♦ This week’s news in brief ♦

A compact weekly digest of Dabanga Sudan's highlights of the news from Darfur and Sudan

♦ Sudan floods: 25 killed, damage to water infrastructure

July 18 – 2016 SHANGIL TOBAYA / KHARTOUM / EL FASHER / EN NAHUD / EASTERN SUDAN Three bodies, including a child’s, were found drifting in the river in Shangil Tobaya, North Darfur, on Monday. Reportedly 25 people have been killed in the flash floods in Sudan that followed the heavy annual rains over the past weekend.

An estimated 2,200 homes have been destroyed by repeated floods in Naivasha camp for displaced people in Shangil Tobaya in the past week, leaving dozens of displaced families homeless.

The annual rainy season in Sudan causes floods from overflowing rivers. On Saturday, nine people drowned in El Fasher locality in North Darfur, and the death toll has been rising in the rest of Sudan as well. Among the dead are two people who were killed in Khartoum when their houses collapsed. In a similar incident in Karary district in Omdurman, four people including two children were killed on Thursday. In El Laota village in El Gezira State, a woman and her daughter were killed when their house fell down.

A video of the rising river in western Kassala was taken before the canal broke under the pressure on Thursday evening. No loss of life has been reported. Also in other places in Sudan, water infrastructure such as dams and water engines were unable to withstand the floods. 

Food security network FEWS Net reported last week that the increased rainfall will likely result in a least average 2016/17 crop production and good pasture conditions in Sudan, however, this increase in rainfall may also cause localised flooding in flood-prone areas.

♦ Sudanese president in Rwanda as ICC gets support at AU summit

July 18 – 2016 KIGALI President Omar Al Bashir visited Rwanda on Saturday, to attend the concluding session of the 27th African Union summit. A contingent of countries, reportedly including Senegal, Nigeria, Tunisia, Algeria and Ivory Coast have opposed proposals for a collective withdrawal from the International Criminal Court (ICC) being tabled. Some African leaders say the ICC has unfairly targeted African heads of state.

While Rwanda is not an ICC member state, the decision to welcome the Sudanese president flies in the face of the international community's efforts to re-establish the rule of law following the country's 1990s genocide through the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. Al Bashir is suspected by the ICC of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide in relation to the conflict in Darfur, Sudan.

ICC judges last week found that ICC member states Djibouti and Uganda failed to cooperate with direct requests to arrest and surrender the Sudanese president while on their territories in May this year.

Speaking to the media in Rwanda, Omar Al Bashir told CNBC Africa that “the African people discovered the political agenda of this court” and that African governments are working together to plan the continent's withdrawal from the Rome statute.

In the past, Al Bashir has been able to travel to Indonesia, India, and China, despite being an ICC suspect. Only in South Africa the Sudanese President broke a sweat when he attended the last African Union summit on 14 and 15 June 2015. He narrowly escaped to Sudan that last day as a South African provincial court ordered that he should remain in the country while judges deliberated on whether he should be arrested and handed to the ICC.

Other highlights from Radio Dabanga:

Bill allows Saudi Arabia to cultivate Sudan lands

July 19 – 2016 KHARTOUM The Sudanese parliament approved a bill that allows Saudi Arabia to reform and cultivate more than a million acres of land in eastern Sudan. The agreement has sparked criticism…

Crimes in Darfur: killings, armed robbery

July 18 – 2016 DARFUR Two people were killed, two were wounded, and a number of livestock were stolen in separate incidents in South and North Darfur during the past days. On Sunday afternoon, a…

Sudan Appeal forces discuss ‘way-forward’ in Paris

July 18 – 2016 PARIS The newly established Sudan Appeal Coordination Committee will begin its first meeting in the French capital today. In April, the armed and political opposition forces allied under the…

'Sudan govt. violates ceasefire in South Kordofan': SPLM-N

July 17 – 2016 SOUTH KORDOFAN The Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N) has accused the Sudanese government of violating the ceasefire in South Kordofan. On 17 June, President…

Extremist islam in Sudan: 'More than 100' joined IS

July 15 – 2016 KHARTOUM Between 100 to 140 young Sudanese men and women have joined the terrorist group Daesh (Islamic State, IS), according to the Interior Ministry on Wednesday. Last week, a 22-year-old…

Tribal fighting in West Kordofan and Central Darfur

July 13 – 2016 LAGAWA / UM DUKHUN Armed members of the Misseriya tribe clashed in West Kordofan on Tuesday. Four people were killed in the exchange of gunfire. Offices and shops in Um Dukhun closed …

South Sudanese refugees flee fighting to Darfur, Sudan

July 13 – 2016 KHARTOUM Sudan witnesses a new influx of South Sudanese refugees who have fled the clashes in Juba over the past weekend, in addition to the continuous arrivals of South Sudanese…

Dozens of demonstrators still detained in Sudan's Gedaref

July 13 – 2016 EL GEDAREF Police in eastern Sudan's El Gedaref still detain more than a hundred residents and threaten to try them for rioting, which could lead to ten years in prison. They demonstrated…

This digest is an excerpt from the weekly Darfur & Sudan News Update. Subscribe to the newsletter here