Month: May 2024

At least 85 people have died in a single hospital in the Darfur city of El-Fasher since fighting reignited between Sudan’s warring parties on May 10, medical charity Doctors Without Borders said Tuesday.

On Monday alone, nine of 60 casualties received at Southern Hospital — El-Fasher’s only remaining medical facility — had died of their wounds, said Claire Nicolet, head of the charity’s Sudan emergency programme.

In the period since the fighting erupted in the North Darfur state capital, the hospital had received “707 casualties” and “85 have passed away”, she added.

For over a year, fighting has raged between the regular military, under army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, led by his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo.

El-Fasher is the only state capital in the vast western region of Darfur not under RSF control and is a key humanitarian hub for a region on the brink of famine.

This month, it has been the site of fierce battles, despite repeated pleas including from the United Nations for fighters to spare the city.

Eyewitnesses have reported repeated artillery shelling and gunfire from both sides, as well as air strikes from the army.

Trapped in their homes by the fighting, many residents are unable to brave the violence on the streets to get wounded loved ones to the hospital.

Doctors Without Borders said casualties who reach Southern Hospital are met by “only one surgeon, putting the facility “under intense pressure”.

Across the country, the war has shuttered over 70 percent of medical facilities and stretched the remaining ones impossibly thin.

“We have only around 10 days of supplies left” for Southern Hospital, Nicolet said, urging the warring parties to provide “safe access” to enable them to replenish stocks.

Since the war began, tens of thousands of people have been killed, including up to 15,000 in a single West Darfur town, according to UN experts.

Nearly nine million people have been forced from their homes. By the end of April, North Darfur alone hosted more than half a million people newly displaced in the last year, according to the latest figures from the UN.

Former caretaker health minister Dr Nadeem Jan Monday visited the Iranian embassy in Islamabad and paid his condolences on the sad demise of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi.

The ex-interim minister, whose government’s stint ended in August, also expressed his condolences in writing at the embassy.

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, seen as a potential successor to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, died after his helicopter crashed in poor weather in the mountains near the Azerbaijan border, officials and state media said on Monday.

The charred wreckage of the helicopter which crashed on Sunday carrying Raisi, Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian and six other passengers and crew was found early on Monday after an overnight search in blizzard conditions.

Supreme Leader Khamenei, who holds ultimate power with a final say on foreign policy and Iran’s nuclear programme, said First Vice President Mohammad Mokhber, would take over as interim president, the official IRNA news agency reported.

Prior to Jan, Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif also visited the Iranian Embassy to convey his deepest condolences to the Government and people of Iran on the tragic demise of President Raisi and other officials.

While speaking to Iranian Ambassador Reza Amiri Moghaddam, the prime minister paid rich tributes to the late Iranian President. He fondly recalled his interactions with President Raisi, who he said was a great leader, a visionary and a scholar.

NEW DELHI: As Prime Minister Narendra Modi faces voter fatigue and some resistance from a resurgent opposition in India’s mammoth general election, foot soldiers of his party’s Hindu nationalist parent have stepped in to help regain momentum, insiders said.

With less than two weeks left of a six-week voting schedule, voter turnout has been lower than previous elections, raising concern within the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) that some of its core supporters were staying away.

Modi’s party, chasing a rare third term in office, has also faced stronger opposition than anticipated in a handful of states, leading election experts and Indian financial markets to adjust forecasts of a landslide win.

With no exit polls allowed until all the voting is completed on June 1, it’s difficult to judge how well or poorly candidates are faring. But most analysts say Modi should be able to retain a majority in the 543-seat parliament when votes are counted on June 4.

Bread and butter issues ‘replacing religious fervour’ in many parts of India

“The trend is suggesting that Modi will be back in power with a reduced majority,” said Rasheed Kidwai, a visiting fellow at the Observer Research Foundation think tank. But he added: “Any shortfall of a clear mandate of 300 seats for BJP will reflect poorly on Modi.”

At the start of the campaign, Modi was projected to win up to three-fourths of the seats, with the opposition led by Rahul Gandhi, the scion of the Gandhi-Nehru dynasty, a distant second.

After the first two phases of voting, though, analysts and political workers said the chances of the BJP getting above 362 seats, the two-thirds majority required to bring changes in the constitution, had been affected.

One reason the opposition is clawing back ground is the fading of the euphoria in India’s Hindu majority when Modi inaugurated a temple in January on a site disputed with the country’s minority Muslims.

Bread and butter issues seem to be replacing religious fervour in many parts of the country. Jobless youth in northern Haryana state have held street protests against the BJP during the campaign and in western Maharashtra, farmers incensed over a ban on onion exports canvassed support for an opposition candidate.

In the big, battleground state of Bihar, a BJP lawmaker has defected to the opposition Congress party saying the poor have been left behind in India’s world-beating economic growth. Some of the unhappiness is resulting in a swing to the opposition or in apathy, analysts have said.

“The decline in voting has been a cause of concern in recent weeks and we have been working to bring a shift in the numbers,” said Rajiv Tuli, an official at the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the Hindu group that is the ideological parent of the BJP.

“Meetings, outreach campaigns and even a renewed push to remind voters about ensuring a full-majority government comes to power did become critical after the first phase of voting.”

 

RSS volunteers are hosting neighbourhood meetings in their homes to persuade people to go out and vote, said Ritesh Agarwal, the senior publicity official for the group in the New Delhi region.

Three national spokespersons of the BJP said they were aware that the RSS was working to help improve voter turnout but declined comment on how this would affect the BJP.

“I don’t think there is any sense that BJP is in a weak position,” said spokesperson Shehzad Poonawalla, adding that a low turnout affected all parties and that voter numbers had increased after the first two phases.

As Iran mourns the unfortunate death of its president, Ebrahim Raisi — a potential successor to the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in a helicopter crash on Sunday, the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) has reported that the chopper faced an accident due to “technical failure”.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, Friday Prayer leader of the city of Tabriz Mohammad Ali Al-e Hashem and others including pilots and flight crew also died when the ill-fated aircraft crashed in mountain terrain amid poor weather on its way back from the East Azerbaijan province.

All passengers, including Raisi, were declared dead when charred wreckage of the Bell 212 helicopter was found early on Monday after an overnight search in blizzard conditions.

The funeral procession for President Raisi will be held in Tehran on Tuesday.

Khamenei, who holds ultimate power with a final say on foreign policy and Iran’s nuclear programme, announced a five-day mourning period while naming Iran’s First Vice-President Mohammad Mokhber as interim president and directing him to ensure the election of a new president within 50 days, as per the country’s constitution.

Though the crash came at a time of growing dissent within Iran over an array of political, social and economic crises, with Iran’s clerical rulers facing international pressure over Tehran’s disputed nuclear programme and heightening tensions with Israel in the backdrop of war in Gaza, any indication of foul play was ruled out by Iran’s state TV.

However, former Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has held the United States responsible for Raisi’s death and “his entourage because of its sanctions on the country’s aviation industry”.

“The Iranian nation has faced great events in these 45 years, and according to the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution, they will overcome this tragic event,” the state-TV quoted Zarif as saying

Besides other factors stated by the Iranian politician, the “cruel sanctions” against the Islamic state were part of the difficult conditions that Iran had faced and successfully overcome.

The US-made Bell 212, that carried 63-year-old leader, is believed to have been decades old. According to the Washington Post, the aircraft is a widely used civilian version of the Vietnam-era Huey military helicopter, operated by armed forces and businesses around the globe.

Iran also was a major buyer of Bell helicopters under the US-backed regime before the 1979 Islamic revolution but decades of sanctions made it hard for the nation to obtain parts or upgrade its aircraft.

An Al Jazeera report said that the Iranian economy has hit snags and especially its aviation sector has been impacted due to the inability to buy new planes or parts under the sanctions. A spike in deadly air accidents in the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s is pertinent to mention.