World
No respite for civilians fleeing Darfur, killed while escaping
Civilians fleeing el-Geneina are being targeted as they cross into Chad, as previous ceasefire is violated.
Civilians fleeing violence in Sudan’s West Darfur city of el-Geneina are being targeted even as they flee into neighbouring Chad, with a previous nationwide 72-hour ceasefire violated as violence there escalates, according to Al Jazeera’s Hiba Morgan.
Gunshots are being directed at civilians “even as they continue to flee for their lives”, Morgan said on Wednesday, from a region where thousands of people have fled in just the last week.
Fighting driven by militias from Arab nomadic tribes along with members of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) – which has targeted civilians – continued in el-Geneina even as the United States and Saudi Arabia-brokered ceasefire, which expired on Wednesday, was in place.
Fighting in the city has killed more than 1,100 people since the conflict between warring generals of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the RSF broke out on April 15, raising the alarm about genocide.
Ibrahim, a resident who fled the violence last week, said he and others tried to seek protection near the army headquarters there on June 14 but were blocked.
“All of a sudden, the militias came out and sprayed people with gunfire,” Ibrahim, who did not want to share his last name, told the Reuters news agency. “We were surprised by thousands of people running back. People were killed, they were trampled.”
Many people decided to flee the city when the state governor of West Darfur was killed on June 14, hours after he accused the RSF and its militias of “genocide” in a TV interview, said Ibrahim.
Ibrahim made it to the Chadian town of Adre but later found out that eight of his family members had been killed.
Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres, or MSF) said on Monday that some 15,000 people had fled West Darfur over the previous four days, with people arriving in Chad reporting seeing people shot and killed as they tried to escape. The group also reported rapes.
Elsewhere in the country on Wednesday, heavy clashes broke out between rival military factions in several parts of Sudan’s capital as the shaky ceasefire that saw several reports of violations expired, according to Morgan.
Heavy artillery could be heard in Khartoum from the first minutes of the ceasefire expiring, Morgan said.
Intense fighting also broke out in Omdurman and Khartoum North, sister cities to the capital, and in both the southern and eastern parts of Khartoum state.
Residents also reported clashes near an army camp in South Kordofan state, where a large rebel force not clearly aligned with either of the factions fighting in Khartoum has been mobilising.
Rival sides are now holding talks for a possible ceasefire scheduled for the upcoming Muslim holiday of Eid next week.
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World
Climate activists glue themselves to Munich airport runway, pausing traffic
A group of climate protesters have been arrested in Germany after breaking into an airport and gluing themselves to the runway.
Six activists broke through security fencing at Munich airport in the German state of Bavaria on Saturday, according to the news outlet dpa.
Approximately sixty flights were canceled after the half-dozen protesters glued themselves to the tarmac, forcing officials to temporarily close the airport.
CLIMATE ACTIVISTS ARRESTED FOR BLOCKING AIRSTRIP IN MASSACHUSETTS
An additional fourteen flights into Munich were forced to divert to other nearby airports to avoid the disruption.
Climate protest coalition Last Generation took credit for the stunt, claiming it was intended to draw attention to the German government’s inaction on the airline industry’s environmental impact.
CLIMATE GROUP TAKES RESPONSIBILITY FOR US OPEN CHAOS, OFFERS WARNING: ‘NO TENNIS ON A DEAD PLANET’
All six protesters were arrested and charged by law enforcement.
“Trespassing in the aviation security area is no trivial offense. Over hundreds of thousands of passengers were prevented from a relaxed and punctual start to their Pentecost holiday,” German Airports Association General Manager Ralph Beisel told dpa.
“Such criminal actions threaten air traffic and harm climate protection because they only cause lack of understanding and anger,” German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser wrote about the protests on social media platform X.
The Munich incident was just one of many similar protests around the world against air transportation. Last Generation has performed at least two similar airport disruptions in Germany since last year.
World
Russian court seizes two European banks’ assets amid Western sanctions
Freezing hundreds of billions of dollars in lenders’ assets was part of dispute over gas project halted by sanctions.
A Russian court has ordered the seizure of the assets, accounts, property and shares of Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank in the country as part of a lawsuit involving the German banks, court documents showed.
The banks are among the guarantor lenders under a contract for the construction of a gas processing plant in Russia with the German company Linde. The project was terminated due to Western sanctions.
European banks have largely exited Russia after Moscow launched its offensive on Ukraine in 2022.
A court in St Petersburg ruled in favour of seizing 239 million euros ($260m) from Deutsche Bank, documents dated May 16 showed.
Deutsche Bank in Frankfurt said it had already provisioned about 260 million euros ($283m) for the case.
“We will need to see how this claim is implemented by the Russian courts and assess the immediate operational impact in Russia,” the bank added in a statement.
The court also seized the assets of Commerzbank, another German financial institution, worth 93.7 million euros ($101.85m) as well as securities and the bank’s building in central Moscow.
The bank is yet to comment on the case.
In a parallel lawsuit on Friday, the Russian court also ordered UniCredit’s assets, accounts and property, as well as shares in two subsidiaries, to be seized. The ruling covered 462.7 million euros ($503m) in assets.
UniCredit said it “has been made aware” of the decision and was “reviewing” the situation in detail. The bank was one of the most exposed European banks when Moscow launched its invasion of Ukraine, with a large local subsidiary operating in Russia.
It began preliminary discussions on a sale last year, but the talks have not advanced. Chief executive Andrea Orcel said UniCredit wants to leave Russia, but added that gifting an operation worth three billion euros ($3.3bn) was not a good way to respect the spirit of Western sanctions on Moscow over the conflict.
Russia has faced heavy Western sanctions, including on its banking sector, since the start of the war in Ukraine. Dozens of US and European companies have also stopped doing business in the country.
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