UNESCO warns of possible looting from Sudan museums

BEIRUT: Lebanese authorities said Saturday that more than 25 people had been arrested following an attack on a United Nations convoy the day before that wounded two peacekeepers, including the force’s outgoing deputy commander.
UN and Lebanese officials have condemned Friday’s attack, which came as Hezbollah supporters for a second night blocked the road to the country’s only international airport over a decision barring two Iranian planes from landing there.
“More than 25 people have been arrested by Lebanese army intelligence,” with another person detained by the security services, Interior Minister Ahmad Al-Hajjar told reporters after an emergency security meeting Saturday.
“This does not mean these detainees carried out the attack... but the investigations will show who is responsible,” he said.
The army and security agencies would bolster measures to “maintain security and stability,” Hajjar added, and violations would be treated “with all seriousness.”
The UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) has demanded an investigation after one of its vehicles was set on fire during the incident, which wounded outgoing deputy force commander Chok Bahadur Dhakal, a Nepalese national who was heading home after ending his mission.
UNIFIL deputy spokesperson Kandice Ardiel told AFP a second Nepalese peacekeeper was also wounded and hospitalized.
President Joseph Aoun vowed “the attackers will receive their punishment,” and said “security forces will not be lenient with any party that tries to upset stability and civil peace,” according to a statement from the presidency on X.
Prime Minister Nawaf Salam strongly condemned the “criminal attack” and promised to arrest the perpetrators during a conversation with UN Special Coordinator for Lebanon Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert and UNIFIL Commander General Aroldo Lazaro.
In a meeting with Hajjar on Saturday, Salam emphasized the importance of maintaining security across the country, a statement from his office said. The premier was set to meet other “relevant ministers” later in the day.
The presidency’s statement said Aoun had stressed that the incident “cannot be allowed to be repeated,” adding that the judiciary “has begun investigations on the ground.”
The army said Friday that several areas around the airport had seen “demonstrations marked by acts of vandalism and clashes, including assaults on members of the armed forces and attacks against vehicles.”
Videos circulating on social media showed demonstrators, some hooded and carrying Hezbollah flags, attacking a man in military garb and another in civilian clothes near the torched UNIFIL vehicle.
It remains unclear who was responsible for the attack.
There was no immediate official comment from Hezbollah, but its television channel Al-Manar late Friday blamed unidentified “masked men.”
It said the protesters expressed “their rejection of the attack on the UNIFIL convoy,” adding their goal was “to secure the return of citizens stuck in Iran.”
The group’s ally the Amal movement, led by powerful parliament speaker Nabih Berri, said “the attack on UNIFIL is an attack on south Lebanon” and that “blocking roads anywhere is an assault on civil peace.”
Several countries have condemned the incident, as did UN chief Antonio Guterres.
“Such attacks are absolutely unacceptable... The safety and security of UN personnel and property must be respected at all times,” his spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, said in a statement.
“Attacks against peacekeepers are in breach of international law... and may constitute war crimes,” the statement said, adding that “UNIFIL must be allowed unrestricted freedom of movement throughout Lebanon.”
Israel has repeatedly accused Hezbollah of using Beirut airport to transfer weapons from Iran, claims Hezbollah and Lebanese officials have denied.
Iran-backed Hezbollah has a large popular base in Lebanon, though a year of hostilities with Israel and the ousting of its ally Bashar Assad in neighboring Syria have left the group weakened.
Lebanon’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation said Thursday it had “temporarily rescheduled” some flights, including from Iran, until February 18 as it was implementing “additional security measures.”
The date coincides with the deadline for the withdrawal of Israeli forces from south Lebanon and for Hezbollah to vacate positions there, under a ceasefire deal that began on November 27.

CAIRO/DUBAI: Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces have attacked the famine-stricken Zamzam displacement camp, residents and medics say, as the paramilitary tries to tighten its grip on its Darfur stronghold while losing ground to the army in the capital, Khartoum.
The latest fighting has hardened battle lines between the two forces in a conflict that threatens to splinter Sudan after plunging half the population into hunger and displacing more than one-fifth since April 2023.
This week, as it attempts to consolidate its territory, the RSF has staged multiple attacks on Zamzam residents, according to three people at the camp.
Medical aid agency MSF has confirmed seven deaths from the violence, while residents say dozens may have been killed. Medics are unable to perform surgery inside Zamzam, and travel to Al-Fashir’s Saudi hospital, a frequent RSF target, has become impossible, MSF said.
Reuters verified a video showing RSF forces inside Zamzam earlier this week, stamping on a rival flag as a building burned in the background.
Zamzam is located near Al-Fashir, capital of North Darfur and the army’s last remaining foothold in the wider Darfur region.
The RSF, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment, says Zamzam is a base for the Joint Forces, former rebel groups now fighting alongside the army.
The Joint Forces said in a statement on Thursday that they were not present in the camp. The Sudanese government said the army, Joint Forces, and other volunteers were able to push the RSF back from Zamzam on Wednesday.
ARSON ATTACKS
Nearly 22 months after war erupted from a power struggle between the two factions, the RSF controls almost all of Darfur in Sudan’s west, and much of the neighboring Kordofan region. The army controls Sudan’s north and east and has recently made major gains in Khartoum.
Next week, a “political charter” setting up a parallel government in RSF-controlled territories will be signed, with the announcement of a cabinet coming soon after, Ibrahim Al-Mirghani, a politician who supports the effort, told Reuters.
The RSF has targetted Zamzam with artillery for months, causing some people to dig holes for shelter, according to one resident and a video shared by activists.
“Inside the neighborhoods, they terrorize, steal, and kill ... people hide in these holes when they are firing and when they are raiding, because there is nowhere else to flee,” the resident told Reuters.
The RSF has also continued raids and arson attacks on villages surrounding Al-Fashir in recent weeks, according to the Yale School of Public Health’s Humanitarian Research Lab.
The Yale Lab found that over half the structures in Zamzam’s main market were destroyed in a manner consistent with arson attacks, executive director Nathaniel Raymond told Reuters.
A video shared by army-aligned Darfur governor Minni Minnawi showed stalls burned to ash and vegetables strewn on the ground.
Arson was also detected on residences along the northern entrance to the camp, said Raymond.
Tens of thousands have been displaced, many seeking refuge in Zamzam and increasing the camp’s population to up to one million people, according to the International Organization for Migration.
ESCAPE ROUTES ‘BLOCKED’
Sudan’s top UN official Clementine Nkweta-Salami said on Thursday she was “shocked by the attacks on Zamzam IDP camp and the blockages of escape routes.”
Across Darfur RSF forces have restricted aid efforts, now also hit by freezes on USAID, according to UN and other aid workers.
MSF, one of few humanitarian groups operating in the area, had to stop a nutrition program for 6,000 malnourished children after the attacks, the aid group’s North Darfur coordinator Marion Ramstein said.
A global hunger monitor determined in August that Zamzam was experiencing famine. In December, it confirmed famine in two other camps in Al-Fashir.
Earlier this month, MSF said it found that the proportion of the camp’s children who were malnourished had risen to 34 percent, a similar level to Tawila, a nearby town to which many have fled from RSF attacks.