cairo — Fighters from Sudan’s paramilitary group rampaged through a central village, looting and burning and killing at least 85 people, including women and children, authorities and residents said Saturday, the latest atrocity in the country’s 18-month devastating conflict. 

The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces began attacking Galgani in the central province of Sennar late in July and last week. RSF fighters “indiscriminately opened fire on the village’s unarmed residents” after they resisted attempts to abduct and sexually assault women and girls, Sudan’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement. More than 150 villagers were wounded, it said. 

The RSF has been repeatedly accused of massacres, rapes and other gross violations across the country since the war started in April last year, when simmering tensions between the military and the group exploded into open fighting in the capital Khartoum and elsewhere. 

Describing the hours-long attack, three residents said hundreds of RSF fighters stormed the village Thursday, looting and burning houses and public properties. 

The offensive came after the residents put up resistance and repelled an attack by a small group of RSF fighters, according to a health care worker at the local medical center who spoke to The Associated Press. 

The group retreated but hundreds of RSF fighters in dozens of pickup trucks with automatic rifles and heavy weapons returned, according to the worker and another resident. 

As of Friday, the medical center had received at least 80 bodies, including 24 women and minors, said the worker, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of fears for his safety. 

Mohamed Tajal-Amin, a villager, said he saw seven bodies — six men and one woman — laying in the street midday Friday. 

“The Janjaweed are in the street and people are not able to recover their dead and bury them,” he said, using the name of the Arab militias that became synonymous with genocide and war crimes in Darfur two decades ago. The RSF grew out of that group. 

RSF spokespeople didn’t return requests for comment Saturday. 

In June, the RSF assaulted Sennar’s provincial capital, Singa, about 350 kilometers (217 miles) southeast of Khartoum. They looted the city’s main market and took over its main hospital, forcing thousands of people to flee. 

The latest attack came as the United States has led efforts to resume peace talks between the military and the RSF. The talks, which are boycotted by the military, began last week in Switzerland. 

Diplomats from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, the African Union and the United Nations were attending the talks. The RSF sent a delegation to Geneva but didn’t take part in the meetings. 

“The RSF remains here ready for talks to start; SAF needs to decide to come,” U.S. Special Envoy for Sudan Tom Perriello posted Friday on X, formerly Twitter, using the acronym for Sudan’s Armed Forces. 

The talks were the latest international effort to settle the devastating conflict that has killed tens of thousands of people and pushed the country to the brink of famine. Already famine was confirmed last month in a sprawling camp for displaced people in the western region of Darfur. 

The conflict has been marked by atrocities including mass rape and ethnically motivated killings that amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, according to the United Nations and international rights groups. 

Sudan’s war has also created the world’s largest displacement crisis. More than 10.7 million people have been forced to flee their homes since fighting began, according to the International Organization for Migration. Over 2 million of them have fled to neighboring countries. 
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Manzini, Eswatini — Eswatini has launched an initiative to achieve sustainable development by harnessing the power of nuclear technology in such sectors as agriculture, health and energy planning. The plan was developed with the support of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The aim of the Country Program Framework, or CPF, launched two weeks ago by Eswatini Minister of Natural Resources and Energy Prince Lonkhokhela, is to leverage nuclear technology for social and economic development. Its key focus areas are energy security, food security and human health, aligning with the country’s National Development Plan and the United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework.

Bongekile Matsenjwa, a chemical engineer and engineering manager for the Eswatini National Petroleum Company, believes the partnership between Eswatini and the International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA, can help the country make well-informed decisions about its energy future.

“Access to clean, affordable and safe, reliable energy is an important ingredient for the sustainable development of the country,” he said. “I believe that this partnership can help Eswatini to make knowledgeable decisions on energy supply options with the help of energy planning so the country … can independently chart our national energy future.”

Sonia Paiva, a sustainable agriculture expert and advocate for nuclear technology, who was a panelist at the COP28 U.N. Climate Change Conference, believes Eswatini’s focus on nuclear technology is happening at the perfect moment, as the country has already established policies around the topic and is now moving toward implementation.

“The whole world is looking to see how we can make our planet a better place to live in,” she said.

In addition to its potential benefits in agriculture and energy, Dr. Mduduzi Mbuyisa, a medical doctor, believes this technology has immense potential to improve the health care system in Eswatini.

“Nuclear medicine has a potential to ensure our diagnostic capabilities such that it helps us to take clearer pictures and help us in advanced imaging because we [are] using what we call PET or SPECT, which help to improve the care and overall health care system,” he said. It will also … help develop new skills and open up new career opportunities.”

Eswatini’s venture into nuclear technology is part of a larger trend of African countries seeking to harness the benefits of this technology. Against the backdrop of rising energy demands and climate change concerns, nuclear energy is increasingly seen as a potential solution.
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ABUJA, NIGERIA — Barely 48 hours after the World Health Organization declared mpox a global health emergency, Nigeria went on high alert Friday, announcing new mpox cases and raising concerns about the country’s ability to contain the outbreak.

The Nigeria Center for Disease Control and Prevention, or NCDC, said it has recorded 39 cases of mpox so far this year amid a surge in infections across Africa. No deaths have been recorded in Nigeria.

Bayelsa, Cross River, Ogun and Lagos states are the most affected by the outbreak.

Speaking at a news conference, NCDC lead Dr. Olajide Idris said that the nation is ramping up its response to manage the spread of the virus and prevent the disease from being imported.

Mpox is a rare viral zoonotic disease, meaning it is primarily an animal disease that can be transmitted to humans. It is endemic in several African countries, with over 2,800 cases reported across 13 countries this year, claiming more than 500 lives.

Symptoms include fever, body aches, weakness, headaches and rashes.

With a more lethal strain emerging, Idris said that vaccination plans are being considered for high-risk populations.

“The Nigerian government is making effort to make vaccines available to the public, especially for the hotspot areas,” he said. “These vaccines have been shown to have a favorable safety profile. They are not yet in the country, but they are on their way.”

Olayinka Badmus, deputy project director for Global Health Security, Breakthrough Action Nigeria, said the new strain poses a higher risk.

“This particular strain is new, and anything new requires new learning. The things that we have seen related to this particular strain is the fact that it is spreading quite fast, the presenting symptoms — especially the rash — are widespread,” she said, meaning that the rash is all over the body.

“We are also seeing more children affected with mpox compared to the other strains,” Badmus said.

Another cause for concern, she said, is that this strain has “a higher human-to-human transmission at an accelerated rate.”

Idris stressed the need for public awareness in containing the spread and urged people to seek medical attention if they experience symptoms.

“We encourage everybody feeling feverish, muscle pain, sore throat to please visit the nearest health care facility,” he said.

Public health experts are also urging people to adhere to preventive measures such as avoiding contact with potentially infected animals and practicing good hygiene.
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GOMA, Democratic Republic of Congo — Sarah Bagheni had a headache, fever, and itchy and unusual skin lesions for days, but she had no inkling that her symptoms might have been caused by mpox and that she might be another case in a growing global health emergency. 

She also has no idea where to go to get medical help. 

She and her husband live in the Bulengo displacement camp in eastern Congo, a region that is effectively ground zero for a series of mpox outbreaks in Africa.

This year’s alarming rise in cases, including a new form of the virus identified by scientists in eastern Congo, led the World Health Organization to declare it a global health emergency on Wednesday. It said the new variant could spread beyond the five African countries where it had already been detected — a timely warning that came a day before Sweden reported its first case of the new strain.

In the vast central African nation of Congo, which has had more than 96% of the world’s roughly 17,000 recorded cases of mpox this year — and some 500 deaths from the disease — many of the most vulnerable seem unaware of its existence or the threat that it poses.

“We know nothing about this,” Bagheni’s husband, Habumuremyiza Hire, said Thursday about mpox. “I watch her condition helplessly because I don’t know what to do. We continue to share the same room.”

Millions are thought to be out of reach of medical help or advice in the conflict-torn east, where dozens of rebel groups have been fighting Congolese army forces for years over mineral-rich areas, causing a huge displacement crisis. Hundreds of thousands of people like Bagheni and her husband have been forced into overcrowded refugee camps around Goma, while more have taken refuge in the city.

Conditions in the camps are dire and medical facilities are almost nonexistent.

Mahoro Faustin, who runs the Bulengo camp, said that about three months ago, administrators first started noticing people in the camp exhibiting fever, body aches and chills — symptoms that could signal malaria, measles or mpox.

There is no way of knowing how many mpox cases there might be in Bulengo because of a lack of testing, he said. There haven’t been any recent health campaigns to educate the tens of thousands of people in the camp about mpox, and Faustin said he’s worried about how many people might be undiagnosed.

“Just look at the overcrowding here,” he said, pointing to a sea of ramshackle tents. “If nothing is done, we will all be infected here, or maybe we are already all infected.”

Around 70% of the new mpox cases in the Goma area in the last two months that were registered at a treatment center run by Medair were from displacement camps, said Dr. Pierre Olivier Ngadjole, the international aid group’s health advisor in Congo. The youngest of those cases was a month-old baby and the oldest a 90-year-old, he said.

In severe cases of mpox, people can develop lesions on the face, hands, arms, chest and genitals. While the disease originated in animals, the virus has in recent years been spreading between people via close physical contact, including sex.

Bagheni’s best hope of getting a diagnosis for her lesions is a government hospital that’s a two-hour drive away. That’s likely out of the question, given that she already struggles with mobility having previously had both her legs amputated.

Seven million people are internally displaced in Congo, with more than 5.5 million of them in the country’s east, according to the U.N. refugee agency. Congo has the largest displacement camp population in Africa, and one of the largest in the world.

The humanitarian crisis in eastern Congo has almost every possible complication when it comes to stopping an mpox outbreak, said Dr. Chris Beyrer, director of Duke University’s Global Health Institute.

That includes war, illicit mining industries that attract sex workers, transient populations near border regions, and entrenched poverty. He also said the global community missed multiple warning signs.

“We’re paying attention to it now, but mpox has been spreading since 2017 in Congo and Nigeria,” Beyrer said, adding that experts have long been calling for vaccines to be shared with Africa, but to little effect. He said the WHO’s emergency declaration was “late in coming,” with more than a dozen countries already affected.

Beyrer said that unlike COVID-19 or HIV, there’s a good vaccine and good treatments and diagnostics for mpox, but “the access issues are worse than ever” in places like eastern Congo.

In 2022, there were outbreaks in more than 70 countries around the world, including the United States, which led the WHO to also declare an emergency that lasted until mid-2023. It was largely shut down in wealthy countries within months through the use of vaccines and treatments, but few doses have been made available in Africa.

The new and possibly more infectious strain of mpox was first detected this year in a mining town in eastern Congo, about 450 kilometers south of Goma. It’s unclear how much the new strain is to blame, but Congo is now enduring its worst outbreak yet and at least 13 African countries have recorded cases, four of them for the first time.

The outbreaks in those four countries — Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda — have been linked to Congo’s, and Doctors Without Borders said Friday that Congo’s surge “threatens a major spread of the disease” to other countries.

Salim Abdool Karim, an infectious disease expert who chairs the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s emergency committee, said the Congo outbreak has a particularly concerning change, in that it’s disproportionately affecting young people. Children under 15 account for 70% of cases and 85% of all deaths in the country, the Africa CDC reported.

Unlike the 2022 global outbreak, which predominantly affected gay and bisexual men, mpox now appears to be spreading in heterosexual populations.

All of Congo’s 26 provinces have recorded mpox cases, according to the state-run news agency. But Health Minister Samuel-Roger Kamba said Thursday that the country doesn’t have a single vaccine dose yet and he pleaded for “vigilance in all directions from all Congolese.”

Dr. Rachel Maguru, who heads the multi-epidemic center at Goma’s North Kivu provincial hospital, said they also don’t have drugs or any established treatments for mpox and are relying on other experts such as dermatologists to help where they can. A larger outbreak around the city and its numerous displacement camps already overburdened with an influx of people would be “terrible,” she said.

She also noted a pivotal problem: poor and displaced people have other priorities, like earning enough money to eat and survive. Aid agencies and stretched local authorities are already wrestling with providing food, shelter and basic health care to the millions displaced, while also dealing with outbreaks of other diseases like cholera.
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CAIRO — The United States on Friday called on Sudan’s military to join talks aimed at calming the country’s grinding conflict as the African country faces a worsening humanitarian crisis.

The military has boycotted the negotiations in Geneva, Switzerland, now in their third day, despite international pleas that it take part in the talks. Sudan’s military is battling the powerful paramilitary, known as Rapid Support Forces.

“The RSF remains here ready for talks to start; SAF needs to decide to come,” U.S. Special Envoy for Sudan Tom Perriello posted on X on Friday, using the acronym for Sudan’s Armed Forces.

Diplomats from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, the African Union and the United Nations were at the talks, which started earlier this week. Sudan’s paramilitary sent a delegation to Geneva.

On Thursday, Sudan’s governing council, which is led by top military generals, announced that they had opened the key border crossing of Adre, from neighboring Chad into Sudan’s restive western region of Darfur, which has been the worst hit by fighting and displacement.

The announcement was welcomed by the U.N. and the U.S., but it remained unclear how it will affect aid delivery on the ground, where heavy flooding has also impeded access in recent weeks.

Both sides have traded accusations of attacking civilians and obstructing aid since the country’s war started in April 2023. The northeastern African nation plunged into chaos last year when tensions between the military and the RSF turned into open fighting in the capital, Khartoum, before spreading across the country.

The Geneva-led talks come as more people face severe hunger and displacement, and civilian deaths mount.

On Thursday, UNESCO said a bomb detonated at a school and market in the city of El Obeid the previous day, killing five girls and injuring 20 other children.

Aid workers say the situation has grown even more dire for Sudanese civilians in Darfur, many of whom are facing worsening hunger and malnutrition.

Tammam Aloudat, president of the Netherlands board of Doctors without Borders, or MSF, returned from a mission in Niyala, South Darfur, this week. He told The Associated Press he saw many children at the group’s hospital who were so malnourished that they stopped eating and needed medical interventions.

“We have directly seen severe pockets of severe malnutrition,” he said, including infants whose age was more than a year old yet appeared to be no more than 4 or 5 months old.

“They can’t walk, they are severely malnourished,” he said.

Aloudat said he hopes the announcement of the reopening of the border crossing will mean more U.N. aid can reach hard-hit areas, but that many obstacles remain.

“Meaningful humanitarian access can be measured when the millions of people in need of assistance and protection start to receive it, not when decisions are simply announced,” he said.

The conflict has killed thousands of people and pushed many into starvation. The atrocities include mass rape and ethnically motivated killings that amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, according to the U.N. and international rights groups.

Sudan’s war has also created the world’s largest displacement crisis. More than 10.7 million people have been forced to flee their homes since fighting began, according to the International Organization for Migration. Over 2 million of them have fled to neighboring countries.

Last month, global experts confirmed that starvation at a massive camp for displaced people in Darfur has grown into famine. And about 25.6 million people — more than half of Sudan’s population — will face acute hunger, the experts from the Famine Review Committee warned.
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