A leading Sudanese opposition party said Sunday it has refused a call by protest leaders for a two-day general strike, in a sign of divisions within the pro-democracy movement that is challenging military rule in Sudan.
The opposition Umma Party said it opposes the "preparations and timing" of the strike. However, it said authorities do not have the right to fire those who take part in the planned strike.
The party's chief Sadek al-Mahdi led the country's last democratically elected government, which the military autocrat Omar al-Bashir ousted with Islamist support in 1989.
The party is a member of the Forces for the Declaration of Freedom and Change, an umbrella group representing protesters and opposition parties in the negotiations with the ruling military council.
The FDFC said the nationwide strike would begin Tuesday. Protest leaders are hoping to force the military, which removed al-Bashir from power in April, to transfer power to a civilian-led authority.
Shams al-Deen al-Kabashi, a spokesman for the military council, meanwhile said negotiations with the protest leaders are slow. He warned that "lots of choices" are on the table as military and protest leaders argue over the details of a transition plan.
He was talking to troops in Khartoum's twin city of Omdurman on Sunday.
Talks between protesters and the army stalled earlier this week after both sides had agreed to a three-year transitional period, a cabinet and a legislative body.
They remain split over the makeup and leadership of the sovereign council that would run the country during the transition.
Protest leaders say they want a civilian leader and "limited military representation," but say the ruling generals have refused to relinquish power over the proposed council.
Also on Sunday Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, head of Sudan's military council, arrived in the United Arab Emirates for talks with Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, believed to be the Emirates' day-to-day ruler.
Bin Zayed tweeted that he "affirmed the UAE's support in preserving Sudan's security and stability."
Burhan's visit to the UAE came a day after his meeting in Cairo with Egypt's President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi on Saturday. Also his deputy Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, better known as Hemedti , visited Saudi Arabia and met with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman on Thursday.
Egypt has voiced its support for the military council, pressing the African Union not to suspend Sudan's activities in the regional block. Saudi Arabia and the UAE have pledged $3 billion in aid to shore up Sudan's economy.
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Nearly 282 million people in 59 countries suffered from acute hunger in 2023, with war-torn Gaza as the territory with the largest number of people facing famine, according to the Global Report on Food Crises released Wednesday.
The U.N. report said 24 million more people faced an acute lack of food than in 2022, due to the sharp deterioration in food security, especially in the Gaza Strip and Sudan. The number of nations with food crises that are monitored has also been expanded.
Máximo Torero, chief economist for the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization, said 705,000 people in five countries are at Phase 5, the highest level, on a scale of hunger determined by international experts — the highest number since the global report began in 2016 and quadruple the number that year.
Over 80% of those facing imminent famine — 577,000 people — were in Gaza, he said. South Sudan, Burkina Faso, Somalia and Mali each host many thousands also facing catastrophic hunger.
According to the report’s future outlook, around 1.1 million people in Gaza, where the Israel-Hamas war is now in its seventh month, and 79,000 in South Sudan are projected to be in Phase 5 and facing famine by July.
It said conflict will also continue to drive food insecurity in Haiti, where gangs control large portions of the capital.
Additionally, while the El Nino phenomenon peaked in early 2024, “its full impact on food security – including flooding and poor rain in parts of east Africa and drought in southern Africa, especially Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe – are like to manifest throughout the year.”
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called the report “a roll call of human failings,” and that “in a world of plenty, children are starving to death.”
“The conflicts erupting over the past 12 months compound a dire global situation,” he wrote in the report's foreword.
Guterres highlighted the conflict in the Gaza Strip, as the enclave holds the highest number of people facing catastrophic hunger. There is also the year-old conflict in Sudan, which has created the world's largest internal displacement crisis “with atrocious impacts on hunger and nutrition,” he added.
According to the report, over 36 million people in 39 countries and territories are facing an acute hunger emergency, a step below the famine level in Phase 4, with more than a third in Sudan and Afghanistan. It's an increase of a million people from 2022, the report said.
Arif Husain, the U.N. World Food Program’s chief economist, said every year since 2016 the numbers of people acutely food insecure have gone up, and they are now more than double the numbers before the COVID-19 pandemic.
While the report looks at 59 countries, he said the target is to get data from 73 countries where there are people who are acutely food insecure.
Secretary-General Guterres called for an urgent response to the report’s findings that addresses the underlying causes of acute hunger and malnutrition while transforming the systems that supply food. Funding is also not keeping pace with the needs, he stressed.
“We must have the funding, and we also must have the access,” WFP’s Husain said, stressing that both “go hand-in-hand” and are essential to tackle acute food insecurity.
The report is the flagship publication of the Food Security Information Network and is based on a collaboration of 16 partners including U.N. agencies, regional and multinational bodies, the European Union, the U.S. Agency for International Development, technical organizations and others.
FILE - Palestinians line up for a meal in Rafah, Gaza Strip, Friday, Feb. 16, 2024. According to the Global Report on Food Crises released Wednesday, April 24, nearly 282 million people in 59 countries suffered from acute hunger in 2023, with war-torn Gaza the territory with the largest number of people facing famine. (AP Photo/Fatima Shbair, File)
