Four Sudanese civilians died when a grenade went off as they tried to retrieve a body believed to be of a French soldier killed after he strayed into Sudan from Chad, the army said on Thursday. A spokesperson said a group of Sudanese nomads found the body on Wednesday near the border with Chad.
Sudan vowed on Wednesday to continue its search for a French special forces soldier missing in war-torn Darfur for two days after his European Union peacekeeping patrol strayed across the border from Chad. The commando went missing on Monday when at least one vehicle taking part in the EU’s mission to Chad crossed into Sudan.
The United Nations in Sudan accused a rebel group on Monday of blocking access to a mountainous area in Darfur where 20 000 people are trapped after fighting between the government and rebels. Ameerah Haq, the UN humanitarian chief for Sudan, said an assessment mission to the Jabel Moun area was denied access by the Justice and Equality Movement.
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/ 27 February 2008
Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir said on Wednesday that Danes will not be allowed to set foot in his country after Danish newspapers reprinted a satirical cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad. Protests and rioting erupted in 2006 in Muslim countries around the world when the cartoons first appeared in a Danish daily.
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/ 26 February 2008
The deadly conflict in Darfur entered its sixth year on Tuesday with no solution in sight, as Khartoum continued to resist the full deployment of a peacekeeping force amid a fresh wave of bombings. The anniversary coincides with visits to the country by Washington’s special envoy for Sudan, Richard Williamson, and China’s point man for Darfur, Liu Giujin, for top-level talks.
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/ 18 February 2008
When Ali started blogging that he was Sudanese and gay, he did not realise he was joining a band of African and Middle Eastern gays and lesbians who, in the face of hostility and repression, have come out online. But within days the messages started coming in to Blackgayarab.
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/ 12 February 2008
A major assault by the Sudanese army and allied militia has left two Darfur towns badly damaged by fire, sources close to a United Nations reconnaissance mission to the region said on Tuesday. The news came as the International Committee of the Red Cross confirmed one of its staff members had been killed in the offensive.
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/ 5 February 2008
Rebels from Sudan’s Darfur region said on Tuesday that their fighters were engaged in Chad, but they were fighting Sudanese army forces that were backing rebels trying to oust Chadian President Idriss Déby Itno. The Chad army earlier said it repulsed an attack by Sudanese forces and rebels on a frontier town on the Chad-Sudan border on Sunday.
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/ 4 February 2008
Sudan and the joint United Nations-African Union peacekeeping force have agreed the terms under which the 26 000-strong force will deploy in western Darfur, removing a major barrier to its operations. Experts estimate about 200 000 people have died and 2,5-million been driven from their homes.
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/ 27 January 2008
Sudan summoned the top United States diplomat in Khartoum saying he had interfered in the internal affairs of the country and rejected US criticism of the appointment of Musa Hilal to a central government post. US Charge D’Affaires Alberto Fernandez told Reuters that Khartoum’s lack of implementation of internal peace accords had created an environment of distrust.
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/ 10 January 2008
Sudan admitted on Thursday that its troops had opened fire on a joint United Nations/African Union peacekeeping convoy in Darfur, contradicting an earlier denial by its ambassador to the UN. A spokesperson for the Sudanese armed forces said the attack was the result of a ”shared mistake”.
Sudan on Wednesday strongly denied that its army had opened fire on a United Nations convoy that was attacked in Darfur days after peacekeepers began their new mission to the troubled western Sudanese region. A Sudanese driver was critically injured, a fuel tanker truck destroyed and an armoured personnel carrier damaged late on Monday.
An Austrian tourist who said he was questioned on suspicion of being a spy in Sudan has been allowed to leave the country without charge, his consul said on Tuesday. Thomas Hirschvogel wrote on his blog he had been barred from leaving the coastal city of Port Sudan after police found articles about a former rebel group in his luggage.
An Austrian tourist said he had been questioned in Sudan on suspicion of being a spy after police found articles about a former rebel group in his luggage. Thomas Hirschvogel (20) wrote on his blog he had been barred from leaving the coastal city of Port Sudan while police carried out an investigation.
The threat of open conflict between Sudan and neighbouring Chad is rising, with each side accusing the other of seeking to destabilise their already tense common border. Sudan said on Sunday it was ready for any Chadian attack the day after Chadian President Idriss Déby Itno said his forces would pursue rebels into Sudan’s region of Darfur.
Gunmen killed a United States government aid agency official and his driver in Khartoum on Tuesday, US and Sudanese officials said. The unknown assailants opened fire as the official from the US Agency for International Development was heading home in an embassy vehicle shortly after midnight on New Year’s Day, diplomatic sources said.
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/ 31 December 2007
Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir on Monday pardoned 30 opposition members accused of plotting against the state and ordered their immediate release. ”I have decided to pardon the accused of their attempt at sabotage and I have ordered their immediate release,” Bashir told a large crowd gathered in Khartoum to mark the country’s 52nd anniversary of independence.
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/ 30 December 2007
Sudan has accused Chadian aircraft of bombing its western Darfur region in what it called ”repeated aggressions” by its western neighbour. Relations between the two African oil producers have been touchy in recent years as both try to quell insurgencies close to their long and porous border.
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/ 25 December 2007
Diplomatic wrangling dashed hopes for an end to the killing and rape in Darfur this year and a new United Nations-backed peacekeeping mission scheduled to start on January 1 faces an uphill struggle. The combined effects of war and famine have killed at least 200 000 people with more than two million displaced.
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/ 11 December 2007
Darfur rebels said they attacked a Chinese-run oil field in Sudan on Tuesday and vowed to launch more assaults on other installations. No one from Sudan’s armed forces or the Ministry of Energy was immediately available for comment on rebel claims of an attack on the field in Sudan’s Kordofan region.
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/ 3 December 2007
A British woman jailed in Sudan for insulting religion by naming a teddy bear after the Prophet Muhammad was to be released on Monday after being granted a presidential pardon. Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir signed the pardon after meeting two British Muslim peers who flew to Khartoum on a mercy mission.
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/ 1 December 2007
Two Muslim members of Britain’s House of Lords were in Khartoum on Saturday to seek the release of a British woman teacher jailed for insulting Islam after she named a teddy bear Muhammad. Lord Ahmed and Baroness Warsi, from the upper house of Britain’s Parliament, were to meet with Sudanese officials in a bid to free Gillian Gibbons (54).
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/ 30 November 2007
Hundreds of Sudanese Muslims took to the streets of Khartoum on Friday demanding death for the British school teacher convicted of insulting Islam after her class named a teddy bear Muhammad. ”No one lives who insults the Prophet,” the protesters chanted, a day after Gillian Gibbons (54) was sentenced to 15 days in jail and deportation.
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/ 30 November 2007
A Sudanese court on Thursday found a British teacher guilty of insulting Islam and sentenced her to 15 days in prison followed by deportation, a defence lawyer said. Gillian Gibbons (54) was charged after a member of staff at her school reported her to the authorities for allowing her pupils to name a teddy bear Muhammad.
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/ 29 November 2007
A British teacher accused of insulting Muslims after her class called a teddy bear Mohammad spent more than five hours behind closed doors in a Khartoum courtroom on Thursday as a judge heard the case against her. She was arrested and charged after one of the school staff reported her to the authorities.
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/ 28 November 2007
A British teacher detained in Sudan after her class called a teddy bear Muhammad was charged on Wednesday with insulting Islam in a move that sparked a diplomatic row. Gillian Gibbons (54) was also charged with inciting hatred and showing contempt for religious beliefs. If convicted, she could face 40 lashes, a fine or one year in jail.
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/ 28 November 2007
Sudan could charge a British school teacher within 24 hours for insulting the Muslim Prophet Muhammad by naming a teddy bear, the deputy justice minister said on Wednesday, adding that she is being well treated. ”A criminal case has been opened against her,” Abdel Daim Zamrawi said.
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/ 27 November 2007
China on Tuesday voiced deep concern about the safety of its peacekeepers in Sudan’s war-torn Darfur region after rebel groups boycotting the peace process declared they were not immune from attack. ”Up to now there has been no incident, but we are deeply concerned about the matter,” the Chinese ambassador to Khartoum, Li Cheng Wen, said.
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/ 27 November 2007
Sudan pulled back from the brink of a major political crisis this week as both the country’s president and the leader of its semi-autonomous south said they were determined to avoid war. But diplomats and observers said serious divisions remained between both sides that could at any time erupt into further confrontations and threaten the peace deal that ended two decades of war — Africa’s longest civil conflict.
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/ 27 November 2007
Sudanese authorities began questioning a British teacher on Tuesday arrested for insulting Islam after her young students named a teddy bear Muhammad. Gillian Gibbons, a 54-year-old teacher at the Unity High School in Khartoum, was arrested on Sunday after complaints from parents.
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/ 23 November 2007
Close to 30 000 Southern Sudanese who fled the country’s 21-year north-south war are to return home from camps in neighbouring Ethiopia during 2008 as part of an agreement between the governments of the two countries and the United Nations Refugee Agency, which was signed on Thursday in Khartoum.
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/ 21 November 2007
Sudan’s president promised on Wednesday there would be no return to civil war in Africa’s biggest country in a speech that sought to calm tensions over a growing stand-off with the south. President Omar Hassan al-Bashir called on his political opponents to work with him ”for the homeland”.