the capital of northeast Nigeria’s Borno State. The two had just finished yet another doctor’s appointment in hopes of curing the child.

Although cranky as any other sick two-year-old, it is Amina’s hair – brownish and seemingly bald in several spots – that’s a visible sign of the malnourishment doctors had previously diagnosed. Yet, despite months of treatment with a protein-heavy, ready-to-eat paste, Ali says progress has been slow, and her daughter might require more hospital visits.

“She gets sick, gets a little better, and then falls ill again,” she said, frustrated. Already, Ali and her family have had to move homes several times because of the Boko Haram conflict. They were displaced from Damboa town, about 89km (55 miles) away, and now live in Maiduguri as displaced persons.

Adding to her woes is the reduced access to care in recent months as several aid clinics she visits for free treatment have begun to scale back operations, or in some cases, completely shut their services. “Honestly, their interventions were really helpful, and we need them to come back and help our children,” Ali said.

Amina is only one of some five million children across northeast and northwest Nigeria suffering from malnourishment in what experts have called the region’s most severe food crisis in years. The troubled northeast region has, for a decade and a half, been in the throes of a conflict waged by the armed group Boko Haram, and prolonged insecurity has disrupted food supplies. In the northwest, bandit groups are causing similar upheavals, resulting in a hunger crisis that state governments are struggling to contain.

Compounding the problem this year are the massive, brutal funding cuts roiling aid organisations, which have often stepped in to help by providing food assistance to the 2.3 million displaced northeast Nigerians. Many of those organisations were dependent on funds from the United States, which, since February, has reduced contributions to aid programmes globally by about 75 percent.

The World Food Programme (WFP), the United Nations food aid agency and the world’s largest provider of food assistance, was forced to shut down more than half of all its nutrition clinics across the northeast in August, Emmanuel Bigenimana, who leads northeast Nigeria operations, told Al Jazeera from the agency’s site in Maiduguri. Some 300,000 children are cut off from needed nutrition supplements, he said.

Already, in July, WFP doled out its last reserves of grains for displaced adults and families, Bigenimana added, standing by a row of half-empty tent warehouses. A few men removed grain sacks from the tents and loaded them onto trucks bound for neighbouring Chad, a country also caught in complex crises. For Nigeria, he said, which is in the lean season before harvest, there was no more food.

Insecurity fuels food crisis

Northeast Nigeria should be a food basket for the country, due to its fertile, savannah vegetation suitable for cultivating nuts and grains. However, since the Boko Haram conflict broke out, the food supply has dwindled. Climate shocks in the increasingly arid region have added to the problems.

Boko Haram aims to control the territory and has been active since 2011. The group’s operations are mainly in Borno, neighbouring states in the northeast, and across the border in Niger, Chad, and Cameroon. It gained global notoriety in 2014 for the kidnapping of female students in Chibok. Internal fractures and Nigeria’s military response have reduced the group’s capacity in recent years, but it still controls some territory, and a breakaway faction is affiliated with ISIL (ISIS). More than 35,000 people have been killed in attacks by the group, and more than 2 million are displaced.

Before the insecurity, families in the region, particularly outside the urban metropolis of Maiduguri, survived on subsistence farming, tilling plots of land, and selling surplus harvest. These days, that is hardly an option. The military has hunkered down in garrisoned towns since 2019 to avoid troop losses. It is hard to find cultivating space amid the trenches and security barriers constructed in such places, security analyst Kabir Adamu of intelligence firm Beacon Consulting, told Al Jazeera. Those who venture outside the towns risk being targeted by armed fighters.

In rural areas not under army control, Boko Haram operates as a sort of government, exploiting villagers to generate money.

“The armed actors collect taxes from them to use land for farming,” Adamu said, adding that for rural farmers, those taxes often prove heavy on the pockets. In more unlucky scenarios, farmers have been killed if they were believed to be military informants. In January, 40 farmers were executed in the town of Baga. Fishermen have similarly been targeted.

The vicious cycle has repeated itself for years, and the compounding effect is the current food crisis, experts say.

Just 45 minutes from Maiduguri, in Konduga town, farmer Mustapha Modu, 55, tilled the earth in anticipation of rainfall on a cool weekday. He had just returned from a short journey to Maiduguri, braving the risky highways to buy seedlings in hopes of a good season.

Even as Modu planted, he worried that harvest might be impossible. There are widespread fears that Boko Haram fighters often lie in wait and then pounce on farmers to seize harvests. At one time, he said, his family of three wives and 17 children depended on handouts, but those hardly reached Konduga any more, so he had to do something.

“It’s been a long time since we saw them in our village,” Modu said of food aid distributors. “That’s why I managed to go and get some seedlings, even though the insurgents are still on our neck.”

Aid cuts risk more ‘violence’

The UN and its agencies were the focus of aid cuts from Washington in April, leading to the WFP receiving zero aid from the US this year, Bigenimana said. Like the US, other donors such as the European Union and the United Kingdom have also cut back on aid, instead diverting money to security as tensions remain high over Russia’s war in Ukraine.

The agency catered to some 1.3 million displaced people and others in hard-to-reach areas, fringe locations accessible only by helicopter. For children, the agency ran several nutrition clinics and supported government hospitals with ready-to-use food, a protein mixture made mostly of groundnut, which can rapidly stabilise a malnourished child.

Funding cuts caused the WFP to begin rationing supplies in recent months. In July, resources in Nigeria were completely emptied. At least $130m is required for the agency to speedily get back on track with its operations here, Bigenimana said. Extended lack of support, he said, could push more people into danger.

“People are attempting to go and get firewood to sell outside the secure points,” the official said. “Even when we delay distribution on normal days, people protest. So we are expecting that, and it could get violent.”

Multiple other NGOs across the region were also hit by the Trump aid cuts. They not only provided food aid or nutrition treatment, but also medical services, and crucial vaccines children need in the first years of life to guard against infectious diseases like measles.

Analysts like Adamu, however, criticise aid groups for what he said is their failure to create a system where people don’t rely on food aid. In Borno, the state government has, since 2021, gradually shut down camps for internally displaced people and resettled some in their communities. The aim, the government argues, is to reduce dependency and restore dignity. However, the move faces widespread backlash as aid agencies and rights organisations point out that some areas are still unsafe, and that displaced people simply move to other camps.

“They should have supported the government on security reforms for the state,” Adamu argued. That, he said, would have been a more sustainable way of empowering people and would have eased the food crisis.

Rain time, sick time

For now, the food crisis looks set to continue, and children in particular appear to be bearing the brunt, especially as heavy rains arrive.

Muhammad Bashir Abdullahi, an officer with medical aid group Doctors without Borders, known by its French initials MSF, told Al Jazeera that more malnourished children are being admitted to the organisation’s nutrition facility in Maiduguri since early August. It is possible, he said, that the shuttered services in other organisations were contributing to the higher numbers.

“We used to admit 200 children weekly, but last week we admitted up to 400 children,” Abdullahi said. MSF, which is not dependent on US aid, has recorded more than 6,000 malnourished children in its Maiduguri nutrition centre since January. Typically, children receive the protein paste, or in acute cases, a special milk solution. Abdullahi said more children are likely to be admitted in the coming weeks.

Back at the government hospital where Ali was seeking treatment for her daughter, another woman stopped outside the clinic with her children, twin baby boys.

One of them was sick, the mother, 33-year-old Fatima Muhammad, complained, and is suffering from a swollen head. This is the third hospital she was visiting, as two other facilities managed by NGOs were overwhelmed. Unfortunately, her son had not been accepting the protein paste, a sign that medical experts say signals acute malnutrition.

“His brother is sitting and crawling already, but he still cannot sit,” Muhammad said, her face squeezed in a frown. She blamed herself for not eating enough during her pregnancy, although she hardly had a choice. “I think that’s what affected them. I just need help for my son, nothing more.”

President Trump says the Alaska summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin could “set the table” for trilateral talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. He denied the meeting rewarded Putin, as critics warned it could undermine US efforts to isolate Russia.

The WFP says aid is being cut by 60 percent for the most vulnerable groups, including pregnant women and disabled people.

The World Food Programme (WFP) has said it will need to drastically cut rations to refugees in Kenya due to reductions in global aid, including major funding cuts from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

Residents of the Kakuma and Dadaab refugee camps were beginning to feel the impact of food aid cuts on Monday as the WFP implemented a new assistance system there in which certain groups are prioritised over others.

The WFP said aid is being cut by 60 percent for the most vulnerable groups, including pregnant women and disabled people, and by 80 percent for refugees with some kind of income.

The two camps host nearly 800,000 people fleeing conflict and drought in Somalia and South Sudan, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

“WFP’s operations supporting refugees in Kenya are under immense strain,” Baimankay Sankoh, WFP’s deputy country director in Kenya, said in May. “With available resources stretched to their limits, we have had to make the difficult decision to again reduce food assistance. This will have a serious impact on vulnerable refugees, increasing the risk of hunger and malnutrition.”

“There has been a lot of tension in the last couple of weeks or so,” Al Jazeera’s Catherine Soi said, reporting from Kakuma.

“People were very angry about what WFP is calling the priority food distribution, where some people will not get food at all and others are going to get a small fraction of the food.”

These tensions boiled over, triggering protests last week, which left one person dead and several others injured, said Soi, adding that WFP officials she spoke with said the aid cuts from organisations like USAID meant they have had to make “very difficult decisions about who gets to eat and who doesn’t”.

WFP worker Thomas Chica explained to Soi that the new system was rolled out after assessments were conducted by WFP and its partners.

Refugees are now assessed based on their needs, rather than their status, said Chica. “We need to look at them separately and differently and see how best we can channel the system so that it provides.”

The impact of these cuts is severe amid concerns over malnutrition. The Global Acute Malnutrition (GAM) rate among refugee children and pregnant or breastfeeding women in Kenya is above 13 percent. A GAM rate over 10 percent is classed as a nutrition emergency.

“Already the food that is being issued is quite low, 40 percent of the recommended ration, and this is being shared by a bigger chunk of the population,” Chica said, adding that stocks will therefore not last as long as hoped.

This reduction took effect in February and is based on a daily recommended intake of 2,100kcal.

With its current resources dating from last year, WFP will only be able to provide assistance until December or January, said Chica.

WFP said in May that $44m was required to provide full rations and restore cash assistance for all refugees just through August.

PRINCE Harry is considering starting a new humanitarian charity.

It comes after the Duke of Sussex stepped down as patron of Sentebale, the African charity he co-founded, after a bullying row.

Yesterday, Harry’s spokesman said: “The duke remains committed to continuing his support for the children and young people of Lesotho and Botswana — work he started nearly 20 years ago.

“In what form that support takes, no decisions have been made.

“All options remain on the table, whether that be starting a new charity or working to support pre-existing charities.”

Sentebale works in southern Africa supporting young people, especially those with HIV and Aids.

But Harry stood aside in March amid bullying claims by the board chairwoman.

Sentebale said in a statement: “The Charity Commission is explicitly clear, including in its public guidance, that it is not the commission’s responsibility to adjudicate or mediate internal disputes.

“This would include individual allegations of bullying, harassment, misogyny, misogynoir etc.

“As a result, the commission has not investigated any individual allegations and therefore has not made any findings in relation to individuals, including Prince Harry.

“The issues not investigated by the commission can and may be dealt with through avenues more appropriate than the commission.”

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Former UN Senior Humanitarian and Reconstruction Coordinator for Gaza Sigrid Kaag speaks to Talk to Al Jazeera about delivering aid under Israeli siege, amid what many world leaders call genocide. She discusses blocked aid, famine, the collapse of humanitarian norms, and the UN’s credibility crisis. Kaag, also a former deputy prime minister, finance minister, and foreign minister of the Netherlands, offers her perspective on what future remains for a rules-based order when even humanitarian principles are no longer guaranteed.

The humanitarian situation is taking a heavy toll on women in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo) amid the armed violence unsettling the country.

Bruno Lemarquis, the United Nations humanitarian coordinator in the DR Congo, has raised concerns over unmet needs regarding protection and care for survivors of violence, especially women. Lemarquis expressed his concern during an online campaign for aid funding tagged “Every Dollar Counts.”

“It is a crisis of protection, the women and children being the first victims,” the humanitarian coordinator said.

Violence linked to conflicts results in massive displacements, exposing women to added risks, notably sexual aggression, precarious sanitary situations and exclusion from essential services. On the ground, despite considerable efforts by humanitarian teams, resources remain insufficient. By mid-July this year, only 13 per cent of the funds necessary for the year had been raised. This crisis of financing has direct effects. In certain zones, the women who are victims of sexual violence no longer receive medical treatment or psycho-social support, which is indispensable to their well-being.

During a recent mission in North Kivu and South Kivu, Lemarquis visited a health centre supported by Humanitarian Funds. While childbirth is free of charge, the available resources are significantly below what is needed. There is a lack of personnel, equipment, and medicine, which compromises the quality of maternal care.

Women are also affected by the insufficiency of water, hygiene and sanitation, which aggravates their vulnerability in the face of epidemics such as cholera. Only 10 per cent of the needs in these sectors are daily covered. 

“Thanks to humanitarian teams on the ground, these modest contributions are being transformed into concrete actions: hygiene kits to prevent diseases, protection for the survivors of violence,” Lemarquis said, adding that the “Each Dollar Counts” campaign aims to mobilise the necessary resources to protect women in the most fragile contexts and guarantee minimum access to vital services.

A humanitarian aid convoy has reached Syria’s Druze-majority Suwayda province as the United Nations warns that the humanitarian situation remains critical after last week’s deadly clashes displaced thousands and left essential services in ruins.

Clashes in Druze-majority Suwayda province, which began on July 13 and ended with a ceasefire a week later, initially involved Druze fighters and Sunni Bedouin tribes, who have been fighting for decades. Later, government forces joined the fighting on the side of the Bedouin armed groups.

State television reported on Monday that a Syrian Red Crescent convoy had entered Suwayda, showing images of trucks crossing into the region.

State news agency SANA said the 27-truck convoy “contains 200 tonnes of flour, 2,000 shelter kits, 1,000 food baskets” as well as medical and other food supplies.

The effort was a cooperation between “international organisations, the Syrian government and the local community”.

UN warns of critical situation

Although the ceasefire has largely held, the UN’s humanitarian agency, OCHA, said that the humanitarian situation in Suwayda province “remains critical amid ongoing instability and intermittent hostilities”.

“Humanitarian access, due to roadblocks, insecurity and other impediments … remains constrained, hampering the ability of humanitarians to assess need thoroughly and to provide critical life-saving assistance on a large scale,” OCHA said in a statement.

It stated that the violence resulted in power and water outages, as well as shortages of food, medicine, and fuel.

Local news outlet Suwayda24 reported that “the humanitarian needs in Suwayda are dire”, saying many more aid convoys were needed for the province.

It said demonstrations demanding more humanitarian aid were held in several locations on Monday.

On Sunday, Suwayda24 published a warning from local civil and humanitarian groups of a “humanitarian catastrophe” in Suwayda, adding that the province “is under a suffocating, escalating siege imposed by the authorities” that has led to a severe lack of basic supplies.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that government forces were deployed in parts of the province, but goods were unable to enter due to the ongoing closure of the Suwayda-Damascus highway, as government-affiliated armed groups were obstructing traffic.

SANA quoted Suwayda’s provincial Governor Mustafa al-Bakkur on Sunday as saying that aid convoys were entering Suwayda province normally and that “the roads are unobstructed for the entry of relief organisations to the province”.

Deadly clashes displaced thousands

The clashes killed more than 250 people and threatened to unravel Syria’s post-war transition.

The violence also displaced 128,571 people, according to the UN’s International Organization for Migration.

During the clashes, government forces intervened on the side of the Bedouin, according to witnesses, experts and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor.

Israel intervened and launched air attacks on Syria’s Ministry of Defence buildings in the heart of Damascus.

Israeli forces also hit Syrian government forces in Suwayda province, claiming it was protecting the Druze, whom it calls its “brothers”.

Russia, Turkiye call for respect of Syria’s territorial integrity

Following the Israeli attacks, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin stressed the importance of Syria’s territorial integrity in a call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Putin, an ally of former Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, also said that political stability in the country must be achieved through respect for “all ethnic and religious groups’ interests”, a Kremlin statement said.

A senior Turkish official also called for sustained de-escalation and an end to Israeli military attacks in Syria, stressing the need to support Damascus’s efforts to stabilise the war-torn country.

“From now on, it is important to ensure continued de-escalation and Israeli non-aggression, support for the Syrian government’s efforts to restore calm in Suwayda and to prevent civilian casualties,” Deputy Foreign Minister Nuh Yilmaz told the UN Security Council during a meeting on Syria.

“Israel’s disregard for law, order, and state sovereignty reached new heights with its recent attacks on the presidential complex and the Defence Ministry,” Yilmaz said. “The situation has partially improved as a result of our collective efforts with the US and some other countries.”

Uprooted by the ongoing violent conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), locals in the Bahunde chiefdom of North Kivu are lamenting the dire humanitarian conditions they have faced since their return. The Congolese, mainly from the Bishange and Luzirantaka areas, previously fled their homes when they were caught between the DRC army and the Rwanda-backed M23 rebels.

In a letter to the global humanitarian community, the returnee crisis committee highlighted how food insecurity affects thousands of households across the Bishange and Bitonga zones. They report that since returning to their homes, residents have received no assistance, despite losing everything during violent clashes in their communities.

“The food and non-feeding needs are enormous because we lost everything during the armed violence in our zone,” the returnees stated in the letter. “We call on humanitarian organisations to take this question seriously because we are already recording cases of serious malnutrition due to a lack of food. We call on international non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to save lives.”

The locals returned to their villages after the area was occupied by M23 rebels, following intense clashes with government forces.

The fighting devastating the DRC has lingered for decades, with M23 rebels, among others, waging a war against the government. The conflict is deeply rooted in long-standing ethnic, political, and economic tensions in the country’s eastern region. After defecting from the Congolese army, a Tutsi-dominated rebel group founded the M23 in 2012. The group accused the DRC government of refusing to adhere to the 2009 peace agreement, particularly regarding protecting Tutsi communities and political inclusion. They were defeated in 2013 after capturing Goma, a bustling city in the country, forcing them to flee to Rwanda and Uganda. 

The group re-emerged in 2021 and launched a new offensive in 2022, rapidly gaining territory in North and South Kivu provinces. By early 2025, M23 had seized major cities like Goma and Bukavu, displacing millions and triggering a humanitarian crisis. The DRC government, the United Nations, and several Western powers accused Rwanda of providing direct military support to M23, including troops, weapons, and logistical aid. A 2025 UN report, for instance, concluded that Rwanda exercised “command and control” over M23 operations, with thousands of Rwandan troops active in eastern Congo. 

Rwanda, however, denied these allegations, claiming its actions are defensive and aimed at neutralising the Forces Démocratiques de Libération du Rwanda (FDLR), a Hutu rebel group in the DRC linked to the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Analysts argue that Rwanda’s motivations go beyond security concerns, pointing to its interest in controlling mineral-rich territories in eastern Congo. The resurgence of M23 is widely seen as a proxy strategy by Kigali to assert regional influence and secure access to valuable resources like gold, coltan, and cobalt. The conflict remains unresolved despite international pressure and sanctions, with peace efforts complicated by deep mistrust and competing regional interests.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he would meet with President Trump again on Tuesday to discuss a Gaza ceasefire. He also praised Washington’s “unprecedented” military ties with Israel following a meeting with Capitol Hill lawmakers.

The United Nations human rights office has said it recorded at least 613 killings of Palestinians both at controversial aid points run by the Israeli- and United States-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) and near humanitarian convoys.

“This is a figure as of June 27. Since then … there have been further incidents,” Ravina Shamdasani, the spokesperson for the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), told reporters in Geneva on Friday.

The OHCHR said 509 of the 613 people were killed near GHF distribution points. The Gaza Health Ministry has put the number of deaths at more than 650 and those wounded as exceeding 4,000.

The GHF began distributing limited food packages in Gaza at the end of May, overseeing a new model of deliveries which the UN says is neither impartial nor neutral, as killings continue around the organisation’s sites, which rights groups have slammed as “human slaughterhouses”.

Mahmoud Basal, a civil defence spokesperson in Gaza, said they “recorded evidence of civilians being deliberately killed by the Israeli military”.

“More than 600 Palestinian civilians were killed at these centres,” he said. “Some were shot by Israeli snipers, others were killed by drone attacks, air strikes or shootings targeting families seeking aid.”

‘I lost everything’

A mother, whose son was killed while trying to get food, told Al Jazeera that she “lost everything” after his death.

“My son was a provider, I depended totally on him,” she said, adding: “He was the pillar and foundation of our life.”

The woman called the GHF’s aid distribution centres “death traps”.

“We are forced to go there out of desperation for food; we go there out of hunger,” she said.

“Instead of coming back carrying a bag of flour, people themselves are being carried back as bodies,” she added.

The World Health Organization said on Friday that Nasser Hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis is operating as “one massive trauma ward” due to an influx of patients injured around GHF sites.

Referring to medical staff at the hospital, Rik Peeperkorn, WHO representative in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, told reporters in Geneva: “They’ve seen already for weeks, daily injuries … (the) majority coming from the so-called safe non-UN food distribution sites.”

Peeperkorn said health workers at Nasser Hospital and testimonies from family members and friends of those wounded confirmed that the victims had been trying to access aid at sites run by the GHF.

He recounted the harrowing cases of a 13-year-old boy shot in the head, as well as a 21-year-old with a bullet lodged in his neck which rendered him paraplegic.

According to the UN, only 16 of Gaza’s 36 hospitals remain partially operational, their collective capacity merely above 1,800 beds – entirely insufficient for the overwhelming medical needs.

The Israeli army has targeted the health institutions and medical workers in the besieged enclave since the beginning of its war on Gaza in October 2023.

“The health sector is being systematically dismantled,” Peeperkorn said on Thursday in a separate statement, citing shortages of medical supplies, equipment, and personnel.

GHF condemned

The UN, humanitarian organisations and other NGOs have repeatedly slammed the GHF for its handling of aid distribution and the attacks around its distribution sites.

More than 130 humanitarian organisations, including Oxfam, Save the Children and Amnesty International, on Tuesday demanded the immediate closure of the GHF, accusing it of facilitating attacks on starving Palestinians.

The NGOs said Israeli forces and armed groups “routinely” open fire on civilians attempting to access food.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), which was carrying out aid distribution for decades before the GHF, has called for investigations into the killings and wounding of Palestinians trying to access food through GHF.

UNRWA noted that while it operated about 400 sites across the territory, GHF has set up only four “mega-sites”, three in the south and one in central Gaza – none in the north, where conditions are most severe.

The GHF has denied that incidents surrounding people killed or wounded at its sites have occurred involving its contractors, without providing any evidence, rejecting an Associated Press investigation that said some of its United States staff fired indiscriminately at Palestinians.

A recent report from Israeli outlet Haaretz detailed Israeli troops, in their words, confirming that Israeli soldiers have deliberately shot at unarmed Palestinians seeking aid in Gaza after being “ordered” to do so by their commanders.

Medical sources have told Al Jazeera that Israeli forces killed 27 Palestinians in Gaza since dawn on Friday.

In Khan Younis, the Israeli military killed at least 15 Palestinians following a series of deadly attacks on makeshift tents in the al-Mawasi coastal area, which was once classified as a so-called humanitarian safe zone by Israel. Attacks there have been relentless.

Israel’s war in Gaza has killed more than 57,000 Palestinians, according to the enclave’s Health Ministry, while displacing most of the population of more than two million multiple times, triggering widespread hunger and leaving much of the territory in ruins.

The war began after Hamas-led fighters crossed into southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking 251 captives back to Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.

Former United States Presidents Barack Obama and George W Bush have delivered a rare open rebuke of the Donald Trump administration in an emotional video farewell with staffers of the US Agency for International Development (USAID).

Obama called the Trump administration’s dismantling of USAID “a colossal mistake”.

Monday was the last day as an independent agency for the six-decade-old humanitarian and development organisation, created by President John F Kennedy as a soft power, peaceful way of promoting US national security by boosting goodwill and prosperity abroad.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has ordered USAID to be absorbed into the US State Department on Tuesday.

The former presidents and U2 singer Bono  – who held back tears as he recited a poem – spoke with thousands in the USAID community in a videoconference, which was billed as a closed-press event.

They expressed their appreciation for the thousands of USAID staffers who have lost their jobs and life’s work. Their agency was one of the first and most fiercely targeted for government cuts by Trump and his billionaire ally Elon Musk, with staffers abruptly locked out of systems and offices and terminated by mass emailing.

Trump claimed the agency was run by “radical left lunatics” and rife with “tremendous fraud”. Musk called it “a criminal organisation”.

Obama, speaking in a recorded statement, offered assurances to the aid and development workers, some listening from overseas.

“Your work has mattered and will matter for generations to come,” he told them.

Obama has largely kept a low public profile during Trump’s second term and refrained from criticising the seismic changes that Trump has made to US programmes and priorities at home and abroad.

“Gutting USAID is a travesty, and it’s a tragedy. Because it’s some of the most important work happening anywhere in the world,” Obama said. He credited USAID with not only saving lives, but being a main factor in global economic growth that has turned some aid-receiving countries into US markets and trade partners.

The former Democratic president predicted that “sooner or later, leaders on both sides of the aisle will realise how much you are needed”.

Asked for comment, the State Department said it would be introducing the department’s foreign assistance successor to USAID, to be called America First, this week.

“The new process will ensure there is proper oversight and that every tax dollar spent will help advance our national interests,” the department said.

USAID oversaw programmes around the world, providing water and life-saving food to millions uprooted by conflict in Sudan, Syria, Gaza and elsewhere, sponsoring the “Green Revolution” that revolutionised modern agriculture and curbed starvation and famine. The agency worked at preventing disease outbreaks, promoting democracy, and providing financing and development that allowed countries and people to climb out of poverty.

Bush, who also spoke in a recorded message, went straight to the cuts in a landmark AIDS and HIV programme started by his Republican administration and credited with saving 25 million lives around the world.

Bipartisan blowback from Congress to cutting the popular President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, known as PEPFAR, helped save significant funding for the programme. But cuts and rule changes have reduced the number getting the life-saving care.

“You’ve showed the great strength of America through your work – and that is your good heart,” Bush told USAID staffers. “Is it in our national interests that 25 million people who would have died now live? I think it is, and so do you,” he said.

More than 14 million of the world’s most vulnerable, a third of them young children, could die because of the Trump administration’s move, a study in the Lancet journal projected Tuesday.

“For many low- and middle-income countries, the resulting shock would be comparable in scale to a global pandemic or a major armed conflict,” study co-author Davide Rasella, a researcher at the Barcelona Institute for Global Health, said in a statement.

Bono, a longtime humanitarian advocate in Africa and elsewhere, was announced as the “surprise guest”.

he recited a poem he had written to the agency about its gutting. He spoke of children dying of malnutrition, a reference to millions of people who Boston University researchers and other analysts say will die because of the US cuts to funding for health and other programmes abroad.

“They called you crooks,” Bono said, “when you were the best of us.”