KHARTOUM: After his family was massacred and home torched, Sudanese farmer Ayoub Haroun sought refuge in a school alongside some of the tens of thousands fleeing recent bitter ethnic conflict.
More than a week of bloodshed last month in Sudan’s Blue Nile state left at least 105 people dead and scores wounded, as rival groups fought in a complex conflict involving deep-seated grievances, control of land and battles for power.

BEKAA VALLEY, Lebanon: In the decade since Syria’s regime pronounced her jailed husband dead, Ramya Al-Sous was threatened by security forces, locked out of her spouse’s estate and forced to flee abroad.
The mother of three, now a refugee living in Lebanon, was never told how her husband died and is unable to sell or rent the properties confiscated by authorities.
“By virtue of me being a woman, everything becomes nearly impossible,” she said, echoing a plight shared by many wives and widows of Syrian prisoners.
But the 40-year-old wants to put up a fight.

MOSCOW: Russia forces based in Syria on Friday said four Israeli jets had launched a total of four cruise missiles and 16 guided aerial bombs against a research facility in the city of Masyaf on Thursday, Russian agencies reported.
Syrian troops using Russian-made anti-aircraft weapons shot down two missiles and seven guided bombs, Tass and RIA said, quoting a senior Russian officer. The attacks damaged equipment at the facility, he said.
Russian forces have remained in Syria since 2015 when they helped turn the tide in a civil war in favor of President Bashar Assad.

RAMALLAH: About 4,600 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails are taking part in a series of protests designed to highlight their ill treatment, including staging a hunger strike that is set to start on Thursday.

The inmates say they are being deprived of their fundamental rights and forced to endure unbearable living conditions.

Qadura Fares, head of the Palestinian Prisoners Club, told Arab News that the protests were necessary to highlight the problems Israel had created. The prisoners’ actions were “a battle for self-defense,” he said.

WASHINGTON: The Pentagon will set up a new center in the next year to help avoid civilian casualties in military operations around the world through better education and training and increased screening before strikes are launched.

The plan ordered by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and released Thursday comes on the heels of widespread criticism over a US airstrike in Kabul last August that killed 10 civilians, including children, during the final chaotic days of the US troop withdrawal from Afghanistan.