https://arab.news/427f8
JUBA: After spending nearly a decade in a camp for the displaced in South Sudan’s Juba, Mayen Galuak hopes that Pope Francis’ visit to the capital city next week will inspire political leaders to finally restore peace, allowing him to go home.
The 44-year-old entered the UN camp, just a few kilometers from his residence, in search of safety three days after conflict broke out in 2013.
In the ensuing years, he has watched as South Sudan’s leaders forged peace deals and broke them; as militias carried out and denied ethnic massacres; and as relentless conflict pushed parts of the country into famine.
Pope Francis is due to go to Congo from Jan. 31 to Feb. 3 and then spend two days in South Sudan.
The pope has wanted to visit South Sudan for years but plans were postponed due to the instability there and a scheduled trip last June was canceled due to the pope’s knee ailment.
The Vatican’s envoy to the Democratic Republic of Congo has said the trip will remind the world not to ignore decades-long conflicts.
“We are in a bad situation … since 2013, we have not seen any good peace,” said Galuak, who says he can’t travel to his birth home in the country’s north because of the risk of attack. Sporadic clashes continue to kill civilians throughout the country.
South Sudan gained independence in 2011.
BEIRUT: Suspected Daesh group militants on Sunday killed at least 26 people in central Syria, a war monitor reported, the latest in a spate of attacks targeting people foraging for desert truffles.
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said “civilians and at least 10 pro-regime fighters” were among “the 26 people killed in an attack by Daesh fighters while they were collecting truffles in the desert east of (the central city of) Hama.”
CAIRO: Egypt and South Sudan on Sunday offered to mediate between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, who began fighting in Khartoum and towns across the country on Saturday, the Egyptian presidency said in a statement.
In a phone call between Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi and South Sudan counterpart Salva Kiir on Sunday, the two most influential direct neighbors to Sudan called on both sides in the power struggle to “choose the voice of reason (and) peaceful dialgoue,” the statement said.
DUBAI: Iran’s revolutionary guards seized a foreign vessel carrying 1.45 million litres of smuggled fuel in the Gulf and detained its crew, according to the semi-official Tasnim news agency on Sunday.
Iran, which has some of the world’s cheapest fuel prices due to heavy subsidies and the plunge in the value of its national currency, has been fighting rampant fuel smuggling over land to neighbouring countries and by sea.
SANAA: Yemen’s Houthis and government forces freed scores of prisoners Sunday on the last of a three-day exchange of nearly 900 detainees, boosting hopes of ending their protracted war.
Planes carrying detainees took off at the same time from the Houthi rebel-held capital of Sanaa and the government-controlled northern city of Marib, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said.
Some were taken to the Red Cross planes in wheelchairs. All released prisoners were given plastic bags with food to eat when the daily Ramadan fast was over.
At the airport in Sanaa, Houthi fighters staged a ceremonial dance with swords to greet their comrades.
“Forty-eight former detainees were on board the Marib-Sanaa flight, and 42 on the Sanaa-Marib flight,” ICRC media adviser Jessica Moussan told AFP.
Three other flights during the day were to complete the deal reached in Switzerland last month to exchange 181 government forces for 706 rebels, just before the major Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr.
Four journalists sentenced to death by the Iranian-backed Houthis are part of the exchange, said government negotiator Majed Fadail.
The last talks ended hours before 318 prisoners were transported on four flights on Friday between Sanaa and government-controlled Aden, reuniting detainees with their families.
On Saturday, 357 detainees took flights between the Saudi city of Abha and Sanaa. Saudis were among the prisoners freed.
It is not known how many prisoners each side still has.