Sudan: For the few who couldn’t flee this neighbourhood in Khartoum North life will never be the same
It has only been a week since the army reclaimed pockets of Khartoum North – the once bustling north-eastern wing of Sudan’s tri-city capital, locally known as Khartoum Bahri.
The hum of warplanes and crack of gunfire still punctuate life here. But the gunfire is now outgoing, and the warplanes are searching for enemy targets that have been pushed further back.
A year-and-a-half long siege by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) is now over for some. But the scars still mark the streets, the homes and the few families still in them.
Hundreds of thousands of civilians have fled Khartoum Bahri to safer states within Sudan, neighbouring countries and beyond.
There was a haunting emptiness when we arrived in Halfaya – an old tight-knit neighbourhood where families live for generations, expanding to only move across the narrow dirt roads.
Sudan’s army reclaimed pockets of Khartoum North last week
Today, overgrown vines reach into the shattered windows of cars abandoned in the yards of their owners.
Inside, the homes are overturned, looted and destroyed by bullets and missiles.
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All that was left behind – photo albums, pencil cases, clothes and books – mean everything to a select few. Many left hoping it would only be a short while before they could return.
Faiza says she had to hide her daughter to protect her from rape by RSF soldiers
But not everyone could leave.
“We don’t have a single penny to leave with. We didn’t have anything and never expected this,” Faiza Ishaq tells us in front of her home.
“I don’t have any family here – all my people left. I’m just with my two children and husband.”
Other than a handful of remaining neighbours, we are the first civilians Faiza has seen in close to 18 months of war.
Read more:
What has been happening in Sudan?
‘They started killing people in the streets’
She collapsed into sobs on my shoulder soon after we happily hugged each other hello. In a moment, her new sense of relief was overshadowed by months of deep horror and grief.
“Since they came a year and a half ago, I developed a tremor in my whole body. My hands shake so much I can’t eat without spilling food,” says Faiza, visibly trembling.
“We have been living in such terror – they can jump the wall at 2am. They hurl insults at us and threaten to take my 12-year-old daughter.”
She says their neighbours were killed by the RSF while fighting to protect their two sisters from rape. Her utmost fear was that her young daughter would be next in line.
“They would say to me ‘give me your daughter to marry or we’ll take her’. When they would come to the house, I locked her in the bathroom.”
The little food and support they could find under siege came from around the corner. Her neighbour Sumaya has turned her house into a community kitchen.
With the markets emptied, the chicken coup in the corner of her yard and grains bought with donations raised from Sudanese people abroad were used to feed as many remaining families as possible in the harshest of conditions.
“The fear and trauma have made us sick. We were never like this – we are finished,” says Sumaya.
“We have all lost weight and feel weak because they could knock the door at any moment. If someone knocked on the door without saying my name I felt gripped by fear.”
Firas has malaria for the fourth time since the war started
As we stood there and spoke in the heat of the day, one of the community volunteers, Firas, had to go and lie down.
He has malaria for the fourth time since the war started. Even in the wake of this military gain, movement and medical treatment in the capital is severely limited.
“I faint two to three times in a month from a lack of nutrition,” says Firas.
He has survived army airstrikes, RSF harassment and the dangerous work on electrical cables he has had to risk to keep the power on in the neighbourhood.
“It really was kill or be killed. We told our families that if we die, just forgive us.”
Donald Trump has raised the pressure ahead of today’s peace talks, urging negotiators to “move fast” as they attempt to end the fighting in Gaza and secure the release of hostages.
The US president posted on Truth Social: “TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE OR, MASSIVE BLOODSHED WILL FOLLOW – SOMETHING THAT NOBODY WANTS TO SEE!”
Egypt has agreed to host the indirect negotiations in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh. Delegations are being led by Israel’s strategic affairs minister Ron Dermer and Hamas’s exiled Gaza chief, Khalil Al-Hayya. US envoy Steve Witkoff is also expected to join.
Tuesday marks two years since the Hamas attack that sparked the war.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he hopes to announce the release of hostages being held in Gaza “in the coming days” and Hamas announced on Friday it would return all remaining hostages, dead and alive.
Speaking to Sky’s US partner network NBC, Donald Trump’s secretary of state Marco Rubio said Hamas had also agreed “in principle” to what happens after the war in Gaza is over, but he warned the second phase of the deal, which concerns Hamas’s disarmament and demobilisation, was “not going to be easy”.
Hamas has previously rejected calls for its disarmament.
“We’ll know very quickly whether Hamas is serious or not by how these technical talks go in terms of the logistics,” Mr Rubio added.
On Sunday, Mr Trump posted that there had been “very positive discussions with Hamas… to release the Hostages, end the War in Gaza but, more importantly, finally have long sought PEACE in the Middle East”.
Rising smoke after Israeli bombardment of Gaza on Sunday. Pic: Reuters
Trump wants fast progress
“I am told that the first phase should be completed this week, and I am asking everyone to MOVE FAST,” he added.
The first phase deals with the release of Palestinian prisoners in exchange for Hamas giving up the remaining 48 hostages, of which Israel believes 20 are still alive.
Progress in the discussions will largely depend on whether the militant group agrees to Washington’s withdrawal map, a Palestinian official close to the talks told Reuters.
Mr Trump released a map showing the areas of Gaza the Israeli Defence Forces would need to withdraw its troops from, which he said had been agreed to already by Israel.
Map showing the ‘yellow line’ in Gaza to which IDF troops would need to pull back to
Currently, the Israeli military has covered around 80% of the enclave in what it calls a “dangerous combat zone”.
If the peace plan follows the boundaries shown on the map, Israel’s initial withdrawal would leave Gaza about 55% occupied, while the second withdrawal would leave it about 40% occupied.
After the final withdrawal phase, which would create a “security buffer zone”, about 15% of Gaza would be occupied by the Israeli military.
It is this part – as well as the peace plan proposal for an international group to manage Gaza – “that is going to be a little tougher to work through,” Mr Rubio added.
Calls for ceasefire
Meanwhile, international support for an immediate ceasefire is growing.
On Friday, Mr Trump told Israel to “stop bombing Gaza”, and on Sunday Pope Leo renewed calls for a permanent ceasefire in the nearly two-year conflict.
This was followed by the foreign ministers of eight Muslim-majority countries issuing a joint statement urging steps toward a possible end to fighting.
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Relative of hostage recalls ‘horrific’ wait for reunion
In backing Hamas’s willingness to hand over the running of Gaza to a transitional committee, the ministers called for an “immediate launch of negotiations to agree on mechanisms to implement the proposal”.
They also underlined their commitment to the return of the Palestinian Authority to Gaza, unifying Gaza and the West Bank and reaching an agreement on security leading to a “full Israeli withdrawal” from Gaza.
Read more:
Why Trump accepted the Hamas peace plan response
If Hamas and Israel agree a deal, it will be Trump’s success
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Wrecked, uninhabitable and destroyed: Sky News reports from inside Gaza City
Israeli government spokeswoman Shosh Bedrosian told journalists Mr Netanyahu is in “regular contact” with Mr Trump and that the prime minister has stressed talks in Egypt “will be confined to a few days maximum, with no tolerance for manoeuvres that will delay talks by Hamas”.
Residents and local hospitals said strikes continued across the Gaza Strip over the weekend.
At least eight people were killed on Sunday in multiple strikes in Gaza City, according to the Al Shifa hospital.
Four people were also killed in a shooting near an aid distribution site in the southern city of Rafah, according to Nasser hospital.
The Israeli military said it was not involved in the shooting and did not immediately comment on the strikes.
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Hostage release could happen ‘in coming days’
When will hostages be freed?
A lawyer representing the families of Israeli hostages held in Gaza has told Sky News now feels “as good a chance as any” to finally get the remaining captives out.
Adam Wagner said hostage families were facing “a huge mix of emotions” as they awaited the latest developments in Mr Trump’s 20-point peace plan.
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“We’ve seen hopes raised and the talks fail a number of times, but this seems as good a chance as any to get those 48 remaining hostages out,” he said.
Mr Wagner also agreed that the “big question” for the talks was whether Hamas would agree to full disarmament and complete removal from the administration of Gaza.
Israel began attacking Gaza after a Hamas-led attack on 7 October 2023 in which around 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage.
Israel’s campaign has killed more than 67,000 people in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not differentiate between civilians or combatants.
World
Crying babies dimmed by hunger fill this Afghanistan hospital – where parents fear each day might be the last
You can see, feel, hear the distress in Badakhshan’s Provincial Hospital in Afghanistan.
Warning: This article contains content some readers may find distressing.
The halls are heavy with the sound of crying babies. The rooms, full of malnourished children, many two to a bed. Their frail, fragile bodies expose their wasting bones, with some so weak they’re dependent on oxygen tanks to breathe.
Afghanistan is facing an unprecedented crisis of hunger. More than 4.7 million women and children require urgent treatment for malnutrition, according to the UN. And 90% of children under the age of five are in food poverty.
The hospital team in Badakhshan, in the northeast of the country, are doing all they can to keep the children alive. But increasing numbers are dying.
In the last three months alone, roughly one baby died every three days here. Fifty-three have passed away so far this year – that’s a 50% increase on the same time last year.
Faisal is 12 months old. He’s severely malnourished and has acute diarrhoea too. But like many on this ward, he has other serious complications.
Among these is hydrocephalus, a condition that causes water to gather around his brain. His poor mother is so exhausted, she’s lying on the floor by his bed.
Baby Faisal is only 12 months old
As she sits down to speak with us, she reveals she has already lost three children to malnutrition.
“I am worried about him and what might come next,” she tells me.
“I’ve already lost three of my children. My first daughter died at eight years old. Two more of my children passed away when they were two-and-a-half years old.”
The ward is full of lost-looking eyes, dimmed by hunger.
Baby Asma is malnourished
A horrifying thing to watch
Asma is 13 months old. But she weighs little over nine pounds (4kg) – less than half of what she should.
Doctors fear she might not survive the night. But she’s put on oxygen and by the morning, she thankfully starts to improve.
“I’m really afraid,” her mother Khadijah says as her eyes fill.
“Of course I’m afraid, I’ve cried so much. I’m so thankful to the doctors, they’ve kept my baby alive. I’m so grateful to them,” she says.
Asma’s mother says she is really afraid for her child
But it’s touch and go for her daughter, and there are long periods when her chest fails to rise and fall.
It’s a horrifying thing to watch – imagine as a parent sitting day and night, wondering whether the next breath might be her last.
There is a stream of desperate cases coming through the doors here.
Masouda’s family travelled 13 hours to get her help
Today, there are 20 babies to just 12 beds. Sometimes, it is even more crowded.
There are suddenly two new arrivals. One of them, little Masouda. Her family travelled 13 hours to get here – spending what little they had left.
She, too, has to be quickly placed on oxygen and she’s painfully thin. Doctors tell us they fear she won’t make it.
The team are doing an incredible job during a hugely demanding time. But they need more staff, more medicine, more equipment.
Hospitals and health clinics across Afghanistan have suffered major funding cuts. The US, which was Afghanistan’s biggest aid donor, this year pulled almost all of its funding to the country. And the Taliban’s restrictions on women and girls have proved a major barrier for many international donors.
Women gather in Badakhshan Provincial Hospital in Afghanistan
It’s having a direct impact on children’s chances of survival.
Daniel Timme, chief of communication at UNICEF, said: “The nutrition situation for children in Afghanistan is very serious and the numbers speak for themselves. Over 3.5 million children under five are acutely malnourished, including 1.4 million suffering life-threatening forms of wasting.
“It must be clear to everyone: when funding drops as we are seeing it now in a context with such high levels of malnutrition, preventable child deaths rise.”
A vital lifeline
In rural areas, poverty is as extreme as the landscape, and help for families with malnourished children is getting harder to reach.
Layaba Health Clinic is a vital lifeline.
The waiting room is full of mothers looking for medical assistance for their babies. Some women here tell us the Taliban’s restrictions on them working and earning money have also played a part, making it harder for them to feed their families.
“They are to blame,” one woman says with surprising candor.
“Every girl had her own dreams. I wanted to be a doctor. I took my responsibility for my children seriously. And I wanted to support my husband too.”
A baby looks up at her mother at Badakhshan Provincial Hospital
Another woman tells us she earned more than her husband as a teacher, but now finds herself unable to contribute financially.
The Taliban’s response
In an exclusive interview with Sky News, the Taliban’s spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, said the malnutrition crisis was the product of decades of conflict.
“We have had to start from zero to rebuild and restore our national resources. The Islamic Emirate is making every possible effort to address these challenges.”
Mr Mujahid said his government had a five-year plan to “tackle malnutrition, unemployment, and other pressing social issues”.
In response to the complaints of the women we spoke to, he said that men in the “vast majority” of Afghan families were the breadwinners and claimed the Islamic Emirate had made “significant efforts to promote vocational opportunities for women”.
Community health worker Harira
But under the Taliban, women can no longer train to be doctors, nurses and midwives. And in remote villages, community workers like Harira are often the only lifeline – a project part-funded by UNICEF.
She goes door-to-door carrying baby scales, carrying out check-ups, trying to teach families about what to feed their children and when needed, get them to clinics and hospitals for treatment.
It saved Ramzia’s son’s life.
She had measles when she was pregnant and her son Faisal was very underweight.
“His legs and hands were as small as my fingers. Now he’s much better,” Harira says – beaming as she delights in the weight he has now put on.
“I was afraid I’d lose him,” Ramzia says. “He was so weak. But Harira came here and taught me how to feed him and give him milk when he needed it.”
Read more:
Families fear months ahead after earthquake wiped out entire villages
Taliban internet blackout has created an extreme scenario
Reeling from death, fighting for life
Keeping children alive in this climate is a battle.
Nasrullah and Jamilah, who live on the outskirts of Fayzabad, are holding their two-month-old twins.
Nasrullah and Jamilah at the grave of their daughter, Shukriya
But they’re also in the throes of grief – on a journey to the grave of the baby they lost only a month ago. Her name was Shukriya. She was 18 months old.
“She was our child, we loved her. I will never forget her, so long as I’m alive. We really tried, we went to the doctors for check-ups, for ultrasounds, for blood work – we tried our very best. But none of it could save her.”
Both parents say they feared their twins could also face the same fate. Shukriya’s grave is covered with one of her babygrows. It is haunting to see. And there are other little graves next to hers.
Deaths aren’t documented in a lot of these communities. But locals tell us more and more children are dying because of malnutrition. A silent, searing loss that is spreading.
Talks aimed at starting the process of releasing Israeli hostages look set to begin on Monday.
Egypt has agreed to host delegations from Israel and Hamas tomorrow. An Israeli delegation led by Strategic
Affairs Minister Ron Dermer will attend the indirect negotiations in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.
US envoy Steve Witkoff is also expected to join.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he hopes to announce the release of hostages being held in Gaza “in the coming days” and Hamas announced on Friday it would return all remaining hostages in Gaza, dead and alive.
The group also said in a statement that it wants to engage in negotiations to discuss further points in the US president’s peace plan.
Speaking to our US partner network NBC, Donald Trump‘s Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Hamas had also agreed “in principle” to what happens after the war in Gaza is over, but he warned the second phase of the deal, which concerns Hamas’s disarmament and demobilisation, was “not going to be easy”.
“We’ll know very quickly whether Hamas is serious or not by how these technical talks go in terms of the logistics,” Mr Rubio added.
On his way to a US Navy event on Sunday, Mr Trump told journalists he was looking forward to “peace in the Middle East for the first time in about 3,000 years”.
He said the peace plan was “a great deal for Israel” and that “people are very happy about it”.
Progress in the discussions in Cairo will largely depend on whether the militant group agrees to Washington’s withdrawal map, a Palestinian official close to the talks told Reuters.
Mr Trump released a map showing the areas of Gaza the Israeli Defence Forces would need to withdraw its troops from, which he said had been agreed to already by Israel.
Map showing the ‘yellow line’ in Gaza to which IDF troops would need to pull back to
Currently, the Israeli military has covered around 80% of the enclave in what it calls a “dangerous combat zone”.
If the peace plan follows the boundaries shown on the map, Israel’s initial withdrawal would leave Gaza about 55% occupied, while the second withdrawal would leave it about 40% occupied.
After the final withdrawal phase, which would create a “security buffer zone”, about 15% of Gaza would be occupied by the Israeli military.
It is this part – as well as the peace plan proposal for an international group to manage Gaza – “that is going to be a little tougher to work through,” Mr Rubio added.
Calls for ceasefire
Meanwhile, international support for an immediate ceasefire is growing.
On Friday, Mr Trump told Israel to “stop bombing Gaza”, and on Sunday Pope Leo renewed calls for a permanent ceasefire in the nearly two-year conflict.
Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City. Pic: Reuters
This was followed by the foreign ministers of eight Muslim-majority countries issuing a joint statement urging steps toward a possible end to fighting.
In backing Hamas’ willingness to hand over the running of Gaza to a transitional committee, the ministers called for an “immediate launch of negotiations to agree on mechanisms to implement the proposal”.
They also underlined their commitment to the return of the Palestinian Authority to Gaza, unifying Gaza and the West Bank, and reaching an agreement on security leading to a “full Israeli withdrawal” from Gaza.
Read more:
Why Trump accepted the Hamas peace plan response
If Hamas and Israel agree a deal, it will be Trump’s success
Israeli government spokeswoman Shosh Bedrosian told journalists: “While certain bombings have actually stopped inside of the Gaza Strip, there’s no ceasefire in place at this point in time.”
She said Mr Netanyahu is in “regular contact” with Mr Trump and that the prime minister has stressed talks in Egypt “will be confined to a few days maximum, with no tolerance for manoeuvres that will delay talks by Hamas”.
Residents and local hospitals said strikes continued across the Gaza Strip over the weekend.
At least eight people were killed on Sunday in multiple strikes in the city, according to the Shifa hospital, which received the casualties.
Half of them were killed in a strike that hit a group of people in Gaza City, the hospital said.
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Wrecked, uninhabitable and destroyed: Sky News reports from inside Gaza City
Four people also were killed in a shooting near an aid distribution site in the southern city of Rafah, according to Nasser hospital.
The Israeli military said it was not involved in the shooting and did not immediately comment on the strikes.
“We’re on the brink, and we don’t know whether one will die of a strike or starvation,” said Mahmoud Hashem, a Palestinian father of five, who is forced to shelter in a tent in the center of Gaza City.
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he hopes to announce the release of all hostages from Gaza
When will hostages be freed?
A lawyer representing the families of Israeli hostages held in Gaza has told Sky News now feels “as good a chance as any” to finally get the remaining captives out.
Adam Wagner said hostage families were facing “a huge mix of emotions” as they awaited the latest developments in Mr Trump’s 20-point peace plan.
👉Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim on your podcast app👈
“We’ve seen hopes raised and the talks fail a number of times, but this seems as good a chance as any to get those 48 remaining hostages out,” he said.
Wagner also agreed the “big question” for the talks was whether Hamas would agree to full disarmament and complete removal from the administration of Gaza.
Israel estimates 48 hostages remain in Gaza, 20 of whom are alive.
Watch Yalda Hakim’s The World at 9pm on Sky News.
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