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.
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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.
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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.
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“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.
Ukraine has struck a Russian tanker in the Mediterranean Sea for the first time, a Kyiv intelligence source has said.
The ship, called the Qendil, suffered “critical damage” in the attack, according to a member of the SBU, Ukraine’s internal security agency.
The tanker is said to be part of Russia’s so-called “shadow fleet” – a group of ageing vessels that Kyiv alleges helps Moscow exports large quantities of crude oil despite Western sanctions.
The SBU source said Ukrainian drones hit the ship in neutral waters more than 2,000 kilometres (1,243 miles) from Ukraine.
They said: “Russia used this tanker to circumvent sanctions and earn money that went to the war against Ukraine.
“Therefore, from the point of view of international law and the laws and customs of war, this is an absolutely legitimate target for the SBU.
“The enemy must understand that Ukraine will not stop and will strike it anywhere in the world, wherever it may be.”
The vessel was empty at the time of the attack, the Ukrainian source added.
Speaking during a live TV event, Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, claimed the attack would not disrupt supplies, but vowed that Russia would retaliate nonetheless.
He added that Russia regularly responded with “much stronger strikes” against Ukraine.
Putin also warned against any threat to blockade Russia’s coastal exclave Kaliningrad, which he said would “just lead to unseen escalation of the conflict” and could trigger a “large-scale international conflict”.
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Sky military analyst Michael Clarke said Ukraine’s claim about causing significant damage to the ship was “probably true”.
He added: “The Ukrainians obviously feel that they can legitimise this sort of operation.”
The Qendil, pictured near Istanbul last month. Pic: Reuters
The attack comes after the European Union announced it would provide a €90bn (£79bn) interest-free loan to Ukraine.
Oleksandr Merezhko, the chairman of the foreign affairs committee in the Ukrainian parliament, told Sky News that the money would “tremendously enhance” Kyiv’s defensive capabilities.
However, he said the International Monetary Fund estimated that Ukraine needed $137bn to “keep running”.
“The aggressor should be punished”, Mr Merezhko added, as he argued that frozen Russian assets in Europe should be used to help fund his country’s defence.
He vowed that Ukraine would “continue to fight” for the move, adding that it was “a matter of justice”.
Protesters have stormed the headquarters of two major newspapers in Bangladesh, amid widespread unrest following the death of a political activist.
A mob set fire to the offices of the Bengali-language Prothom Alo daily newspaper and the English-language Daily Star in the capital Dhaka, leaving journalists and other staff stuck inside.
The Bengali-language Prothom Alo daily was one of the two newspapers that were targeted. Pic: AP.
One of the Daily Star’s journalists, Zyma Islam, wrote on Facebook: “I can’t breathe anymore. There’s too much smoke.”
Both dailies stopped updating their online editions after the attacks and did not publish broadsheets on Friday.
Troops were deployed to the Star building and firefighters had to rescue the journalists trapped inside. The blaze was brought under control early on Friday.
The latest protests erupted a year after the July Revolution ousted PM Sheikh Hasina. Pic: PA.
Political activist Sharif Osman Hadi died in hospital late on Thursday, six days after the youth leader was shot while riding on a rickshaw in Dhaka.
Bangladesh’s interim government urged people on Friday to resist violence as police and paramilitary troops fanned out
across the capital and other cities following the protests overnight. They have sparked concerns of fresh unrest ahead of national elections, which Mr Hadi had been due to stand in.
He was a prominent activist in the political uprising last year that forced the then Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to flee the country. Mr Hadi spent six days on life support in a hospital in Singapore before he succumbed to his injuries.
Mr Hadi died a week after he was shot by a man on a motorbike. Pic: PA.
Hundreds of protesters took to the streets following news of Mr Hadi’s death on Thursday night, where they rallied at Shahbagh Square near the Dhaka University campus, according to media reports.
A group of demonstrators gathered outside the head office of the Muslim-majority country’s leading Bengali-language Prothom Alo daily, before vandalising the building and setting it on fire.
A few hundred yards away, another group of protesters pushed into the Daily Star offices and set fire to the building. The protesters are believed to have targeted the papers for their alleged links with India and closeness to Bangladesh‘s interim leader, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus.
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Although calm had returned to much of the country on Friday morning, protesters carrying national flags and placards
continued demonstrating at Shahbagh Square in Dhaka, chanting slogans and vowing not to return until justice was served.
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Last year’s mass uprising erupted from student protests against a quota system that awarded 30% of government jobs to relatives of veterans.
The July 2024 protest, which resulted in as many as 1,400 deaths according to the United Nations, was dubbed the first “Gen Z” revolution.
Bangladesh’s former prime minister Sheikh Hasina Wazed was forced to resign in August 2024 and fled to India. She was later sentenced to death in absentia.
Sheikh Hasina was sentenced to death in absentia. Pic: AP
Dr Yunus was then sworn in as interim leader.
The country’s Islamists and other opponents of Ms Hasida have accused her government for being subservient to India.
Mr Hadi was a fierce critic of Ms Hasina and neighbouring India.
He had planned to run as an independent candidate in a constituency in Dhaka at the next national elections due to be held in February.
Authorities said they had identified the suspects in Mr Hadi’s shooting, and the assassin was also likely to have fled to India. Two men on a motorbike followed Hadi and one opened fire before they fled the scene.
TikTok is being threatened with legal action over cuts to its UK online safety teams.
In August, the social media company announced more than 400 workers would lose their jobs, with AI replacing some of the workers and other jobs being rehired abroad.
TikTok is being accused of threatening those safety workers with redundancy days before they were due to vote on forming a union.
Read more: TikTok moderators warn users may be at risk
Now, two moderators have sent a legal letter to TikTok laying out the terms of a potential legal case on grounds of unlawful detriment and automatic unfair dismissal.
Unlawful detriment is when an employer treats a worker unfairly because they used a protected employment right, for example, being a union representative, asking for flexible working or whistleblowing about the company.
“In June, TikTok said it was going to hire hundreds more content moderators, then two months later, they fired everyone,” said Stella Caram, head of legal at Foxglove, a non-profit supporting the moderators.
“What changed? Workers exercised their legal right to try to form a trade union. This is obvious, blatant and unlawful union-busting,” she said.
Moderators gathered to protest the redundancies in London
TikTok has been given one month to respond to the legal claim.
A TikTok spokesperson said: “We once again strongly reject this baseless claim.
“These changes were part of a wider global reorganisation, as we evolve our global operating model for Trust and Safety with the benefit of technological advancements to continue maximising safety for our users.”
As well as Foxglove, the two moderators launching the case are working with the United Tech & Allied Workers (UTAW), part of the Communication Workers’ Union, and law firm Leigh Day.
In exclusive interviews last month, three whistleblowers told Sky News the cuts would put UK users at risk, a claim repeated by Julio Miguel Franco, one of the moderators behind the legal action.
“TikTok needs to tell the truth,” he said.
“When it says AI can do our job of keeping people safe on TikTok, it knows that’s rubbish.
“Instead, they want to steal our jobs and send them to other countries where they can pay people less and treat them worse. The end result is TikTok becomes less safe for everyone.”
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Internal documents seen by Sky News show that TikTok planned to keep its human moderators in London for at least the rest of 2025.
The documents lay out the increasing need for dedicated moderators because of the growing volume and complexity of moderation.
TikTok’s head of governance, Ali Law, also told MPs in February that “human moderators … have to use their nuance, skills and training” to be able to moderate hateful behaviour, misinformation and misleading information.
Dame Chi Onwurah speaks at the House of Commons. File pic: Reuters
After a series of letters between TikTok and MPs, Dame Chi Onwurah, chair of the science and technology select committee, said she was “deeply” concerned about the cuts.
“There is a real risk to the lives of TikTok users,” she said.
Last month, in an exclusive sitdown with Sky News, however, Mr Law said user safety would not be compromised.
“We set a high benchmark when it comes to rolling out new moderation technology.
“In particular, we make sure that we satisfy ourselves that the output of existing moderation processes is either matched or exceeded by anything that we’re doing on a new basis.
“We also make sure the changes are introduced on a gradual basis with human oversight so that if there isn’t a level of delivery in line with what we expect, we can address that.”
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