Sudan paramilitaries claim key zone bordering Egypt, Libya

Sudan paramilitaries claim key zone bordering Egypt, Libya
A destroyed tank in the state of Khartoum Sudan, which was recaptured from the RSF in March. The paramilitaries have now however taken territory near the Libyan and Egyptian border. (Reuters/File)
Short Url
Updated 11 June 2025

Sudan paramilitaries claim key zone bordering Egypt, Libya

Sudan paramilitaries claim key zone bordering Egypt, Libya
  • Rapid Support Forces say they have captured the 'strategic triangle area' between the three countries
  • Army accuses eastern Libyan commander Khalifa Haftar of launching cross-border attack alongside RSF

KHARTOUM: Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces said Wednesday its fighters seized a strategic zone on the border with Egypt and Libya, as the regular army announced its withdrawal from the area.
The announcements came a day after the army accused forces loyal to eastern Libyan commander Khalifa Haftar of launching a cross-border attack alongside the RSF, the first allegation of direct Libyan involvement in the Sudanese war.
“As part of its defensive arrangements to repel aggression, our forces today evacuated the triangle area overlooking the borders between Sudan, Egypt and Libya,” army spokesman Nabil Abdallah said in a statement.
Since April 2023, the war in Sudan has pitted army chief Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan against his erstwhile ally Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, who leads the RSF.
In a statement on Wednesday, the RSF said its fighters had “liberated the strategic triangle area,” adding that army forces had retreated southward “after suffering heavy losses.”
The army said on Tuesday that Haftar’s troops in coordination with the RSF attacked its border positions in a move it called “a blatant aggression against Sudan.”
The war has effectively split Sudan in two, with the army holding the center, east and north, while the paramilitaries and their allies control nearly all of Darfur and parts of the south.
The fighting has killed tens of thousands and displaced 13 million, including four million who fled abroad, triggering what the United Nations has called the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
Efforts by international mediators to halt the fighting have so far failed, with violence continuing to escalate across the western Darfur region and the Kordofan region in the country’s south.


Israel receives the body of another deceased buried by Hamas in Gaza

Israel receives the body of another deceased buried by Hamas in Gaza
Updated 05 November 2025

Israel receives the body of another deceased buried by Hamas in Gaza

Israel receives the body of another deceased buried by Hamas in Gaza
  • Israel returned 270 Palestinian bodies
  • Hamas hands over the body of another hostage

CAIRO: Israel on Tuesday received a body from Hamas via the Red Cross in Gaza, the Prime Minister’s Office said, after the Palestinian group reported it had found the remains of an Israeli hostage to be handed over. The office confirmed the body was that of Staff Sergeant Itay Chen following an identification process.
Hamas said it had found the body of a hostage who had been held by Palestinian militants in Shejaia, an eastern suburb of Gaza City in an area still occupied by Israeli forces, after Israel granted access to the location for teams from Hamas and the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Under a ceasefire deal that took effect on October 10, Hamas turned over all 20 living hostages held in Gaza in return for nearly 2,000 Palestinian convicts and wartime detainees held in Israel. Hamas also promised to turn over the remains of deceased hostages but says Gaza’s war devastation has made locating bodies difficult. Israel accuses Hamas of stalling.
Including Chen, Hamas has returned 21 of the 28 bodies of hostages that were buried in Gaza. In return, Israel handed over 270 bodies of Palestinians it had killed since the war began in October 2023, Gaza health authorities said.
Hamas-led militants killed 1,200 people and took 251 hostages in their cross-border attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, according to Israeli tallies. Israel’s retaliatory offensive in the Gaza Strip killed over 68,000 Palestinians, health officials in the enclave say.
Chen was serving as a soldier when Hamas carried out the surprise rampage through southern Israeli towns and military bases.
The US-brokered ceasefire has broadly held through repeated incidents of violence. Palestinian health authorities say Israeli forces have killed 239 people in strikes since the truce took effect, nearly half of them in a single day last week when Israel retaliated for a militant attack on its troops.
Israel says three of its soldiers have been killed and it has targeted scores of militants it says have approached lines behind which Israeli troops have withdrawn under the truce.
Earlier on Tuesday, Gaza health authorities said Israeli fire killed a man in Jabalia in northern Gaza. Israel’s military said it killed a “terrorist” who crossed into areas the army continues to occupy and posed an imminent threat.