Archive November 12, 2025

The head of the United Nations’ migration agency has called for a ceasefire and a humanitarian corridor to help tens of thousands of civilians trapped in el-Fasher, the city in Sudan’s Darfur region that fell to the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) last month.

Amy Pope, director-general of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), told Al Jazeera on Wednesday that “the primary concern is getting access” to residents who have been largely cut off from humanitarian aid and services in el-Fasher.

“When humanitarian actors are themselves at risk – when they’re killed, when they’re shot, when they’re detained – we can’t get the people what they need to survive,” Pope said.

“The primary issue is ensuring that there is a ceasefire, a humanitarian corridor, so that aid groups can bring in that aid to the civilians who are very much caught in the middle.”

Human rights groups have accused the RSF, which has been battling the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) for control of Sudan since April 2023, of committing widescale massacres in its capture of el-Fasher on October 26.

While thousands of residents remain stuck in el-Fasher, the capital of Sudan’s North Darfur state, nearly 90,000 others have fled since the RSF’s takeover, according to the latest IOM figures.

On Wednesday, Pope said displaced families have described dangerous journeys out of el-Fasher.

“They spoke about seeing dead bodies as they walked. They spoke about having to create makeshift trenches to avoid being shot at, or being harmed by the drones. They spoke of unspeakable, unbearable, sexual trauma [and] sexual abuse,” she said.

“The stories are really harrowing, and they’re happening now even as we speak.”

Her comments come a day after the IOM warned that humanitarian aid efforts in Sudan were “on the brink of collapse” due to continued insecurity and a lack of funding.

“Warehouses are nearly empty, aid convoys face significant insecurity, and access restrictions continue to prevent the delivery of sufficient aid,” the agency said in a statement, noting that violence is also spreading to other parts of the country.

Nearly 39,000 people have fled intense fighting in North Kordofan state, east of el-Fasher, between October 26 and November 9, the IOM said.

Meanwhile, Anna Mutavati, the regional director for East and Southern Africa at UN Women, told reporters this week that women and girls who fled el-Fasher now face serious threats of sexual violence in displacement camps around the city.

“What the women tell us is that … every step that they’ve taken – to fetch water, to collect firewood, or to stand in a food line – is carrying a high risk of sexual violence,” Mutavati said during a news conference in Geneva on Tuesday.

“There is mounting evidence that rape is being deliberately and systematically used as a weapon of war,” she added.

India has said a car explosion near Delhi’s Red Fort that killed several people this week was a terrorist attack, formally designating the nature of the incident for the first time.

“The country has witnessed a heinous terror incident, perpetrated by antinational forces,” said Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s cabinet on Wednesday, adding that an investigation had been launched so “perpetrators, their collaborators, and their sponsors are identified and brought to justice without delay”.

The cabinet did not release any new evidence, but authorities had previously said that police were investigating under a stringent “anti-terrorism” law, giving them broader powers to arrest people in connection with Monday’s blast, which killed at least 13 people.

If the attack on 17th-century Red Fort, a Mughal-era monument that stands as a symbol of political power across the country, is confirmed as deliberate, it would be the deadliest such blast in India’s populous capital since 2011.

Kashmir police carried out raids at hundreds of locations in the Himalayan region, detaining about 500 people, a Kashmir police source told the news agency Reuters. Most were released after questioning, the source said.

Those raids came hours after police in the Jammu and Indian-administered Kashmir federal territory said they had arrested seven men, including two doctors, in connection with a separate “anti-terror” probe.

Police are now investigating a possible connection between the seven men arrested and the driver of the car that exploded, according to the Reuters news agencies, citing three sources.

A Kashmir police statement alleged that the men, part of “a white-collar terror ecosystem”, were linked to Pakistan-based groups Jaish-e-Muhammad and Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind.

Pakistan’s foreign office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

India accuses Pakistan of supporting armed groups in Kashmir, the Himalayan region, which both nations claim, but Islamabad denies the accusation.

Tens of thousands of people have been killed in an anti-Indian uprising there since 1989, although violence has tapered off in recent years.

In April, 26 men were killed in an attack on Hindu tourists in Kashmir, which New Delhi blamed on what it called “terrorists” backed by Pakistan, a charge denied by Islamabad.

After nearly four years of war between Kyiv and Moscow, fighting is heating up on the front lines of eastern Ukraine.

But with drones spotted at sensitive sites across the European Union, its leaders have declared Russia is fighting a hybrid war beyond Ukraine’s borders.

They say the bloc will protect “every centimetre” of its territory, as member states scale up military spending to heights not seen for decades.

And although only Ukraine and Russia are officially at war, the continent has now entered an arms race that is reshaping its economies, rattling governments and reframing relationships within the EU itself.

All this comes as Ukraine is losing territory to Russia, one kilometre at a time.

So, is war really edging closer to Europe’s borders? And is the continent prepared?

Presenter: Adrian Finighan

Guests:

Stefan Wolff – Professor of international security at the University of Birmingham

Alexander Bratersky – Independent journalist, and former reporter for the Moscow Times and Defence News