World
Sudanese man separated from his family by war and wounded by a stray bullet, returns home after two years
Munzir is hunched over in a chair when we get to the office of a displacement camp for the undocumented in Sudan’s capital.
He looks defeated and sullen. His leg is wrapped in gauze and his crutches are leaning against the wall by the side of the chair.
Two months ago, a stray bullet hit his leg in army-held territory in Omdurman and he was taken to the largest remaining functioning hospital in the area, Al Nao Hospital.
Ask Yousra a question about this story
Munzir at Osman Makkawi shelter – a place for patients with no home to return to
Munzir (c) has been at the Osman Makkawi shelter, along with other wounded civilians
After being discharged, and unable to walk without support, he was brought to Osman Makkawi shelter for patients with no home to return to.
Here, he has joined the missing. The camp is home to dozens of wounded civilians who do not have ID or a way to contact their loved ones.
For two years of war, Munzir has not been able to go to his house in southern Khartoum as battles raged for control of the capital. Bridges were targeted by snipers belonging to the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and uncrossable for civilians.
At least 50,000 people have been separated from their families during the first two years of Sudan’s civil war, according to local human rights groups.
This shocking statistic is likely a gross underestimate and has remained staggeringly high even as hundreds of detainees were freed after the army reclaimed Khartoum from the RSF in late March.
Munzir was told his family fled to their ancestral home in Damazin, eastern Sudan and had no means to make the journey across the White Nile Bridge connecting Omdurman to the heart of the capital once it became accessible.
In the murkiness of war, one man has been tirelessly working to change Munzir’s sad reality.
Mohamed Alfatih is the head of a charity called Resilience. He runs Osman Makkawi camp through donations and has launched a social media campaign to find Munzir’s family.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Suspected drone strike by RSF rebels
Mohamed Alfatih (L) used social media to locate Munzir’s family
“We have reunited 287 people with their families and we are set on Munzir becoming our 288th.”
Through Facebook, he has managed to connect with Munzir’s uncle who told Mohamed that his mother is still at home in Mayo, southern Khartoum. But there are no guarantees – Mayo is still rife with militants and the army is known to move civilians around for security reasons.
“We work with facts. We have received this information from his uncle and this is the first real tip we get about Munzir’s mother’s whereabouts,” Mohamed says.
“We hope to God that he finds his mother at home.”
This information is enough for Mohamed to take Munzir to check.
It’s Munzir’s first journey home since a month before the war started in April 2023. Every few moments he says: “I just pray my mother is home.”
As he crosses White Nile Bridge into al-Mogran – the landmark Khartoum location at the confluence of the White and Blue Niles – he looks around with wide eyes.
“Two years without seeing Khartoum or the Nile. I am just happy to see it. We used to bathe here on the banks.”
As we drive into Khartoum, he starts crying. These are tears of joy. He cannot believe he is back home and heading towards his family. Only the destruction around us can interrupt the relief and his crying turns into a look of shock and despair.
Munzir was shocked by what had happened to Khartoum
Munzir’s young cousin opened the door and recognised him
“I cannot believe the damage. I heard about it but seeing it is chilling.”
As we get closer to his neighbourhood, he is nervous and overwhelmed. We will have to check different displacement shelters around the area if his family are not at home.
“What if she’s not there?” I ask.
“Patience. I will have to have patience,” he replies with the thought darkening his face.
We finally make it to the house. Munzir leaps out and moves quickly towards the door with his crutches.
The outside area of his house is closed off with white corrugated iron that looks unfamiliar to him.
He taps on the door and looks out with stress and uncertainty as we wait for seconds that feel like a long minute.
There is a sound of children in the house and the door opens. A little boy looks up and there is a pause of shock before he breaks out into a smile. “Hey!” he says and runs back into the house out of sight.
He alerts an adult and runs back out as a woman comes into the front yard from inside the house.
“My son!” Khadija yells. “My son!”
Munzir’s mother cried and hugged her son when he returned
Munzir’s aunt came to see him
She grabs hold of him and wails as two years of anguish and worry pour out of her.
After five full minutes of crying, she finally starts to speak.
“I’ve been waiting for him for so long. Losing my son made me sick, I could barely walk and had to creep against the walls to keep myself up. I thought I would die,” she tells us, weakened from the sobbing and long sleepless nights.
Her sister Nagwa comes to see her nephew whom she raised like a son. She greets us as she walks into the living room with her eyes searching for Munzir.
Read more:
Panic grows in Sudan’s wartime capital
Sky reporter returns to ruined family home
Paramilitary chief’s rival government
“Munzir!” she exclaims as she hugs him with sobs. “We were searching for you but had no money to find you.”
From the yard, we hear celebrations break out in the neighbourhood. Streams of guests start to arrive to congratulate the family and greet Munzir.
One after the other, he shakes the hands of his neighbours.
For this family, the worst of the war is over. Their son has come home, wounded but alive, and the days ahead of shelling, drone strikes and rampant crime will never compare to the pain of thinking he may be dead.
A glimmer of warmth and relief in the relentless cycle of violence in Sudan’s war.
“Good luck, because it’s a shithole here,” a prisoner shouts as we walk around the grounds at HMP Foston Hall.
Other inmates described this women’s prison in Derbyshire as a “holiday camp”, even “rehab”.
There was no one homogenous view, but there is also not one type of prisoner here – it is home to both murderers and shoplifters.
We’ve come to talk to people ahead of the publication of the sentencing review in the coming days. It’s likely to recommend the scrapping of short sentences for some lower-level crimes, and suggest prison isn’t the best place to punish certain “vulnerable” groups of offenders, including women.
“My kind of theft, I nick chocolate from shops,” inmate Connie Parsons told us as we gathered in her cell.
She’s been convicted of shoplifting nine times and says she’s been in and out of prison since she was 15 years old.
“I normally only get four weeks, three weeks, two weeks. It’s a constant cycle of going out, committing crime,” she said.
Ask Mollie a question about this story
Connie has a teenage son but hasn’t seen him for years
At points, Parsons has been homeless and addicted to drugs.
“I used to just come to prison before to have a little lie down and get myself well… to keep myself safe,” she said. “But this prison, you’re not safe… I never self-harmed before I came to this prison. And now I self-harm quite a lot.”
She has a young teenage son on the outside. “I know this might sound harsh, but I think it’s got to the point now I don’t know what to miss about him. But I think about him every single day,” she said.
‘For lots of women, prison is the right place to be’
We put Parsons’ case to the prisons minister, Lord Timpson, who said it was “really sad to hear”, adding he sees “lots of people like Connie” in the prison system.
Pressed on how some will view Parsons as a repeat offender, perhaps deserving of prison, Lord Timpson said: “For lots of women, prison is the right place to be, but where there are certain circumstances, for example non-violent offences for women… you need to work out what is the right path to make sure they don’t commit further crime.”
Lord Timpson said for someone like Parsons, he’d like to see the use of an intensive supervision court or as he called it “problem-solving court”. These work by judges monitoring the progress of offenders on community sentences, offering “wraparound” support, including housing, help for addiction issues and mental health.
Tilat Ajmal served less than three months
Prisoner leaves with jail on her CV
“I had a job, I ain’t got a job now,” said Tilat Ajmal.
Before she went to prison, Ajmal worked for the NHS as a cleaner for 18 years.
As we filmed, she was leaving jail after serving less than three months for smuggling an item into prison while visiting someone. It was her first offence.
Her bags were packed, and in them was a CV she’d prepared. But she didn’t seem hopeful.
“I think it’s a bit bad having a conviction, I’ve been working all my life,” she said.
“As soon as coming out of them gates, I think you just have hundreds and thousands of things going through your head.”
‘Just enough time to rip their lives apart’
After we filmed at the prison, Sky News joined a support session at a women’s centre in Nottingham. It offers mandatory services to people serving sentences in the community, and also those on probation or licence periods.
I asked a case worker to explain why certain women offenders should be considered unique in the criminal justice system.
“I think what happens when a man goes to prison is that there is usually a woman holding everything together,” said Rachel Strong.
“He will be released from prison, his home will still be there, his family. He may have lost his job but there will be someone there. He will come out to his support network in place.
“That woman is that support network – so when she goes to prison, there’s nobody holding that together. People will lose their homes, sometimes their children are taken into care.
“Usually when women are sent to prison it’s for short sentences. Not enough time for anything productive, just enough time to rip their lives apart.”
Donna Pritchards
‘It’s like rehab’
“I don’t mind prison, it’s like rehab,” said Donna Pritchards, who has been to HMP Foston Hall three times.
“I know you get clean when you’re here, and I needed it.”
Drugs are ‘main issue’ in prison
Others told us it was “easy” to get hold of drugs inside jail, with one prisoner describing some leading a “life of luxury”, with jail being like a “holiday camp”.
Amanda Brewer, drug strategy lead, told us: “Illicit drugs are our main issue day to day in everything that we do.
“They’re the main drivers for violence, they can cause self-harm issues, they cause vulnerability.”
Prisoners are also “trading” prescription drugs between one another.
‘Prison is not a nice place to be’
As the government explores greater use of alternatives to custody and scrapping certain short prison sentences, I asked the prisons minister whether criminals might see their approach as a “soft touch”.
“Prison is not a nice place to be,” said Lord Timpson, “but they need to turn their lives around there.”
The government commissioned the sentencing review alongside the creation of the Women’s Justice Board because they have an overcrowding crisis across the prison estate. But they also fundamentally believe prison isn’t the best form of punishment for certain types of offenders.
Women offenders in England and Wales are likely to be disproportionately impacted by the recommendations made in the review.
That’s because we expect it to suggest the scrapping of certain short sentences. In 2022, the Prison Reform Trust found over half (58%) of terms given to women were for less than six months.
Women are also considered by ministers to be a “vulnerable” group, with prison having a knock-on impact on their lives and potential for reoffending. Many report being a victim of crimes like domestic abuse, and 55% of female prisoners are mothers.
After two days of rare and unique access to different parts of the criminal justice system, it’s clear many feel prison isn’t working for female offenders. But what exactly a greater use of alternatives to custody looks like will take some time to figure out.
Technology
Temu and Shein face massive tariffs. But don’t count them out of the U.S. e-tail scene, experts say
Photo illustration of the Shein app on the App Store reflected in the Temu logo.
Stefani Reynolds | Afp | Getty Images
The closure of a trade loophole and prohibitive tariffs on China have upended Temu and Shein’s business model in the United States. And yet the e-commerce companies are likely to remain a dominant force in American online retailing, experts suggest.
On Friday, the de minimis rule — a policy that had exempted U.S. imports worth $800 from trade tariffs — officially closed for shipments from China. This has seen Temu and Shein exposed to duties as high as 120% or a flat fee of $100, set to rise to $200 in June.
The small-package tariff exemption had been key to the companies’ ability to maintain budget prices on the merchandise they ship from China. Now that it’s gone, prices on Temu and Shein have been surging, with the former ending direct shipments from outside the U.S. altogether.
The change will be welcomed by many detractors of de minimis, among them U.S. lawmakers, labor unions and retailers, who have argued that Temu and Shein abused the exemption to undercut local businesses and flood the country with illicit and counterfeit products.
But despite the new trade challenges that Temu and Shein face, ecommerce and supply chain experts told CNBC that the companies are still capable of competing with their rivals in the U.S.
“Don’t count them out … Not at all. These kinds of Chinese e-commerce apps are very adept and agile. They have contingency plans in place and have taken the necessary steps to cover the tariffs from a margin perspective,” said Deborah Weinswig, CEO and founder of Coresight Research.
“I personally believe, if anything, [America’s e-commerce] game has been accelerating in favor of Temu and Shein … I wouldn’t be surprised if the competitiveness gap actually continues to widen,” added Weinswig, whose research and advisory firm works with clients across tech, retail and supply chains.
Contingencies in place
The loss of the de minimis exemption had long been anticipated, with U.S. President Donald Trump temporarily closing it in February. In preparation, Temu and Shein had been accelerating localization strategies for the U.S.
Scott Miller, CEO of e-commerce consulting firm pdPlus, told CNBC that Shein and Temu will continue to onboard goods from American sellers onto their apps to protect them from tariffs.
“Many of the current sellers on Temu and Shein are located in China or countries nearby, but not all. Local U.S. companies have been joining these platforms at an accelerating pace … several of our clients have onboarded or began the process of onboarding in just the past few months,” he said.
While margins for more localized brands and other sellers won’t be as high as those for China-based sellers on the platforms, they can be competitive, he said.
He added that in the case of Temu, vendors are attracted to lower fees, lighter competition and greater assistance with onboarding and setting up sales channels compared with what Amazon offers.
In recent days, Temu, which is owned by Chinese e-commerce giant PDD Holdings, has begun exclusively offering goods shipped from local warehouses to U.S. shoppers.
Many of those goods are still sourced from China but then shipped in bulk to U.S. warehouses, according to experts. While these bulk items are subject to tariffs, they also benefit from economies of scale.
This development is likely to see the variety of products on Temu scaled back, said Henry Jin, an associate professor of supply chain management at Miami University. However, he added, Temu is likely to resume direct shipments from China, depending on the outcome of the trade war between the U.S. and China.
Shein, meanwhile, has leaned into supply chain expansion, building manufacturing operations in countries such as Turkey, Mexico and Brazil, and reportedly plans to shift to Vietnam.
The company appears to still be shipping directly from China and likely has more room to absorb tariffs because of its “sky-high” margins in its core fast-fashion business, Jin said.
“If there’s one thing that Chinese companies are good at, it’s operating on a razor thin margin in an intensely competitive, if not adverse environment … they find every scrap that they can to survive,” he added.
Competitive prices?
Contingency plans aside, experts agree that Trump’s trade policy will continue to affect prices on Temu and Shein. The companies first announced they were raising prices in mid-April to counter tariffs.
According to data from Coresight, prices across shopping categories on Shein rose between 5% and 50% in the latter half of April, with the sharpest rises seen in toys and games and beauty and health.
However, many e-commerce experts remain confident that Temu and Shein will continue to prove price-competitive.
Coresight’s Weinswig said the two companies have previously been able to offer products at a third of the prices on Amazon for comparable goods. So, even if they more than double the prices to absorb the impacts of tariffs, many goods could remain cheaper than those on American e-commerce sites and retailers.
Jason Wong, who works in product logistics for Temu in Hong Kong, noted this dynamic when speaking to CNBC last month, likening Temu to a dollar store. If prices at the dollar store go from $1 to $2, it’s still a dollar store, he said.
Furthermore, Trump’s trade tariffs on China and other trade partners have also affected American retailers and e-commerce sites like Amazon.
Other advantages
When Forever 21 filed for bankruptcy protection earlier this year, it blamed Shein and Temu’s use of the de minimis exemption, which it said “undercut” its business.
But experts say that exclusively attributing the success of Shein and Temu to that trade loophole misses many of the other factors that have made them smash hits in the U.S.
According to Anand Kumar, associate director of research at Coresight Research, Temu and Shein owe a lot of their success to their very agile supply chains that adapt fast to consumer trends.
For example, Shein’s small-batch production — in which product styles are initially launched in limited quantities, typically around 100-200 items — allows it to test and scale products efficiently.
Another key is the companies’ applications, which use various strategies to maintain user interest, including frequent phone notifications, product recommendation algorithms and perhaps most notably, constantly displaying discounted prices from promotions and flash sales.
Temu was offering a “mega savings extravaganza” for American consumers on Monday. Some of the bestselling items on sale included stainless steel hook earnings for $1.45 and a fitted mattress pad for $11.54. It’s unclear if the discounted local goods were stockpiled before tariffs came into effect.
In addition, app users will often be met with mini-games that grant different coupons or ways to earn rewards, as well as opportunities to buy “mystery boxes” with assorted products.
That “gamification strategy” definitely plays into the consumer psychology of many U.S. shoppers who often buy items out of the excitement of being able to get a great deal, said Miami University’s Jin.
Experts also flagged that Temu and Shein have been very effective at marketing, including through the harnessing of livestreaming and social media.
On the other hand, according to Coresights’ Weinswig, American retailers have failed to adequately recognize threats from Temu and Shein and adjust their supply chains and pricing models.
-
Sports3 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports1 year agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports2 years agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike
-
Business3 years agoBank of England’s extraordinary response to government policy is almost unthinkable | Ed Conway