CAIRO (AP) — Sudan topped a watchlist of global humanitarian crises released Tuesday by an international aid group for the third year in a row as a devastating war grips the northeastern African country.
The International Rescue Committee said Sudan was at the top of its annual Emergency Watchlist, which included 20 countries at risk of worsening humanitarian crises in 2026.
The IRC called for scaling up global humanitarian funding, which has shrunk by 50% in the outgoing year and is on track to become the deadliest year for humanitarians.
The list had the occupied Palestinian territories and South Sudan ranked second and third, respectively, due to debilitating humanitarian conditions. It also included Ethiopia, Haiti, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Lebanon and Ukraine. Syria and Yemen, both riddled with civil wars for over a decade, were also listed.
Though the 20-country list represents just 12% of the world’s population, it accounts for 89% of those in need, with 117 million displaced people, the IRC said. The group expects the listed countries to host more than half of the world’s extremely poor by 2029, calling the crises a “New World Disorder" replacing “the post-WWII international system once grounded in rules and rights.”
The IRC said many of the conflicts are driven by struggles for power and profit. In Sudan, the group says, the warning parties and their international backers are benefiting from the gold trade, which has devastating impacts on civilians.
“This year’s Watchlist is a testament to misery but also a warning,” Miliband said. “The New World Disorder is here, and winds are picking up everywhere. Disorder begets disorder.”
The group called for a set of binding actions in response to global crises, including the suspension of U.N. Security Council veto power in cases of mass atrocities.
Sudan plunged into chaos in April 2023 when a power struggle between the military and the powerful paramilitary Rapid Support Forces exploded into open fighting, with widespread mass killings and rapes, and ethnically motivated violence. This has amounted to war crimes and crimes against humanity, according to the U.N. and international rights groups.
The devastating war has killed more than 40,000 people, according to United Nations figures, but aid groups say that is an undercount and the true number could be many times higher. The conflict created the world’s largest humanitarian crisis, with over 14 million people displaced, disease outbreaks and famine spreading in parts of the country.
“The scale of the crisis in Sudan … is a signature of this disorder,” said David Miliband, President and CEO of the IRC. He called on the international community to take urgent action to stop 2026 from becoming “the most dangerous year yet.”
Both the RSF and the military were accused of violating international law over the course of the war. However, most of the atrocities were blamed on the RSF, which the Biden administration said it committed genocide in Darfur.
The most recent atrocities happened in late October when the Rapid Support Forces took over el-Fasher city, which was the military’s last stronghold in the sprawling Darfur region. Witnesses told The Associated Press in Oct. that RSF fighters went house to house, killing civilians and committing sexual assaults in the city.
U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said last week that war crimes and “potentially” crimes against humanity were committed in the city.
Satellite images, analyzed by the Yale School of Public Health’s Humanitarian Research Lab, appear to show that the RSF, since gaining control of the city, engaged in “widespread and systematic mass killing,” including of civilians attempting to flee the city and those seeking refuge in the Daraja Oula neighborhood, the last known major civilian refuge in the city.
HRL’s report, released Tuesday, said the RSF then launched a “systematic multi-week campaign” that aimed at destroying evidence of atrocities in the city.
The RSF didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
FILE.- Sudanese families displaced from El-Fasher reach out as aid workers distribute food supplies at the newly established El-Afadh camp in Al Dabbah, in Sudan's Northern State, Sunday, Nov. 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Marwan Ali,File)
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — Police released new video and a description of a potential suspect and renewed their search for the shooter who killed two Brown University students and wounded nine others, a day after they released a person of interest in the case.
Here's a look at what to know about the shootings and the search:
Authorities announced the detained man's release during a news conference late Sunday. That marked a setback in the investigation of Saturday's attack on the Ivy League school's campus and added to questions about the shooting and investigation.
Police had detained the man at a Rhode Island hotel. State Attorney General Peter Neronha acknowledged the seriousness of the situation, saying, “We have a murderer out there.”
On Monday, Providence police released three videos of the suspect in the attack that show him wearing a mask and a dark two-tone jacket. The footage from about two hours before the shooting provided the clearest images yet of the suspect.
The FBI said the man is about5 feet, 8 inches (173 centimeters) tall, with a stocky build.
The shooting occurred as students were in the first-floor classroom of the engineering building studying for a final.
The gunman fired more than 40 rounds from a 9 mm handgun, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press. Two handguns were recovered when the person of interest was taken into custody and authorities also found two loaded 30-round magazines, said the official, who was not authorized to discuss the investigation publicly and spoke to AP on the condition of anonymity.
The students who died were MukhammadAziz Umurzokov, an 18-year-old freshman from Brandermill, Virginia, and Ella Cook, a 19-year-old sophomore from a suburb of Birmingham, Alabama. Umurzokov was an aspiring neurosurgeon and Cook was a student leader of Brown University’s campus Republicans. They were in a study group preparing for an economics final.
One of the nine wounded students has been released from the hospital, university President Christina Paxson said Sunday. Seven others were in critical but stable condition, and one was in critical condition.
Durham Academy, a private K-12 school in Durham, North Carolina, confirmed that a recent graduate, Kendall Turner, was critically wounded and that her parents were with her.
Another wounded student, 18-year-old freshman Spencer Yang of New York City, told the New York Times and the Brown Daily Herald from a hospital bed that there was a mad scramble after the gunman entered the room where he and the other students were studying for finals. Many students ran toward the front of the room, but Yang said he wound up on the ground between some seats and was shot in the leg.
Law enforcement officials were still doing basic investigative work two days after the shooting, such as canvassing local residences and businesses for security camera footage and looking for physical evidence. That has left students and some Providence residents frustrated at gaps in the university’s security and camera systems that helped allow the shooter to disappear.
Kristy dosReis, a spokeswoman for the Providence Police Department, said that at no point did the investigation stand down even after officials appeared to have a breakthrough in the case when they detained a Wisconsin man who they now believe was not involved.
But a lack of campus footage left police seeking tips from the public.
Authorities asked neighborhood residents and businesses for surveillance video that might help identify the attacker. They said Sunday that one reason they lacked video of the shooter was because Brown's engineering building doesn't have many cameras.
Law enforcement on Monday traced the suspect’s movements in the minutes after the attack and searched for physical evidence near the crime scene.
Additional police were sent to Providence schools on Tuesday to reassure worried parents that their kids will be safe with the Brown University shooter on the loose and no indication yet that investigators have zeroed in on a specific suspect in the weekend attack.
Brown University junior Mia Tretta was 15 years old when she was shot in the abdomen during a mass shooting at Saugus High School in Santa Clarita, California. Two students were killed, and she and two others were wounded.
On Saturday, Tretta was studying in her dorm with a friend when the first message arrived warning of an emergency at the university’s engineering building. As more alerts poured in urging people to remain locked down and stay away from windows, the familiarity of the language made clear what she had feared.
“No one should ever have to go through one shooting, let alone two,” Tretta told the AP by phone Sunday.
Levi Neuwirth, who said he was a Brown senior who used to have class in the room where the shooting happened, said the campus is on edge. But he said students and the rest of the Brown community have been supporting each other and displaying extra kindness in the wake of tragedy.
“Campus is on edge, mourning, grieving, processing, all of the above that folks would expect,” said Neuwirth, of Wallkill, New York. “But I would really highlight that the major sentiment I feel and I know many of my peers feel is a strong sense of community, of love. We have each other’s backs.”
Whittle reported from Portland, Maine. Contributing were Associated Press reporters Kimberlee Kruesi, Amanda Swinhart, Robert F. Bukaty and Jennifer McDermott in Providence; Michael Casey in Boston; Heather Hollingsworth in Mission, Kansas; Kathy McCormack and Holly Ramer in Concord, New Hampshire; Christopher Weber in Los Angeles; and Alanna Durkin Richer, Mike Balsamo and Eric Tucker in Washington.
A community member looks at flowers, notes and mementos in a makeshift memorial display sitting in front of Brown University's Van Wickle gates, in Providence, R.I., two days after a shooting took place on the university's campus, Monday, Dec. 15, 2025. (Lily Speredelozzi/The Sun Chronicle via AP)
This combo image made with photos provided by the FBI and the Providence, Rhode Island, Police Department shows a person of interest in the shooting that occurred at Brown University in Providence, R.I., Saturday, Dec. 13, 2025. (FBI/Providence Police Department via AP)
Members of the FBI Evidence Response Team search for evidence near the campus of Brown University, Monday, Dec. 15, 2025, in Providence, R.I. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
A police vehicle is parked at an intersection near crime scene tape at Brown University, Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025, in Providence, R.I., following a Saturday shooting at the university. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)
Passers-by walk past crime scene tape at an entrance to Brown University, Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025, in Providence, R.I., following the Saturday, Dec. 13, shooting at the university. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)
Police tape off hotel rooms where the person of interest was arrested in a shooting, Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025, in Coventry, R.I. (AP Photo/Kimberlee Kruesi)
People hold candles during a vigil, Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025, in Providence, R.I., for those injured or killed during the Saturday shooting on Brown University campus. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)
A bouquet of flowers rests on snow, Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025, on the campus of Brown University not far from where a shooting took place, in Providence, R.I. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)
