Region

KHARTOUM — Sudan's opposition alliance blamed military rulers on Tuesday for renewed street violence complicating efforts to negotiate a handover to civilian power after last month's ouster of President Omar Al Bashir. 

At least four people died and dozens were injured during protests on Monday as the Transitional Military Council (TMC) and opposition Declaration of Freedom and Change Forces (DFCF) said they had reached a partial agreement for transition.

Gunfire rang out in the capital into the night after paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) — whose head is deputy of the military council — had patrolled the streets using tear gas and guns to disrupt demonstrations.

The protesters, who want to keep pressure on the military for a swift handover, were back on Tuesday, blocking roads and bridges with bricks and rocks, images on social media showed.

"The bullets that were fired yesterday were Rapid Support Forces bullets and we hold the military council responsible for what happened yesterday," Khalid Omar Youssef, a senior figure in the DFCF, told a news conference.

"While they claimed that a third party was the one who did so, eyewitnesses confirmed that the party was in armed forces vehicles and in armed forces uniforms, so the military council must reveal this party."

‘He meant to kill me’

Monday's fatalities were the first in protests for several weeks after months of demonstrations led to Bashir's fall. 

The victims included a military police officer and three demonstrators, state TV said. An opposition-linked doctors' committee said there was a fifth fatality after another man died on Tuesday from wounds sustained on Monday.

The military council, which took over after overthrowing the long-ruling Bashir last month, blamed the violence on saboteurs unhappy with the transition deal.

“There are groups ambushing the revolution who were disturbed by the results reached today and are working to abort any agreement,” it said in a statement late on Monday.

The opposition and military were meeting again on Tuesday to discuss two sticking points: the military-civilian balance of power in transitional bodies and the timeframe for elections.

Talks would wrap up on Wednesday, Youssef said.

The United States backed the opposition alliance in pinning the blame for Monday’s chaos on the military for trying to remove roadblocks set up by protesters. 

“The decision by security forces to escalate the use of force, including the unnecessary use of tear gas, led directly to the unacceptable violence later in the day that the TMC was unable to control,” said the US embassy in Khartoum.

One hospital in Khartoum said it received more than 60 wounded on Monday as well as three dead bodies. 

Some arrived with gunshot wounds in the shoulder, chest and other body parts, Amar Abu Bakr, executive director of the Moalem Medical City Hospital, told Reuters. 

“There are also a number of wounds resulting from sharp objects, and others from beatings by sticks,” he said.

One wounded patient said a shooter was about 20 metres away when he took aim. “He shot at my chest... he meant to kill me, not to scare or terrorise,” said protester Raed Mubarak.

HODEIDA, Yemen — Yemen's Houthi rebels have handed over security of key Red Sea ports to the "coastguard" but much work remains to remove military equipment, the UN said Tuesday.

The rebel pullback is part of a hard-won truce agreement struck in Sweden in December between Yemen's Saudi-backed government and the Iran-aligned Houthis.

But the government has accused the insurgents of merely handing over the ports to their own forces in different uniforms.

The UN said Sunday it had been monitoring the withdrawal of the Houthi rebels from the Hodeida, Saleef and Ras Issa terminals.

A UN team was there on Tuesday to verify the redeployment.

Its head, General Michael Lollesgaard, welcomed the handover "of the security of the ports to the coastguard", according to a UN statement.

"There is still a lot of work to be done on the removal of the manifestations, but cooperation has been very good.

"UN teams will continue to monitor these initial steps in an impartial and transparent manner."

Houthi spokesman Mohammed Abdulsalam wrote on Twitter that the rebels "have completed their commitment in implementing the first phase of redeployment". 

The city's port serves as a lifeline for millions in the impoverished Arabian Peninsula country, which has been pushed to the brink of famine by more than four years of devastating war.

Last year's deal was hailed as a breakthrough that offered the best chance so far of ending the war in Yemen, where a coalition led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates is fighting on the government's side.

The agreement stipulates a full ceasefire, followed by a withdrawal of rival forces from the city of Hodeida and its surroundings.

But although the violence has largely stopped in Hodeida, there have been intermittent clashes and the promised redeployment of the warring parties away from the front lines has failed to materialise.

Lollesgaard said Yemen’s warring parties were continuing to express their committment to the truce deal.

“Full implementation of this agreement is critical for returning peace and stability to Yemen, and ensuring effective humanitarian access into the country where million continue to be in need of life-saving assistance,” he said.

The Yemen conflict has killed tens of thousands of people since the Saudi-led military coalition intervened in support of the beleaguered government in March 2015, according to the World Health Organisation.

The fighting has triggered what the United Nations describes as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, with 3.3 million people still displaced and 24.1 million — more than two-thirds of the population — in need of aid.

The UN Security Council is due to hear a briefing on Hodeida on Wednesday amid increased Gulf tensions following a Houthi-claimed drone attack on two pumping stations on a major pipeline.

The attacks were “a response to the aggressors continuing to commit genocide against the Yemeni people”, Abdulsalam tweeted.

The 1,200-kilometre pipeline reportedly hit on Tuesday serves as an alternative for Saudi crude exports if the strategically vital Strait of Hormuz at the mouth of the Gulf were to be closed.

Iran has repeatedly threatened to close the strait in case of a military confrontation with the United States.

The reported pipeline attacks came after the UAE said four ships, including the two Saudi oil tankers, were damaged in “sabotage attacks” off the emirate of Fujairah, close to the Hormuz, on Sunday.

Saudi Arabia said its two tankers suffered “significant damage” but there was no oil spill.

CAIRO — During a recent class at Cairo University, students laughed as they watched a skit acted out by their peers about a married couple. The husband came home from work and asked his wife, who was sweeping the floor, why dinner was not ready. 

"I pick up the kids and I go to work ... Am I neglecting something because the food is still on the stove?" the wife asked, to which the husband responded: "The apartment looks like a rubbish dump." 

The skit was part of a new government project called Mawadda, which offers lessons to university students about how to pick the right partner and how to handle conflicts in marriage. The goal is to prevent divorce after the number of divorces reached more than 198,000 in 2017, a 3.2 per cent increase from the year before.

Mawadda, meaning affection, is still in a trial phase, but the goal is to target 800,000 young people yearly starting 2020 and to eventually make it mandatory for university students to take a class before graduating. 

After watching the skit, some students and the teacher pointed out that the husband should carry out more household tasks. 

"It's not her obligation to do all that," said Salah Ahmed, the teacher, adding that the Prophet Mohammad helped his wife with all tasks and his example should be followed.

But he also said the wife should have been more understanding and tried to look good for her husband instead of welcoming him while sweeping the floor.

Julia Gosef, a 23-year-old student who attended the class with her fiance, said she worries that Egypt's economic hardships could harm her marriage. The couple will not be able to rely on one income so she would be forced to work, which could lead to arguments similar to the one in the skit, she said.

"I think I won't be able to take care of our home well enough," she said. 

Mawadda's lessons will be accompanied by YouTube videos, a radio programme and educational plays. The church and Egypt's top Sunni Muslim authority, Al Azhar, are partners.

"If we want to solve the problem from the root we need to target people before they get married," said Amr Othman, manager of Mawadda at the Social Solidarity Ministry. He added that there's a correlation in Egypt between divorce and problems such as child homelessness and drug addiction.

At a youth conference in July, President Abdel Fattah Sisi said divorce and separation meant that millions of Egyptian children were living without one of their parents.

Islam allows men to end their marriages verbally, only by telling their wives they are divorcing them. Sisi has said he wants to see an end to this practice in Egypt because the divorce rate is too high. The Mawadda project was launched in response to Sisi's concerns, officials said. 

It typifies some of Sisi's efforts to drive social change.

"He is patriarchal and speaks to Egyptians as if he was their father," Barak Barfi, research fellow at New America, a think tank based in Washington, said of Sisi. "It [Mawadda] reflects his belief that transformation can be instituted from the top rather than from below at the grass roots level."

Adhab Al Hosseiny, 26, who played the role of the husband in the skit, said he hoped to get married in the near future.

He also worries financial difficulties might lead to arguments between him and his future wife. 

"What might cause problems after I marry is external pressure," he said. "If there are money issues in terms of affording school fees and food all that affects my mental state."

KHARTOUM — As Sudanese protesters blocked roads with burning tyres in the city of Omdurman on Tuesday, angry demonstrators at a Khartoum sit-in accused loyalists of ousted president Omar Al Bashir's of "dividing" the country.

Late on Monday an army major and five protesters died of gunshots in and around the Khartoum sit-in where thousands remain camped, particularly during the night, demanding the country's army rulers who took power after deposing Bashir step down.

"What happened yesterday was dirty work by the ousted regime," said protester Hisham Ali Sayed as he spoke to an AFP correspondent at the sit-in outside the army headquarters in central Khartoum on Tuesday.

"They are playing the game of dividing the people in order to control the situation."

During the day the number of protesters at the sit-in dwindles as many prefer to gather in the evening after the scorching heat subsides, and once they have broken their fast for the holy Muslim month of Ramadan.

Hundreds however remain hunkered down at the site, braving the sun though taking shelter in make-shift tents erected since protesters launched their round-the-clock demonstration on April 6.

On Tuesday protesters also voiced anger at the chief of the ruling military council, General Abdel Fattah Al Burhan and against the Rapid Support Forces, a paramilitary group that is part of the armed forces.

"If Burhan doesn't handover the authority we will call on the International Criminal Court [ICC] to try him like Bashir," said protester Aboud Hassan. 

‘Blood for blood’ 

Bashir is wanted by the ICC in The Hague for war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity for his alleged role in the conflict in Sudan's western region of Darfur.

Hassan said protesters no longer trusted the army even though the generals helped them in ending Bashir's iron-fisted rule of three decades on April 11.

"We are not trusting those guys anymore. They are supposed to guard the protesters," he said, accusing the army of failing to protect demonstrators on Monday night when violence flared in and around the sit-in.

Behind him scores of protesters chanted "Blood for blood, we don't want compensation," a slogan calling for those guilty of killing demonstrators to face justice.

Since the sit-in began, protesters have also set up makeshift clinics and food centres.

"Yesterday, we were aided by surgeons, pharmacists and even Sudanese people who provided us with medicines," Neamat Kheder, a medic at a make-shift facility said, as he told how injured protesters were treated.

Some of those wounded in Monday's clashes were still being treated at the clinic, an AFP correspondent reported.

As day time temperature soared, a group of protesters were seen walking around carrying a long Sudanese flag over their heads and chanting: "We are staying, we are staying!"

They were also cleaning up the streets outside the complex, collecting garbage in big plastic bags.

Meanwhile, several areas of the capital saw traffic jams as Nile Street, a key avenue in the capital, remained blocked for the third consecutive day.

On Sunday protesters had blocked the avenue after clashing with security forces who stopped them from using it to reach the sit-in.

But new demonstrations were staged in the capital's twin city of Omdurman on Tuesday as scores of protesters blocked roads with burning tyres in some districts.

Omdurman had witnessed near daily demonstrations when nationwide protests erupted in December against Bashir's regime.

But for more than a month now it had remained quiet until early Tuesday.

"Protect your homeland or prepare to die!" chanted scores of protesters in Omdurman, witnesses told AFP.

GAZA — Looking out across the Mediterranean, the elderly Gaza fisherman sits on a bench adorned with just one word — Jaffa.

Mahmoud Al Assi comes often to this blue bench. It is one of more than 120 such brightly-coloured concrete seats that line the Gaza seafront, each marked with the name of a town or village in Palestine, before Israel’s creation in 1948.

They bear the Arabic names for Beersheba (Bir as-Saba’), Acre (Akka), and Tel Aviv (Tal ar-Rabeea’) — all towns that now lie in Israel.

Like many of Gaza’s 1.3 million refugees, Assi, 73, visits the coastal benches regularly, as an emotional link to the towns their families left behind or were forced to leave.

He comes especially around May 15, when Palestinians lament what they call the “Nakba” or “Catastrophe”.  It is traditionally marked the day after Israel declared independence in 1948.

Although Assi left Jaffa nearly seven decades ago as a child, he still regards it as “home”. 

Like many Palestinian refugees, he seeks the right of return to his former homeland. But successive Israeli governments have rejected any such right.

“I have never lost hope, and never will, even when I am dead and buried,” he told Reuters as he looked out on the waters that bore him to safety when his father, a citrus merchant and fisherman, put him and his seven siblings on a boat to sail south from Jaffa to Gaza in 1950.

In his new life as a refugee in Gaza, those same waters provided a livelihood for him as he brought up his 18 children.

Two of Assi’s brothers fled to Lebanon, where they lived and died as refugees.

In Jaffa, another fisherman and an Arab citizen of Israel, Atta Assi, 86, recalled how Israeli forces had taken control of the town in 1948, imposing a curfew and a year-long “open detention” by erecting a fence around his neighbourhood.

“I remember in 1948, when people were displaced, my father told my uncles: ‘Don’t leave here’,” said Assi, who belongs to the same clan as Mahmoud Al Assi in Gaza.

“He told them not to leave because the best place to stay is here. But they didn’t listen and left to Lebanon,” said Assi, who began his life as a fisherman on the day the fence came down.

In the early 1970s, when times were more peaceful and Gaza was not sealed off from Israel by checkpoints, blast walls and razor wire, Gaza fisherman Assi was able to travel the 60 kilometres up the Mediterranean coast to visit Jaffa and see his birthplace.

He saw his family’s unfinished home had since been completed, and was inhabited, but could not  bring himself to knock at the door and see who was living there.

“Our house in Jaffa was just by the sea, nothing and no building separated us from the sea ... I remember the small mosque and I remember the seaport,” Assi said.

“I didn’t know whether Jewish people lived there or others. I wasn’t able to enter, I just could not do it.

“I felt broken, when you can’t enter your house. When it is your house and you can’t reach it. I cried.”

Palestinian historians say only 4,000 Palestinians remained in Jaffa after 1948, of around 120,000 who lived there before it became part of Israel.