CAIRO: The United Nations’ World Food Programme (WFP) said on Sunday it had temporarily halted all operations in Sudan after three of its employees were killed in clashes between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) a day earlier.
“While we review the evolving security situation, we are forced to temporarily halt all operations in Sudan,” WFP executive director Cindy McCain said in a statement.

BEIRUT: Suspected Daesh group militants on Sunday killed at least 26 people in central Syria, a war monitor reported, the latest in a spate of attacks targeting people foraging for desert truffles.
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said “civilians and at least 10 pro-regime fighters” were among “the 26 people killed in an attack by Daesh fighters while they were collecting truffles in the desert east of (the central city of) Hama.”

CAIRO: Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi has received a phone call from UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to discuss the ongoing fighting in Sudan.

Deadly clashes have been taking place for days in Khartoum and elsewhere in a power struggle between Sudan’s army and paramilitaries, and Egypt’s leader fears the conflict could quickly escalate if the violence cannot be brought to a swift end.

TEHRAN: Iran has sentenced 10 members of the armed forces to prison after finding them guilty of involvement in the downing of a Ukrainian airliner, the judiciary’s Mizan Online website reported Sunday.
Iranian forces shot down Ukraine International Airlines flight PS752 shortly after its takeoff from Tehran on January 8, 2020, killing all 176 people on board. Most were Iranians and Canadians, including many dual nationals.
Mizan reported that a commander received the heaviest penalty of 10 years in prison for having defied orders in shooting down the plane.

BAGHDAD: Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba is expected in Baghdad on Monday on his first visit to Iraq since Russia invaded his country, the foreign ministry said.
Kuleba is due to hold talks with Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein as well as Prime Minister Mohamed Shia Al-Sudani, the ministry said in a statement on Sunday.
They will discuss “bolstering bilateral ties, as well as regional and international” issues, said the statement quoting foreign ministry spokesman Ahmed Al-Sahhaf.