Tag Archives: War

U.N. says tide of refugees from South Sudan rising fast

An aerial photograph showing South Sudanese refugees at Bidi Bidi refugeeís resettlement camp near the border with South Sudan, in Yumbe district, northern Uganda December 7, 2016. REUTERS/James Akena/File Photo

By Elias Biryabarema

KAMPALA (Reuters) – Some 1.5 million refugees have fled fighting and famine in South Sudan to neighboring countries, half of them to Uganda, and thousands more are leaving daily, the U.N. refugee agency said on Thursday.

Political rivalry between South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir and his former deputy Riek Machar ignited a civil war in 2013 that has often followed ethnic lines.

The two signed a shaky peace deal in 2015, but fighting has continued and Machar fled in July after days of clashes between soldiers loyal to him and Kiir’s forces in the capital Juba. He is now in South Africa.

Charlie Yaxley, spokesman for the UNHCR in Uganda, said the agency estimated the total number of South Sudanese who have gone to neighboring countries at 1.5 million, half in Uganda.

In December there were an estimated 600,000 South Sudanese who had arrived in Uganda.

Yaxley said there were thousands of new arrivals every day. The UNHCR had planned for 300,000 this year.

“We have already in the first two months of this year received 120,00 new arrivals. If this rate of inflow continues actually that figure for 2017 will be far higher,” Yaxley said.

Refugees arriving in Uganda often say they are fleeing from ethnic violence.

“I was in Invepi … and almost every refugee I spoke to had either seen a friend or family member killed in front of their eyes,” Yaxley said, referring to the latest refugee settlement set up in Uganda.

Violence has prevented many farmers from harvesting crops and the scarcity of food has been compounded by hyperinflation, triggering famine in parts of South Sudan.

The UNHCR says the refugee crisis is the world’s third largest after Syria’s and Afghanistan’s.

(Editing by George Obulutsa and Andrew Roche)

Syria air force bombed convoy, U.N. says in Aleppo probe

Members of the civil defense rescue children after what activists said was an air strike by forces loyal to Syria's President Bashar al-Assad in al-Shaar neighborhood of Aleppo. REUTERS/Sultan Kitaz

By Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA(Reuters) – Syrian government aircraft deliberately bombed and strafed a humanitarian convoy, killing 14 aid workers and halting relief operations, U.N. investigators said on Wednesday in a report identifying war crimes committed by both sides in Syria’s war.

Syrian and Russian forces conducted daily air strikes on rebel-held eastern Aleppo between July and its fall on December 22, killing hundreds and destroying hospitals, they said.

Orphanages, schools and homes were “all but obliterated”, panel chairman Paulo Pinheiro told a news conference.

Opposition groups shelled government-controlled western Aleppo, killing and injuring dozens, the report said. They prevented civilians from fleeing besieged eastern Aleppo, using them as human shields – a war crime.

“The scale of what happened in Aleppo is unprecedented in the Syrian conflict. Much of Aleppo, once Syria’s biggest city and its commercial and culture center and a UNESCO World Heritage site, has been reduced to rubble,” Pinheiro said.

He called for ensuring that “those responsible for this ruinous situation one day are brought to justice”.

His team was ready to share its confidential list of suspected war criminals on all sides with a new U.N. body on Syria being set up in Geneva to prepare criminal prosecutions.

“It cannot pass without having this step toward justice, because of the great numbers of victims,” panel member Carla del Ponte said.

“What we have seen here in Syria, I never saw that in Rwanda, or in former Yugoslavia, in the Balkans. It is really a big tragedy,” she added. “Unfortunately we have no tribunal.”

SATELLITE IMAGERY

Cluster munitions were “pervasively used” and air-dropped into densely populated areas, the report said, amounting to the war crime of indiscriminate attacks.

“We have established very clearly in the report that the Syrian air force is responsible for these attacks, we don’t have any evidence linking Russia to those attacks with forbidden chemical weapons,” Pinheiro said.

The investigators also did not attribute any specific war crime investigated to Russian forces but Pinheiro said they would to assign responsibility “if and when we can prove it”.

The U.N. Commission of Inquiry’s report – released as Syrian peace talks continue in Geneva – covers the July-December period and is based on 291 interviews with victims and witnesses, as well as analysis of forensic evidence and satellite imagery.

Syrian helicopters unleashed toxic chlorine bombs “throughout 2016” on Aleppo, a weapon that caused hundreds of civilian casualties there, it said.

At least 5,000 pro-government forces had encircled eastern Aleppo in a “surrender or starve” tactic. Thousands of civilians had to leave the city under an evacuation agreement between the warring parties that amounted to the war crime of forced displacements, it said.

“This represents – and we have said this in the past – a worrying pattern that has occurred in other areas of the country including Deraa and Moadamiya,” Pinheiro said.

The investigators accused the Syrian government of a “meticulously planned and ruthlessly carried out” air strike on a U.N. and Syrian Red Crescent convoy at Orum al-Kubra, in rural western Aleppo on Sept. 19 that killed 14 aid workers.

At the time, the Syrian army and Russia denied responsibility for the attack. A previous U.N. inquiry had been unable to determine who conducted the strike.

“By using air-delivered munitions with the knowledge that humanitarian workers were operating in the location, Syrian forces committed the war crimes of deliberately attacking humanitarian relief personnel, denial of humanitarian aid, and attacking civilians,” the report said.

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Alison Williams and Dominic Evans)

Iraqi forces in Mosul fight Islamic State counter-attack

An Iraqi special forces soldier fires as other soldiers runs across a street during a battle in Mosul, Iraq March 1, 2017. REUTERS/Goran Tomasevic

By Stephen Kalin

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) – Islamic State fighters launched a counter-attack against advancing U.S.-backed Iraqi forces in western Mosul during an overnight storm, as the battle for control of the militants’ last major urban stronghold in Iraq intensified.

Explosions and gun fire rang out across the city’s southwestern districts in the early hours of Thursday. The fighting eased in the late morning, although a Reuters correspondent saw an air strike and rebel mortar fire.

A senior Iraqi officer said Islamic State staged its attack on units from the elite Counter Terrorism Service (CTS) when the storm hampered air surveillance and on-the-ground visibility.

He said some militant fighters hid amongst displaced families to get close to the U.S.-trained troops.

Iraqi forces captured the eastern side of Mosul in January after 100 days of fighting and launched their attack on the districts that lie west of the Tigris river on Feb. 19.

Defeating Islamic State in Mosul would crush the Iraqi wing of the caliphate declared by the group’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, in 2014, from Mosul’s grand old Nuri mosque.

Residents reported that civilians were killed in air strike on an Islamic State-run mosque on Wednesday, highlighting the perilous situation facing hundreds of thousands of Mosul residents as the allied forces step up their campaign.

The residents said the blast collapsed or damaged a number of neighboring houses, many of which are badly made and poorly maintained. A spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition said he was not aware of an air strike on the Omar al-Aswad mosque.

The mosque was where Islamic State sent members of the Iraqi national police and armed forces to surrender their weapons and register in a militant database when the group seized control of the city in 2014. In return they received a pass to prevent their arrest and possible execution at militant check points.

QUEUES FOR FOOD

The Iraqi military believes several thousand militants, including many who traveled from Western countries, are hunkered down in Mosul among the remaining civilian population, which aid agencies estimated to number 750,000 at the start of the latest offensive.

The militants are using suicide car bombers, snipers and booby traps to counter the offensive waged by the 100,000-strong force of Iraqi troops, Kurdish peshmerga fighters and Iranian-trained Shi’ite Muslim paramilitary groups.

More than 28,000 civilians have been forced from their homes in western Mosul since the Feb. 19 offensive began, while the total number displaced since the battle for Mosul started in October exceeds 176,000, according to the United Nations.

On Thursday, more than a thousand more streamed out southern Mosul, the majority on foot. Some said the militants fired at them as they crossed a defensive trench.

One bearded man with a rod though his broken leg was carried by six men in a rug, while an old woman was pushed in a rickety fruit cart.

Nearby, a Humvee brought a family wounded in a mortar attack to a CTS clinic. Medics cleaned their wounds and wrapped them in blankets.

Many fleeing residents complained of hunger. One boy, Ali, held his baby sister as they queued for food handouts. He said they tried to flee on Wednesday but gave up when they came under Islamic State gunfire. On Thursday they managed to get out.

The Iraqi military is taking women and children to camps and screening men to make sure they are not Islamic State fighters. Hundreds of women and children gathered in one abandoned bus station in the open rain to receive food from the army and a local charity.

A counter-terrorism officer fired his pistol in the air to keep the growing crowd in line.

(Reporting by Stephen Kalin in Mosul; Writing by Maher Chmaytelli; Editing by Richard Lough)

At peace talks, Syria rebels urge Trump to correct Obama’s “catastrophic mistakes”

Syria's main opposition delegation with High Negotiations Committee (HNC) leader Nasr al-Hariri (C) attend a meeting with United Nations (UN) Syria envoy during Syria peace in Geneva, Switzerland, February 27, 2017. REUTERS/ Fabrice Coffrini/Pool

By Tom Miles and John Irish

GENEVA (Reuters) – The lead Syrian opposition negotiator at peace talks in Geneva said he hoped U.S. President Donald Trump would correct the “catastrophic” errors of his predecessor Barack Obama to become a reliable partner against “devilish” Iran.

The U.N.-led negotiations edged forwards on Wednesday, for the first time in six days, as both sides saw hope of shaping the agenda to their liking, but with indirect talks wrapping up this weekend there is little prospect of any real breakthrough.

“The people in Syria paid a high price because of the catastrophic mistakes made by the Obama administration,” Nasr al-Hariri told reporters in a briefing after meeting U.N. mediator Staffan de Mistura.

“Obama lied and he didn’t keep any of the promises he made for the Syrian people. He drew red lines that he erased himself, he kept silent on crimes committed by Bashar al-Assad.”

Obama long maintained that Assad, Syrian president for 17 years, must step down after presiding over a civil war that has killed hundreds of thousands of people and displaced millions.

The United States has provided training, weapons and funding for rebel groups, but stopped short of attacking Assad’s forces, which slowly turned the tide of the war with massive Russian and Iranian help.

“We reiterated the devilish role that Iran is playing through hundreds of thousands of fighters on the Syrian soil,” Hariri said in response to a question on what he had told Russian officials during their landmark meeting on Thursday.

The opposition and the Russians had not previously met at the Geneva talks. Diplomats said the meeting may be uncomfortable for Assad, Moscow’s ally, who regards his opponents as terrorists.

Trump has said his priority is to fight Islamic State, which has left Russia in the diplomatic driving seat and put Russia, Turkey and Iran in charge of overseeing a shaky ceasefire.

He has also made it clear he wants to rein in Tehran’s regional ambitions.

Trump’s administration has so far done little to suggest it is willing to engage in finding a political solution for Syria.

“Their policy is still unknown,” said a Western diplomat at the talks. “They are almost not here.”

While Western envoys were coordinating with the Syrian opposition in Geneva, the U.S. envoy kept his head down and left after a few days to deal with other issues.

“The U.S. is not a direct participant in the UN-led talks,” a spokesperson for the U.S. Mission in Geneva said. “The U.S. remains committed to any process that can result in a political resolution to the Syrian crisis.”

When asked during a White House briefing this week about the talks, spokesman Sean Spicer gave no clear answer on how Washington saw the process or Assad’s role.

Hariri said the opposition had common ground with Trump because both wanted to fight terrorism and curtail Iranian influence. Washington, he said, should support the opposition.

“We are really waiting for the United States to build their positions on true information to have an active role in the region and to correct the grave mistakes of the Obama administration,” Hariri said.

(Additional reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Alison Williams)

Syrian army to enter Islamic State-held Palmyra ‘very soon’: source

FILE PHOTO: Syrian army soldiers stand on the ruins of the Temple of Bel in the historic city of Palmyra, in Homs Governorate, Syria April 1, 2016. REUTERS/Omar Sanadiki/File Photo

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Russian-backed Syrian government forces will enter the Islamic State-held city of Palmyra “very soon”, a Syrian military source said on Wednesday, as government forces seek to win back the city from the group for the second time in a year.

The army said on Wednesday it had captured an area known as the “Palmyra triangle” a few kilometers (miles) west of the city.

Backed by Russian air strikes, the Syrian army has advanced to the outskirts of Palmyra in the last few days. “The army’s entry to the city will begin very soon,” the military source told Reuters.

The Syrian government lost control of Palmyra to Islamic State in December, having first recaptured it with Russian air support last March. The group has razed ancient monuments during both of its spells in control of the UNESCO World Heritage Site – destruction the United Nations has condemned as a war crime.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based organization that reports on the war, said government forces were expected to storm Palmyra at “any moment”. Russia has said its aircraft are supporting the army offensive in Palmyra.

Photos published on an Islamic State Telegram account on Wednesday showed the group’s fighters firing at the Syrian army with rockets and a tank. Reuters could not verify the authenticity of the photos.

Islamic State first captured Palmyra from the government in 2015. During its first period in control of the site, the jihadists destroyed monuments including a 1,800-year-old monumental arch.

Most recently, Islamic State has razed the landmark Tetrapylon and the facade of Palmyra’s Roman Theater. Palmyra, known in Arabic as Tadmur, stood at the crossroads of the ancient world.

The government and its allies lost Palmyra as they focused on defeating Syrian rebel groups in eastern Aleppo. The rebel groups were driven from eastern Aleppo in December, the government’s biggest victory of the war.

(Reporting by Tom Perry in Beirut and Andrew Osborn in Moscow and Ali Abdelaty in Cairo; Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Louise Ireland)

Iraqi army controls main roads out of Mosul, trapping Islamic State

An Iraqi Special Forces soldier moves through a hole as he searches for Islamic State fighters in Mosul, Iraq.

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) – U.S.-backed Iraqi army units on Wednesday took control of the last major road out of western Mosul that had been in Islamic State’s hands, trapping the militants in a shrinking area within the city, a general and residents said.

The army’s 9th Armored Division was within a kilometer of Mosul’s Syria Gate, the city’s northwestern entrance, a general from the unit told Reuters by telephone.

“We effectively control the road, it is in our sight,” he said.

Mosul residents said they had not been able to travel on the highway that starts at the Syria Gate since Tuesday. The road links Mosul to Tal Afar, another Islamic State stronghold 60 km (40 miles) to the west, and then to Syria.

Iraqi forces captured the eastern side of Mosul in January after 100 days of fighting and launched their attack on the districts that lie west of the Tigris river on Feb. 19.

If they defeat Islamic State in Mosul, that would crush the Iraq wing of the caliphate declared by the group’s leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in 2014 from the city’s grand old Nuri Mosque.

The U.S.-led coalition effort against Islamic State is killing the group’s fighters more quickly than it can replace them, British Major General Rupert Jones, deputy commander for the Combined Joint Task Force said.

With more than 45,000 killed by coalition air strikes up to August last year, “their destruction just becomes really a matter of time,” he said on Tuesday in London.

The U.S. commander in Iraq, Lieutenant General Stephen Townsend, has said he believes U.S.-backed forces will recapture both Mosul and Raqqa, Islamic State’s Syria stronghold in neighboring Syria, within six months.

The closing of the westward highway meant that Islamic State are besieged in the city center, said Lt General Abdul Wahab al-Saidi, the deputy commander of the Counter Terrorism Service (CTS), deployed in the southwestern side.

Units from the elite U.S.-trained division battled incoming sniper and anti-tank fire as they moved eastwards, through Wadi al-Hajar district, and northward, through al-Mansour and al-Shuhada districts where gunfire and explosions could be heard.

These moves would allow the CTS to link up with Rapid Response and Federal Police units deployed by the riverside, and to link up with the 9th Armored Division coming from the west, tightening the noose around the militants.

“Many of them were killed, and for those who are still positioned in the residential neighborhoods, they either pull back or get killed are our forces move forward,” Saidi said.

Two militants lay dead near the field command of the CTS, in the al-Mamoun district which looked like a ghost town. A few hundred meters away, a car bomb was hit by an airstrike.

STRAFING FROM ABOVE

The few families who remained in al-Mamoun said they were too scared to leave as the militants had booby-trapped cars.

Women cooked bread over outdoor ovens while men gathered on street corners as helicopters flew overhead strafing suspected militant positions further north.

One of two buses parked nearby had its roof shorn off. Residents buried a 60-year-old woman who was killed on Tuesday when she stepped on an explosive device while trying to flee.

Several thousand militants, including many who traveled from Western countries to join up, are believed to be in Mosul among a remaining civilian population estimated at the start of the offensive at 750,000.

They are using mortars, sniper fire, booby traps and suicide car bombs to fight the offensive carried out by a 100,000-strong force made up of Iraqi armed forces, regional Kurdish peshmerga fighters and Iranian-trained Shi’ite Muslim paramilitary groups.

About 26,000 have been displaced from western Mosul, often under militant fire, according to government figures. The United Nations puts at more than 176,000 the total number of people displaced from Mosul since the offensive started in October.

Thousands more streamed out, walking through the desert toward government lines during the day, crossing over a deep trench which appears to have served as an Islamic State defense, some waving white flags.

Among them a boy shot in the leg was limping alongside a cart carrying an older woman, while another was pushed in a wheelchair. Old people asked why there was no cars or buses to pick them up and take them to the displaced people centers.

A man said he spent 11 days hiding in his house with no food, no water and no idea of what was happening outside.

“The archangel of death would have come for us if we stayed any longer,” he said.

Aid agencies put the number of killed and wounded at several thousands, both military and civilians.

Army, police, CTS and Rapid Response units forces attacking Islamic State in western Mosul are backed by air and ground support from a U.S.-led coalition, including artillery. U.S. personnel are operating close to the frontlines to direct air strikes.

Federal police and Rapid Response units are several hundred meters only from the city’s’ government buildings.

Taking those buildings would be of symbolic significance in terms of restoring state authority over the city and help Iraqi forces attack militants in the nearby old city center where the al-Nuri Mosque is located.

Military engineers started preparing a pontoon that they plan to put in place by the side of the city’s southernmost bridge, captured on Monday. Air strikes have damaged all of its five bridges.

(Additional reporting by Ahmed Rasheed in Baghdad, Writing by Maher Chmaytelli, Editing by Angus MacSwan)

U.S.-backed Iraqi forces close in on IS-held Mosul government buildings

An Iraqi Special Forces soldier moves through a hole as he searches for Islamic State fighters in Mosul, Iraq February 27, 2017 REUTERS/Goran Tomasevic

By Isabel Coles and Maher Chmaytelli

MOSUL/BAGHDAD, Iraq (Reuters) – U.S.-backed Iraqi forces on Tuesday battled their way to within firing range of Mosul’s main government buildings, a major target in the offensive to dislodge Islamic State militants from their remaining stronghold in the western side of the city.

Terrified civilians were fleeing the fighting, some toward government lines, often under militant fire. Others were forced to head deeper into Islamic State-held parts of the city, straining scarce food and water supplies there.

Iraqi forces captured the eastern side of Mosul in January after 100 days of fighting and launched their attack on the districts that lie west of the Tigris river on Feb. 19.

If they defeat Islamic State in Mosul, that would crush the Iraq wing of the caliphate the group’s leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared in 2014 over parts of Iraq and neighboring Syria. The U.S. commander in Iraq has said he believes U.S.-backed forces will recapture both Mosul and Raqqa – Islamic State’s Syria stronghold – within six months.

“The provincial council and the governorate building are within the firing range of the Rapid Response forces,” a media officer with the elite Interior Ministry units told Reuters, referring to within machinegun range or about 400 meters (1,300 feet).

Taking those buildings would help Iraqi forces attack the militants in the nearby old city center and would be of symbolic significance in terms of restoring state authority over the city.

U.S.-trained Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS) units battled Islamic State sniper and mortar fire as they moved eastwards through Wadi al-Hajar district to link up with Rapid Response and Federal Police deployed by the riverside, in a move that would seal off all southern access to the city.

The militants set ablaze homes, shops and cars to hide their movement and positions from air surveillance. Satellite pictures also showed a fabric cover set up over a street in the old city center.

Residents in districts held by the militants said they were forced to take their cars out of garages onto the street to obstruct the advance of military vehicles.

BRIDGE

Military engineers started repairing the city’s southernmost bridge that Rapid Response captured on Monday.

The bridge, one of the five in the city that were all damaged by air strikes, could help bring in reinforcements and supplies from the eastern side.

Several thousand militants, including many who traveled from Western countries to join up, are believed to be in Mosul among a remaining civilian population estimated at the start of the offensive at 750,000.

They are using mortar, sniper fire, booby traps and suicide car bombs to fight the offensive carried out by a 100,000-strong force made up of Iraqi armed forces, regional Kurdish peshmerga fighters and Iranian-trained Shi’ite Muslim paramilitary groups.

About 14,000 have been displaced so far from western Mosul, according to the Iraqi government, taking the total number of people displaced from the city since the start of the offensive in mid-October to more than 175,000, according to the United Nations.

About 270 civilians arrived early on Tuesday at the sector held by the CTS. The wounded were taken to the clinic, while men were screened to make sure they are not Islamic State members.

An officer called out the name Mushtaq and one man stood up. Another officer said they had received information that a militant called Mushtaq was hiding among the displaced.

One man was carrying a woman who had lost consciousness after her son was wounded by shrapnel as they fled the Tal al-Rumman district.

Another man, Abu Ali, arriving from Tal al-Rumman with his four young children, said Islamic State militants had killed their mother three months ago after she went out with her face uncovered. He said he had found her body in the mortuary, adding: “I would drink their blood.”

His family had been surviving on bread and wheat grain since Iranian-trained Iraqi Shi’ite militias severed supply routes from Mosul to Syria, essentially besieging western Mosul.

The United Nations World Food Programme said on Monday it was extremely concerned about the dire humanitarian situation facing families in western Mosul.

Army, police, CTS and Rapid Response units forces attacking Islamic State in western Mosul are backed by air and ground support from a U.S.-led coalition, including artillery fire. U.S. personnel are operating close to the frontlines to direct air strikes.

American soldiers were in MRAPs armored vehicles on the Baghdad-Mosul highway, near a billboard welcoming visitors to the Islamic State, “the caliphate that follows the example of the Prophet.”

(Editing by Janet Lawrence)

Pentagon delivers draft plan to defeat Islamic State to White House

U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis waits to welcome Canada's Minister of National Defense Harjit Sajjan at the Pentagon in Washington, U.S., February 6, 2017. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas

By Idrees Ali

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A Pentagon-led preliminary plan to defeat Islamic State was delivered to the White House on Monday and U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis was expected to brief senior administration officials, a Defense Department spokesman told reporters.

Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis told reporters that it was the framework for a broader plan and looked at Islamic State around the world, not just Iraq and Syria.

Davis said the plan would define what defeating Islamic State meant and was one that would “rapidly” defeat the militant group.

He added that Mattis would discuss the plan, which is primarily a written one with accompanying graphics, with members of the Cabinet-level Principals Committee.

The review of U.S. strategy comes at a decisive moment in the U.S.-led coalition effort against Islamic State in both Iraq and Syria, and could lead to relaxing some of the former Obama administration’s policy restrictions, like limits on troop numbers. The Trump administration has said defeating “radical Islamic terror groups” is among its top foreign policy goals.

The Baghdad-based U.S. commander on the ground, Army Lieutenant General Stephen Townsend, has said he believes U.S.-backed forces would recapture both of Islamic State’s major strongholds – the cities of Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria – within the next six months.

Iraqi forces expect a fierce battle against Islamic State to retake Mosul.

In Syria, the United States must soon decide whether to arm Syrian Kurdish YPG fighters, despite objections from NATO ally Turkey, which brands the militia group as terrorists.

The U.S. military-led review includes input from Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, as well as from the Treasury Department and the U.S. intelligence community.

Davis said that in addition to diplomacy, the plan would include a military framework that builds on capabilities and goals on the battlefield.

Experts have said the Pentagon could request additional forces, beyond the less than 6,000 American troops now deployed to both Iraq and Syria, helping the U.S. military go farther and do more in the fight.

They also said the Pentagon may focus on smaller-scale options like increasing the number of attack helicopters and air strikes as well as bringing in more artillery. The military may also seek more authority to make battlefield decisions.

(Reporting by Idrees Ali; Editing by Andrew Hay and Peter Cooney)

Tens of thousands flood into Sudan from famine-hit South Sudan

A woman waits to be registered prior to a food distribution carried out by the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) in Thonyor, Leer state, South Sudan.

KHARTOUM (Reuters) – More than 31,000 South Sudanese refugees – mostly women and children – have crossed the border into Sudan this year, fleeing famine and conflict, the United Nations refugee agency said on Monday.

The United Nations declared famine last week in parts of South Sudan’s Unity State, with about 5.5 million people expected to have no reliable source of food by July.

“Initial expectations were that 60,000 refugees may arrive through 2017, but in the first two months alone, over 31,000 refugees arrived,” a statement from the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Khartoum said.

More than a million people have fled South Sudan since a civil war erupted in 2013 after President Salva Kiir’ fired Vice President Riek Machar. Fighting between government forces and Machar-led rebels has caused the largest mass exodus of any conflict in central Africa since the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

Women and children wait to be registered prior to a food distribution carried out by the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) in Thonyor, Leer state, South Sudan,

Women and children wait to be registered prior to a food distribution carried out by the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) in Thonyor, Leer state, South Sudan, February 26, 2017. REUTERS/Siegfried Modola

Some 328,339 South Sudanese refugees have sought refuge in Sudan, including about 131,000 in 2016, many exhausted, malnourished and ill, having walked for days. More than 80 percent of the latest arrivals were women and children.

The fighting has uprooted more than 3 million people and the U.N. says continuing displacement presented “heightened risks of prolonged (food) underproduction into 2018”. In the fighting, food warehouses have been looted and aid workers killed.

South Sudan is rich in oil resources. But, six years after independence from neighbouring Sudan, there are only 200 km (120 miles) of paved roads in a nation with an area of 619,745 square km (239,285 square miles).

(Reporting by Khalid Abdelaziz; Writing by Ahmed Aboulenein; Editing by Louise Ireland)

Attack on Syrian security forces in Homs kills dozens, prompts airstrikes

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Suicide bombers stormed two Syrian security offices in Homs on Saturday, killing dozens with gunfire and explosions including a senior officer and prompting airstrikes against the last rebel-held enclave in the western city.

The jihadist rebel alliance Tahrir al-Sham said in a social media post that five suicide bombers had carried out the attack, which it celebrated with the words “thanks be to God”, but stopped short of explicitly claiming responsibility.

Although the government of President Bashar al-Assad has controlled most of Homs since 2014, rebels still control its al-Waer district, which warplanes bombed on Saturday, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, wounding 50.

The attack comes as government and opposition delegations join peace talks in Geneva sponsored by the United Nations. Tahrir al-Sham opposes the talks and has fought with factions that are represented there.

Saturday’s jihadist assault in Homs began with clashes near a branch of military security in al-Mohata district and a branch of state security in al-Ghouta district before suicide bombers struck in both locations, state media reported.

The head of military security, General Hassan Daaboul, was killed along with 29 others in al-Mohata, while another 12 people were killed in al-Ghouta, the Observatory said. State media gave a lower figure of 32 people killed.

“Five suicide bombers attacked two branches of state security and military security in Homs… thanks be to God,” Tahrir al-Sham said in a statement on the Telegram social network.

Tahrir al-Sham was formed earlier this year from several groups including Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, which was formerly known as the Nusra Front and was al Qaeda’s Syrian branch until it broke formal allegiance to the global jihadist movement in 2016.

Since it was formed, Tahrir al-Sham has fought other rebel groups, including some that fight under the banner of the Free Syrian Army, as well as a faction linked to Islamic State, in northwest Syria. It was critical of FSA groups for taking part in peace talks.

(Reporting by John Davison and Angus McDowall; additional reporting by Ahmed Tolba in Cairo and Kinda Makieh in Damascus; editing by David Clarke and Ros Russell)