Sudan

27 May 2020; MEMO: A private Israeli plane landed at Khartoum International Airport yesterday morning following a phone call between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the President of Sudan’s Sovereignty Council, Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, reported Arab48.

According to Al-Quds Al-Arabi, a Hawker 800 mid-size and twinjet plane, with the registration number N84UP, arrived at the principal airport of the African state.

KHARTOUM, May 6 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Veteran diplomat Noureldin Sati has been appointed Sudan’s ambassador to the US.

“The approval comes as part of normalising US and Sudanese diplomatic relations after being at the level of chargé d’affaires for over two decades,” the state news agency Suna said quoting Sudan’s foreign ministry.

Ties between Khartoum and Washington had been strained during Omar al-Bashir’s three decades in power, but improved after he was ousted in April 2019.

6 May 2020; AFP: Hakam Ibrahim was seven when, like most Sudanese girls, she became a victim of female genital mutilation -- an age-old practice decried as horrific that the post-revolution government is now banning.

A mother-of-four in her 40s, Ibrahim vividly recalls the traumatic experience of what remains a widespread ritual in parts of Africa, the Middle East and Asia despite a concerted human rights campaign to end it.

27 April 2020; MEMO: The Chairman of Sudan’s Sovereignty Council has revealed that Ethiopian forces and militias have seized a large part of his country’s territory along the border.

“There are old problems. Herders have lost their livestock and farmers have lost their lands. The armed forces had nothing to do but to protect them because the Ethiopians imposed their presence,” explained Lieutenant General Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan in an interview broadcast on Saturday on official Sudanese TV.

12 April 2020; MEMO: Sudan urgently needs $120 million to fight the new coronavirus, the country’s health minister told Reuters on Saturday, amid a shortage of the equipment to fight the epidemic which has ravaged richer countries.

Although Sudan has so far reported relatively few cases, the global outbreak has arrived at a time when it faces an economic crisis.

03 April 2020; MEMO: The Sudanese Ministry of Industry and Trade has temporarily banned exports of maize from 15 April until further notice as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

Undersecretary of the Ministry of Industry and Trade Muhammad Ali Abdullah said in a statement yesterday that the decision was taken after identifying a gap in the maize reserves with the aim of building a stockpile in line with the declaration of a health emergency in the country due to the coronavirus pandemic.

JUBA, March 26 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Sudan’s defence minister, General Gamal al-Din Omar, has died of a heart attack while on an official visit to neighbouring South Sudan, according to the Sudanese officials.

Omar was in South Sudan’s capital, Juba, taking part in peace negotiations between his country’s transitional government and rebel groups.

17 March 2020; AFP: A joint UN-African Union report released Monday on Sudan and Darfur called for a political mission to replace the peace operation there, raising fears by rights groups that civilians could lose all protection.

The United Nations Security Council will meet on March 26 to decide whether or not to gradually withdraw by the end of October some 7,800 troops, known as the "Blue Helmets," from the United Nations-African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID).

KHARTOUM, March 12 (NNN-AGENCIES) — A team from the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has arrived in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, to help with enquiries into a failed assassination attempt against the prime minister.

Abdalla Hamdok’s convoy was attacked with explosives and gunfire on Monday.

It is not yet clear who was behind the attack and the arrival of the three US investigators follows a call from the Sudanese authorities for foreign assistance.

KHARTOUM, Mar 10 (NNN-SUNA) – Sudan’s Prime Minister, Abdalla Hamdok, on Monday (yesterday), survived failed assassination attempt, in the capital Khartoum, Sudan’s official TV reported.

Hamdok said, he was in “good shape” and that what had happened would be “an additional push to the wheel of change in Sudan,” where he heads a transitional government, following the overthrow, last year, of long-time President, Omar al-Bashir.

Eyewitnesses say, Hamdok’s motorcade came under a car bomb attack, at the entry of the Sudanese army bridge, in Khartoum.