Global Pulse

分类： world

  • Ethiopia drone strike in north kills three, Tigray sources say

    Ethiopia drone strike in north kills three, Tigray sources say

    Tensions in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region have spiked sharply following a reported drone strike by federal government forces that hit a local secondary school, leaving multiple people dead and injured amid a rapidly unraveling 2022 peace accord, multiple sources familiar with the incident have confirmed to BBC Tigrinya.

    The attack targeted Merewa Secondary School in the Raya Alamata district, a facility that was closed for winter break at the time of the strike. Accounts of casualties differ between local Tigrayan military representatives and the region’s district administration: Tigrayan military sources claim three of their fighters were killed immediately in the blast, with seven more wounded and transported to nearby medical facilities. In contrast, district governor Daniel Tamrat has stated one civilian was killed and four additional civilians were hurt, adding that a neighboring river — a critical source of drinking water for local communities — was also damaged in the strike. As of Tuesday, the Ethiopian national military has not issued any official response to requests for comment from the BBC. A source familiar with the operation also told the outlet that the strike was carried out using Turkish-made drones loaded with 12 explosive munitions, confirming that Tigrayan forces had been stationed on the school’s grounds at the time of the attack.

    The deadly incident comes at a moment of escalating political crisis in Tigray, just two years after the Pretoria peace accord was signed between the Ethiopian federal government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), Tigray’s ruling political party, to end the brutal 2020–2022 civil war that killed hundreds of thousands of people and displaced millions. Warnings that the fragile peace could collapse entirely have grown louder in recent months, after the TPLF moved to dissolve the regional interim administration established under the 2022 agreement and reinstated its pre-war governing council earlier this year. Both the Ethiopian federal government and the TPLF have repeatedly accused one another of failing to uphold their commitments under the peace deal.

    A further layer of complexity has been added by shifting regional alliances: Eritrea, which fought alongside Ethiopian federal forces during the original civil war, has been accused of switching its allegiance to the TPLF. Last month, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed told the country’s parliament that the TPLF was actively preparing to restart full-scale conflict in a collaborative effort with Eritrea, a claim that Eritrean authorities have forcefully denied.

    The drone strike triggered widespread panic among residents of Merewa, a small settlement located roughly 31 miles west of Alamata town. Local officials also reported that heavy weapons assaults have become increasingly common across the lowland plains of the border area, particularly near Waja on the boundary between the Tigray and Amhara regions. Low-intensity clashes between federal and Tigrayan forces first broke out in western Tigray on 1 August, and while violence has calmed in that area over recent weeks, analysts warn that the latest strike could reignite full-scale hostilities across multiple fronts.

  • Watch: Family escapes home during Colombia earthquake

    Watch: Family escapes home during Colombia earthquake

    A devastating seismic event, one of the strongest earthquakes to strike Colombia in recent decades, has left the South American nation grappling with a rising death toll and widespread destruction. As of the latest official updates, at least 132 people have been confirmed dead following the tremor, which shattered residential structures and forced countless families to run for safety in a frantic escape from their collapsing homes.

    Footage captured in the immediate aftermath of the quake shows terrified household members scrambling out of damaged buildings, many grabbing only essential belongings before fleeing to open, safer areas away from at-risk structures. In response to the scale of the disaster, Colombian authorities have quickly enacted a formal state of emergency across the most affected regions, allowing for the rapid deployment of national emergency response resources, including search and rescue teams, medical personnel, and emergency supply stockpiles.

    The earthquake, which ranks among the most significant seismic events recorded in Colombia in recent years, has triggered widespread calls for international assistance as local agencies work tirelessly to locate survivors trapped under rubble and provide care to the injured. Recovery efforts are still in their early stages, with officials warning that the death toll could rise as rescue teams reach more isolated, hard-hit communities.

  • Russia using North Korean missiles to strike Ukraine, Zelensky says

    Russia using North Korean missiles to strike Ukraine, Zelensky says

    Overnight exchanges of heavy fire between Ukrainian and Russian forces have reignited tensions in the 2.5-year full-scale conflict, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky leveling new accusations that Moscow is relying on military support from North Korea to sustain its offensive operations. The latest cycle of violence follows one of the deadliest Ukrainian deep strikes into Russian territory in months, leaving dozens dead and extending the reach of combat far from frontline battle zones.

    According to Zelensky, Monday’s Russian missile attack on the southern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia that killed at least six civilians and wounded 19 others used ballistic missiles supplied by North Korea, a close diplomatic and military ally of Moscow. In a Monday evening video address, Zelensky argued that this marked a clear turning point in the conflict, claiming “for the first time” Russia cannot continue its war effort without foreign military reinforcements. He warned that the growing use of North Korean military hardware and planned deployments of North Korean troops poses a growing global threat, noting that battlefield use of these weapons helps Pyongyang refine its missile technology and correct design flaws. This is not the first such allegation from Zelensky; last weekend he warned that up to 50,000 North Korean soldiers could be deployed to fight alongside Russian forces in Ukraine.

    Zelensky also celebrated a separate Ukrainian deep strike on a Russian petrochemical facility in western Siberia, calling the operation a “very significant achievement” for Ukrainian forces. He pledged that more long-range strikes on Russian targets will follow, with the goal of forcing Moscow to recognize the necessity of negotiated peace.

    Across multiple Ukrainian regions, Russian overnight attacks left a trail of civilian casualties and infrastructure damage. Zaporizhzhia regional governor Ivan Fedorov shared on-the-ground images of burning vehicles and collapsed buildings, confirming that Russian forces used a combination of missiles and guided bombs to target industrial sites, critical infrastructure and non-residential buildings in the city. One civilian was injured in strikes on the outskirts of Kyiv, where air raid sirens sounded twice overnight, and a local hospital suffered structural damage—though all staff and patients had taken shelter and no additional casualties were reported. Strikes on energy infrastructure in Kherson and Kharkiv triggered widespread power outages across both regions, while a Russian drone strike on Sumy injured two women aged 52 and 66, who received on-site medical treatment, Sumy City Military Administration head Sergiy Kryvosheenko confirmed in a Telegram post. The attack also damaged civilian vehicles, local warehouses and public infrastructure.

    Ukrainian air force officials reported that Russia launched more than 120 drones and an unspecified number of different missiles in overnight attacks—marking the first time officials have declined to release a full breakdown of missiles fired and intercepted. This disclosure comes one day after the Ukrainian Air Force issued a public request for media to avoid sensationalized coverage and unnecessary spread of pessimism amid reported shortages of air defense interceptor missiles.

    On the Russian side, Ukraine targeted key commercial infrastructure in the southern Russian region of Voronezh, which shares a border with Ukraine. Local reports confirmed large fires and explosions at a logistics warehouse operated by Wildberries, Russia’s largest e-commerce retailer, often called the “Amazon of Russia” for its dominant position in the country’s online retail market. While Wildberries has not yet formally confirmed the strike, the company announced it had evacuated all staff from its facilities in the region. This is not the first time Wildberries infrastructure has been targeted; in July, a series of Ukrainian drone strikes on multiple Wildberries warehouses disrupted operations for thousands of small and medium-sized Russian businesses that rely on the platform. Kyiv has stated that it targets these logistics hubs because they are used to process and ship supplies to Russian military forces, including military equipment purchased by Russian entities.

    The latest cross-border strikes come just one day after a Ukrainian drone attack on the Russian republic of Tatarstan, located more than 1,100 kilometers (680 miles) from the Ukrainian border, killed at least 13 people including one child and injured 75 more. That attack ranks among the deadliest strikes on Russian territory since the start of the full-scale invasion in February 2022. The Uzbek consulate in Tatarstan confirmed that seven of the people killed in the strike were citizens of Uzbekistan. Verified social media footage from the attack showed large plumes of black smoke billowing into the sky over the city of Nizhnekamsk, with constant air raid sirens audible in the background. Ukrainian armed forces confirmed they targeted the Tanevo oil refinery in the city, a critical piece of Russia’s energy infrastructure.

  • Ukraine says Russia fired N. Korean missiles in deadly attack

    Ukraine says Russia fired N. Korean missiles in deadly attack

    A new wave of Russian overnight bombardments targeting multiple cities across Ukraine has left at least nine civilians dead and dozens more injured, with Ukrainian authorities leveling fresh accusations Tuesday that Moscow used North Korean-supplied ballistic missiles in the deadly assault. The claims come amid escalating warnings from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that North Korea is expanding its military support to Russia, even as Kyiv has yet to release public evidence to back its most recent assertions of growing Pyongyang-Moscow military cooperation.

    Over more than four years of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, North Korea has emerged as a key military backer for Moscow. Western, South Korean and Ukrainian intelligence have long documented Pyongyang’s weapons shipments to Russia, and earlier in the conflict, North Korea deployed thousands of troops to support Russian operations pushing back a Ukrainian counteroffensive into Russia’s western Kursk region, according to Kyiv’s accounts. The two countries formalized their deepening alliance with a mutual defense pact in 2024, just ahead of that troop deployment.

    In the latest barrage, the southeastern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia suffered the heaviest damage, recording six fatalities and 19 injuries, according to Zelensky. In a public address following the strikes, Zelensky stated the city was hit by a combination of North Korean ballistic missiles, Russian Zircon hypersonic missiles, and guided aerial bombs. He called the attack deliberately vicious, noting it was designed to inflict maximum harm on civilian infrastructure.

    Three additional civilians were killed in Russian missile and drone strikes in neighboring Dnipropetrovsk region, local military officials confirmed. In Ukraine’s capital Kyiv, strikes damaged an infectious disease hospital and a separate children’s healthcare facility, according to Ukraine’s health ministry, which released photographs of shattered windows and debris scattered across the children’s hospital courtyard. The ministry added that no children or medical staff were harmed, as all personnel and patients had taken shelter in secure facilities before the strike hit. Frontline cities Kharkiv and Kherson also suffered strikes that knocked out power to large parts of the urban areas.

    Russia’s defense ministry responded to the accusations with its own statement confirming the strikes, framing the operation as a targeted group attack using high-precision ground-based weapons against Ukrainian military-industrial sites and transport logistics hubs in Kyiv and Zaporizhzhia.

    Zelensky has ramped up public warnings of the deepening military partnership between Moscow and Pyongyang in recent days, as he steps up appeals to Western allies for additional air defense supplies to counter the growing threat. On Monday, he claimed Russia had already taken delivery of a new shipment of ballistic missiles from North Korea. Over the preceding weekend, he alleged Pyongyang had made a decision to deploy between 30,000 and 50,000 additional troops to Russian territory to support the invasion effort. To date, Kyiv has not disclosed how it obtained these deployment figures, nor has it provided a specific timeline for when the troop buildup would occur. Zelensky has now expanded his appeal for air defense support to Asia-Pacific allies, asking them to contribute systems to counter capabilities supplied by North Korea.

    In recent weeks, Russia has dramatically increased its use of ballistic missiles in strikes across Ukraine — fast, highly destructive projectiles that are extremely difficult for Ukrainian air defense systems to intercept. Only advanced Western systems such as the U.S.-made Patriot air defense system are capable of reliably shooting down incoming ballistic missiles. Ukraine has faced a critical shortage of Patriot interceptors since the outbreak of the U.S.-Israeli conflict with Iran in February, which has redirected large volumes of interceptor stockpiles to the Middle East.

    In response to the intensified Russian strikes, Ukraine has stepped up its own long-range drone attacks targeting Russian territory, hitting key oil infrastructure and e-commerce warehouses. Ukrainian officials frame these counterstrikes as a legitimate effort to disrupt Russian military logistics and cut into revenue streams that fund Moscow’s war effort.

    The United Nations has confirmed that this latest cycle of escalation has driven the monthly civilian death toll in Ukraine to its highest level since the opening months of the full-scale invasion in 2022, marking a dangerous new turn in the long-running conflict.

  • Russian attacks kill 10 in Ukraine as Zelenskyy says Moscow is getting more North Korean missiles

    Russian attacks kill 10 in Ukraine as Zelenskyy says Moscow is getting more North Korean missiles

    On a single Tuesday, multiple Ukrainian cities across the country endured a massive combined barrage of Russian missiles, drones and glide bombs that left at least 10 civilians dead, marking a sharp intensification of hostilities four years into Moscow’s full-scale invasion. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has revealed alarming new details of growing military cooperation between Russia and North Korea, warning that Pyongyang is not only supplying advanced weaponry to Moscow but also preparing to deploy additional troops to support the invasion.

    The deadliest assault of the day targeted the southeastern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia, where Zelenskyy confirmed Russian forces used ballistic missiles supplied directly by North Korea to strike a local steel plant operated by leading Ukrainian mining and metals firm Metinvest. Seven workers at the facility were killed and another 21 were wounded as staff attempted to reach bomb shelters following incoming missile warnings. The attack damaged the plant’s blast furnace and key industrial infrastructure, forcing a full shutdown of operations at the site that employs thousands of workers.

    Further civilian casualties were recorded in the central Dnipropetrovsk region, where Russian drone and artillery strikes killed three people, including a 15-year-old boy. In the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, overnight strikes hit multiple targets, including the grounds of a children’s hospital. While all children and medical staff were sheltering underground and no injuries were reported, the attack left two large craters and shattered windows across the facility. A separate strike on a Kyiv warehouse sparked a blaze that spread across 1,200 square meters before emergency crews contained it.

    In addition to the already delivered ballistic missiles, Zelenskyy announced late Monday that North Korea is preparing to send more troops to bolster Russia’s war effort. The two countries signed a formal strategic partnership agreement in 2024 that includes pledges of mutual military assistance if either faces an act of aggression, and Pyongyang has already shipped thousands of troops and vast stockpiles of weapons to support Moscow’s invasion. Military analysts note that the direct battlefield engagement with Russia is allowing North Korea to refine its own military capabilities, a development Zelenskyy warns will embolden Pyongyang to threaten neighboring countries in East Asia.

    Kyiv also warned that Russia is pursuing a broad campaign to escalate the war beyond new external support. Ukrainian officials say Moscow has dramatically scaled up domestic production of ballistic missiles, and is seeking to exploit a critical shortage of Patriot air defense interceptors in Ukraine — the primary system capable of shooting down the incoming weapons. Russia is also preparing a new wave of troop mobilization to support a fresh offensive along the 1,250-kilometer front line that stretches across eastern and southern Ukraine, Zelenskyy added.

    “Every step Russia takes — increasing ballistic missile production, bringing in North Korean equipment, preparing for mobilization — all of this shows that Moscow is preparing not for peace, but for escalation,” Zelenskyy stated in a social media address.

    In an unusual move, Ukraine’s air force did not disclose the total number of missiles Russia launched in the overnight attack in its daily operational update, and it remains unclear whether the omission was deliberate. Ukrainian officials declined immediate comment on the redacted report.

    Diplomatic efforts led by the United States to broker a ceasefire have stalled in recent months, as Washington’s frustration with the lack of progress has grown and U.S. foreign policy attention has shifted to the ongoing conflict in Iran.

    Domestically, Russia’s Supreme Court ordered the removal of Yabloko, the last remaining major Russian political party openly opposed to the war in Ukraine, from all ballots ahead of the country’s September 18-20 parliamentary elections. The move has been widely interpreted as clear sign that President Vladimir Putin remains committed to continuing the invasion rather than pursuing negotiations.

    The Washington-based think tank the Institute for the Study of War echoed this assessment in a Monday analysis, noting: “The Kremlin will not enter serious negotiations or make meaningful compromises on its demands as long as Putin believes that he has a viable military path to achieving his full objectives. Ukraine’s Patriot shortages offer Russia an opportunity to cause very serious damage to Ukraine over the coming winter and will therefore contribute to delaying meaningful negotiations and protracting the war.”

    In its official statement on the strikes, the Russian Defense Ministry confirmed it targeted what it described as “military industrial facilities and transport and logistics centers” in Kyiv and Zaporizhzhia, using ground-based precision weapons. Russian officials claimed the strike hit a storage site housing Ukrainian drones in Kyiv and the targeted metallurgical plant in Zaporizhzhia.

    Ukrainian air force officials reported that Russia used a mix of Zircon anti-ship missiles and Iskander ballistic missiles in the strikes on Kyiv and Zaporizhzhia, alongside launching more than 120 long-range attack drones across all regions of Ukraine.

    As cross-border strikes continue, Ukraine carried out retaliatory attacks on Russian territory overnight. The Russian Defense Ministry said its air defense systems intercepted nearly 400 Ukrainian drones across 14 Russian regions and the illegally annexed Crimean Peninsula.

    One of the targeted sites was a logistics facility belonging to Wildberries, Russia’s largest e-commerce retailer, in the Voronezh region bordering Ukraine. The facility caught fire after the attack, but the company reported that the blaze was quickly extinguished and most stored goods remained undamaged. Ukraine has repeatedly targeted Wildberries warehouses alongside Russian energy infrastructure as part of a stated strategy to increase domestic pressure on Putin to enter peace talks.

    Ukrainian forces also struck a large oil refinery in the Russian city of Orsk, located in the Orenburg region roughly 1,500 kilometers from the Ukrainian border near Kazakhstan. The refinery, which has an annual crude processing capacity of 44 million barrels and produces gasoline, diesel and aviation fuel, caught fire after the strike. Ukrainian military officials say assessments of the extent of damage are still ongoing.

    In a new update on the humanitarian toll of the conflict, the United Nations reported Monday that more than 16,000 Ukrainian civilians detained by Russian forces since the start of the invasion remain in arbitrary detention, with many held incommunicado in violation of international law. Claudia Fuentes Julio, U.N. Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights, told an informal U.N. Security Council briefing that widespread and systematic torture and ill-treatment of both civilian detainees and Ukrainian prisoners of war continues, including widespread acts of sexual violence.

    This report was contributed to by Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations.

  • Libyan authorities battle big blaze at major oil refinery

    Libyan authorities battle big blaze at major oil refinery

    A massive, uncontrolled fire has broken out at Libya’s flagship Zawiya refinery after an attack by unidentified assailants, leaving emergency crews working around the clock to contain the inferno and prevent further damage to the country’s already fragile energy sector.

    The strike, carried out via drone, hit the facility — located just west of the capital Tripoli — on Monday evening. It marks the third major attack on energy and critical infrastructure near Zawiya in a 48-hour period, according to initial reports from Libyan officials.

    The National Oil Corporation (NOC), Libya’s state-owned energy authority, confirmed that a storage tank holding roughly 4.5 million liters of petroleum fuel took a direct hit from the drone. The impact ignited an intense blaze that ultimately caused the entire tank structure to collapse. In a statement following the attack, NOC warned that it may be forced to suspend all operations at the key refinery if a wave of targeted violence against energy sites continues unabated.

    As of Tuesday, there have been no reports of fatalities or critical injuries linked to the fire. Libya’s Ambulance and Emergency Service confirmed that most people affected by the incident were treated on-site for minor smoke inhalation, with no patients requiring prolonged hospital care.

    The Zawiya refinery holds outsized importance for Libya’s energy-dependent economy: it is the largest fully operational oil processing facility in the country, with a daily production capacity of 120,000 barrels of crude oil products.

    The latest attack follows two similar strikes on infrastructure in the Zawiya area in the preceding 48 hours: an earlier drone strike targeted a naphtha storage reservoir, while a second hit a local water desalination plant that serves the refinery and surrounding communities. NOC has issued a formal condemnation of all three attacks, and has called on national security authorities to launch a full investigation to identify and prosecute the groups behind the violence.

    The string of coordinated attacks on critical Libyan infrastructure has once again drawn global attention to the persistent political instability that has plagued the North African nation for more than a decade. Libya has remained a deeply divided state since a 2011 popular rebellion, backed by Western military intervention, toppled and killed longtime authoritarian leader Muammar Gaddafi, who had held power since a 1969 coup.

    Today, two rival competing administrations control separate portions of the country: an internationally recognized government led by Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah is based in Tripoli in western Libya, while a parallel eastern administration is backed by powerful military commander Khalifa Haftar. The two blocs have continued to vie for full political and military control of the country, creating a security vacuum that has allowed repeated attacks on energy infrastructure — Libya’s primary source of government revenue — to occur with increasing frequency.

  • Watch: Huge blaze after attack on petrol tank in Libya

    Watch: Huge blaze after attack on petrol tank in Libya

    A large-scale inferno has broken out at a major petroleum storage tank located west of Libya’s capital city Tripoli, after the facility was struck in an attack by assailants whose identities remain unconfirmed. As emergency response crews work around the clock to bring the blaze under control, local authorities have not yet released details on potential casualties, infrastructure damage, or disruptions to regional fuel supplies that may result from the incident.

    Libya has long grappled with widespread political instability and frequent acts of targeted violence against critical energy infrastructure, which forms the backbone of the North African nation’s economy. Attacks on oil and fuel storage facilities often exacerbate existing challenges around energy access across the country, and can disrupt global energy markets that rely on Libyan crude oil exports. Firefighting teams on the ground have reported facing significant hurdles in their containment efforts, including limited access to heavy firefighting equipment and ongoing security concerns in the area surrounding the storage site.

  • Colombia searches for its missing after a powerful earthquake kills more than 100

    Colombia searches for its missing after a powerful earthquake kills more than 100

    In the early hours of Tuesday, frantic search and rescue operations spread across dozens of urban and rural communities in western Colombia, just one day after a powerful 7.4-magnitude earthquake tore through the region, leaving a trail of death, destruction, and uncertainty for thousands of residents.

    The tremor, which struck Monday, shook major population centers including Cali, Pereira, Quibdo, and dozens of smaller surrounding towns. Preliminary assessments confirm at least 111 people have been confirmed dead, and an estimated 1,600 structures across the affected area have been damaged or completely reduced to rubble. With heavy machinery struggling to reach some hard-hit remote areas, soldiers, professional rescue teams, civilian volunteers, and anxious family members have formed human chains to move chunks of concrete and debris by hand, digging through wreckage in hopes of finding survivors trapped beneath fallen buildings.

    By Monday evening, more than 2,700 people had been registered as missing, with desperate relatives sharing photos and details of their unaccounted-for loved ones on community-run online platforms. Among those searching is Dana Carolina Zamora, who posted a picture of her 60-year-old uncle Miguel Ángel Zamora, a farmer who lived in a rural zone outside the town of El Cairo, just a short distance from the earthquake’s epicenter in San Jose Del Palmar.

    Local officials estimate that 80 percent of El Cairo — a small community of roughly 7,000 residents — suffered structural damage. Zamora explained that her uncle lived in a traditional home constructed from sticks and mud, a building type widely known to be extremely vulnerable to seismic activity. “We are afraid. We hope that is not the case, that he is all right and that it is only a communication failure. But we haven’t heard anything from him,” Zamora told reporters, voicing a mix of hope and anxiety shared by hundreds of other waiting families.

    The epicenter of the quake falls within Choco, a region long ranked as one of Colombia’s poorest and most underserved areas. The region is also frequently destabilized by clashes between competing armed groups, and much of its territory can only be reached by air, boat, or overland jungle routes. As of early Tuesday, full assessments of damage in the most remote parts of Choco were still out of reach, leaving authorities unable to confirm the full scope of human and structural loss.

    The disaster marks the first major national crisis for Colombia’s new president, Abelardo de la Espriella, who was just sworn into office last Friday. The conservative leader, who has already drawn national division over his promise to launch an all-out crackdown on criminal gangs, traveled to Choco’s capital Quibdo on Monday night to survey the damage firsthand. During his visit, he announced the mobilization of “the entire military and police apparatus” to support response efforts, deploying military engineers, specialized rescue teams, and search and rescue dogs to affected areas. He also unveiled immediate support measures for displaced residents, including rental subsidies for homeowners forced to leave damaged properties while repairs are completed. “Choco will never again be the ‘land of the forgotten,’” he pledged in remarks Monday.

    The international community has already begun mobilizing support for Colombia’s response. The U.S. State Department announced an immediate contribution of $15.5 million to fund emergency shelter, food distributions, and other critical life-saving aid. Governments across Latin America have also offered assistance, joining the effort to support relief operations.

    For Colombians, the earthquake has stirred fresh trauma, coming just weeks after two consecutive major quakes devastated neighboring Venezuela in late June. That disaster destroyed hundreds of buildings and killed more than 6,300 people, leaving many across the Andean region already on edge ahead of Monday’s tremor.

    Even for those who escaped unharmed, the scope of the destruction has left lasting shock. Mónica Sánchez, who owns a small work uniform manufacturing company in Pereira — one of the hardest-hit urban centers — saw an interior wall of her factory collapse during the quake. She and her 12 employees managed to evacuate to safety just moments before the structure gave way. “It was shocking — the city fell down around us,” she said of the terrifying experience.

  • Return of displaced Syrian Kurds to hometown suspended after violence

    Return of displaced Syrian Kurds to hometown suspended after violence

    Months after a landmark reconciliation deal between Kurdish factions and Syrian national authorities that paved the way for the return of hundreds of thousands of displaced people, plans to repatriate Kurdish residents to their northeastern hometown of Ras al-Ain have been thrown into chaos. The process was suspended just hours after the first cohort of returnees departed for the border town, following a targeted attack on the convoy that ignited mass protests across Kurdish-majority regions of northern Syria.

    On Monday morning, hundreds of families loaded their remaining belongings onto trucks at staging areas outside the provincial capital of Hasakeh, with many telling Agence France-Presse reporters they had waited years for the chance to go home. Among them was 37-year-old Nora Khodor, who described the long-awaited return as “like a dream” after half a decade of displacement. Thirty-nine-year-old Rawda Mohammed added that even confirmation her former home had been completely destroyed did not dim her excitement: “we’re happy to return, and when we get there we’ll see what we can do.”

    Jawan Isso, a representative of the Ras al-Ain Displaced Persons Committee, confirmed that roughly 2,500 people made up the first repatriation batch, with a second group scheduled to depart in the following days. In total, more than 100,000 displaced residents from the Ras al-Ain region have submitted applications to return to their pre-war homes. But within hours of departing, the convoy came under attack by unidentified armed groups, Isso said.

    In response to the violence, Mahmud Khalil Ali, deputy head of Hasakeh province’s security forces, announced the immediate suspension of all repatriation trips as a precautionary safety measure. “Several of those involved in the attacks were arrested,” Ali said, adding that “these trips will resume as soon as the situation stabilises and full protection is provided for the returnees.”

    The attack quickly sparked widespread anger across northern Syria’s Kurdish communities. In the nearby city of Qamishli, an AFP correspondent witnessed hundreds of angry protesters attempt to storm a local security forces headquarters, only to be pushed back by Syrian security officers. Further west in the Kurdish-majority town of Kobane, Syrian state television reported that protesters targeted government administrative buildings and removed the national flag from outside the local security headquarters. Authorities subsequently imposed a full curfew on Kobane as they launched a manhunt for the attack organizers.

    Mazloum Abdi, leader of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) who signed the January reconciliation deal with Damascus, condemned the attack on returning families in a post on X. “We understand the angry reactions in the Kurdish street in response to this assault,” Abdi wrote. “At the same time, we call on our people to exercise self-restraint, refrain from being drawn into any irresponsible acts, and preserve our civil and security institutions.”

    Ahmad al-Hilali, deputy governor of Hasakeh province, issued a unified condemnation of both the original attack on returnees and the subsequent attacks on state institutions across the region. “A number of rioters have already been arrested in several areas,” al-Hilali said, vowing that there would be “no leniency” toward any actors that threaten “civil peace.”

    The current unrest has its roots in the 2019 Turkish cross-border offensive that pushed Kurdish forces out of a 120-kilometer strip of Syrian territory along the Turkish-Syrian border, including Ras al-Ain (known as Sari Kani to Kurds). The operation displaced tens of thousands of Kurdish residents from the region, and international human rights groups have documented widespread looting and seizure of abandoned Kurdish homes by pro-Turkish armed groups, many of whom have since relocated their families to the formerly mixed-ethnicity area. Turkey launched multiple successive offensives against Kurdish-led forces in northern Syria before the December 2024 collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s government, which saw new Islamist-led national authorities extend central control across all formerly autonomous regions of the country, including Kurdish-held territories.

    Today, more than 13 years after the start of Syria’s civil conflict, the United Nations estimates that 5.5 million people remain internally displaced across the country, many of whom have spent years waiting for the chance to return to their pre-war homes.

  • Dubai ruler confronted in London over UAE involvement in Sudan war

    Dubai ruler confronted in London over UAE involvement in Sudan war

    A tense confrontation has played out on the streets of one of London’s most exclusive neighborhoods, bringing international attention back to the United Arab Emirates’ widely documented but consistently denied involvement in Sudan’s devastating 15-month-long civil war. A video circulated online Sunday captured the moment a Sudanese protester shouted accusations at Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum, ruler of Dubai and UAE prime minister, as he traveled through London’s Knightsbridge district.

    Standing across the street from Al-Maktoum and his security entourage, the protester repeatedly called out: “Emiratis and UAE, they’re killing Sudanese people. UAE is killing people in my country. Stop killing my people.” The confrontation escalated rapidly when a member of Al-Maktoum’s group, who appeared to be Emirati, launched a vicious racist verbal attack against the protester, yelling expletives and calling him a “Black bitch” before moving across the road to confront him directly.

    The protester also named UAE president Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan in his accusations, shortly after local Emirati media confirmed that the two top UAE leaders had held a closed-door “fraternal meeting” at London’s Jumeirah Carlton Tower Hotel the previous Thursday. The state-aligned coverage framed the meeting as a demonstration of the “enduring bonds of unity, mutual respect and shared values” that anchor the UAE’s leadership.

    The Sudanese man’s accusations align with a growing body of public evidence that contradicts the UAE’s official denials of backing the Rapid Support Forces, Sudan’s powerful paramilitary faction that the United Nations and United States have formally accused of perpetrating genocide in the ongoing conflict. Since war broke out between the RSF and Sudan’s regular armed forces in April 2023, UN independent experts, international human rights groups, and investigative reporting from Middle East Eye have traced consistent arms flows to the RSF facilitated by smuggling networks operating out of Libya, Chad, and the self-declared independent region of Somaliland. Earlier this year, MEE reporting also exposed the use of an Ethiopian military base to funnel support to the paramilitary.

    Multiple sources close to Emirati leadership and analysts aligned with Abu Dhabi have tacitly acknowledged the longstanding support the UAE has provided to RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, who holds extensive hidden property holdings in Dubai through a network of anonymous shell companies. Defenders of the UAE’s involvement have pushed back against international criticism, pointing out that the RSF’s rival Sudanese Armed Forces receives backing from Egypt and Turkey, arguing that singling out Abu Dhabi for condemnation is hypocritical.

    The human cost of the conflict reached a new peak in recent weeks when RSF fighters seized el-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, the region where the paramilitary has its roots. Witnesses and UN investigators confirm that RSF fighters carried out mass executions, systematic rape, and widespread looting against civilian populations in the city – a campaign UN officials confirmed bears “all the hallmarks of genocide”. The conflict has already spawned the world’s largest humanitarian catastrophe, with more than half of Sudan’s 48 million people facing acute food insecurity and over 10 million people displaced from their homes.

    The London confrontation is not the first time Al-Maktoum has faced controversy during visits to the UK. British courts have previously ruled that the Dubai ruler ordered the abduction of his two daughters, Latifa and Shamsa, after they attempted to escape his control in the UK – Shamsa in 2000 and Latifa in 2018. A 2021 High Court ruling also found that Al-Maktoum had used NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware to illegally hack the phones of his ex-wife, Jordanian Princess Haya, and her associates, as part of a campaign of intimidation during their divorce proceedings.

    Despite the public confrontation, Al-Maktoum has continued his documented London vacation, posting a message on his official X (formerly Twitter) account Monday that framed family time as the most valuable vacation investment. “Life taught me… that the greatest investment in vacations is not the number of cities we visit… but the number of moments we create with our families,” he wrote alongside a photograph from his trip. “Beautiful memories are happiness and energy that drive us to more work, achievement, and success.”

    Western governments, including the United Kingdom, have faced widespread criticism for their failure to publicly challenge the UAE’s role in the Sudan war, with critics linking the silence to extensive economic ties between Abu Dhabi and Western political and business circles.