Fighters from Sudans paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have broken into an animal sanctuary on the outskirts of Khartoum, shooting and taking away one camel and two gazelles, the sanctuary's manager told Middle East Eye. 

Mansour Babiker Hamid, the chief executive of Sudan Animal Rescue, said this was the second time the RSF had stormed the zoo in the last week, stealing animals for meat and leaving the remaining staff terrified.

There are four workers at the zoo right now, Hamid told MEE. Yesterday I spoke to one of them, Santino, who told me the RSF had attacked one of the camels in the zoo in order to eat it. The camel was shot and taken with them, he said. 

The day before, a different group stormed the zoo, assaulted two deer and took them away to eat, Hamid said. The camel that was shot was a calf and was with its mother at the time. Two gazelles were also taken.

Sudan Animal Rescue is 35km from the centre of Khartoum, Sudans capital. It houses 26 lions and five hyenas, as well as different types of wild cat, ostriches and birds, monkeys and reptiles, according to Hamid, who spoke to MEE on the phone.

When Mahmoud Abeed left Egypt in 2018, he thought he would finally be safe in Sudans capital Khartoum. 

The 29-year-old fled Egypt in 2013, after participating in protests against a coup led by General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi that ousted the then president Mohammed Morsi. 

After seeing his colleagues and friends get arrested in the crackdown on protesters, and hearing of a friend die after being tortured in a detention centre, he decided to flee to neighbouring Sudan, despite not having a passport. 

However, Abeed was forced to uproot his life again in April this year, when armed conflict broke out in Sudan. 

Now, the activist is just one of many exiled dissidents who feel that their life is under threat and that they could be deported back to Egypt, where they face life imprisonment. 

Fear of being deported 

While living in Sudan, Abeed was able to work in agriculture and had established his own business.

He had established himself, and started to feel a sense of security, but the vicious war between the...

Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani has met with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Damascus in the first visit by an Iraqi premier to the country since 2011.

The two discussed a range of issues including the security of their shared 600km border and mitigating the impact of drought.

They also agreed to enhance cooperation to reduce drug smuggling.

"I welcome the Iraqi prime minister on this visit, the importance of which comes from the nature of the deep relationship between the two brotherly peoples," said Assad, speaking at the joint press conference.

"This visit is important to take practical steps to strengthen bilateral relations, particularly in light of international circumstances and common challenges, especially the fight against terrorism."

Sudani said Iraq supported the lifting of sanctions on Syria, which have choked the country's economy since the beginning of the civil war in 2011.

Baghdad and Damas...

Sudanese representatives have arrived in Saudi Arabia's Jeddah to resume talks with the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), Sudanese government sources said on Saturday, after three months of fighting between the army and RSF.

Previous talks in Jeddah facilitated by Saudi Arabia and the United States were suspended by both countries in early June after numerous ceasefire violations. Saudi Arabia and the US have yet to confirm the resumption of talks between Sudan's warring factions.

Separately, a mediation attempt launched by Egypt began on Thursday, an effort welcomed both by the Sudanese army, which has close ties to Egypt, and the RSF.

A series of ceasefires have failed to halt the fighting which broke out on 15 April as the army and RSF vied for power. The conflict has seen more than three million people uprooted, including more than 700,000 who have fled to neighbouring countries.

There were new clashes on Saturday in both Omdurman and Bahri, Khartoum's adjoining cities that make up the wider capital, witnesses said.

"If you want to buy something cheap in Sudan," a trader in Omdurman told Middle East Eye, "you just come to the Dagalo markets. Whatever it is."

In a country that has been at war since 15 April, sourcing basic provisions is a day-to-day struggle for most. Buying anything else is a bonus. In this environment, a wave of popular markets has sprung up across Sudan, responding to the shortages brought about by war by selling the stolen profits of war. 

Goods looted by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which is locked in conflict with the Sudanese army, are sold at the markets. And these markets are named after the man who leads the RSF: Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, the general better known as Hemeti.

Smugglers, black market traders, eyewitnesses and victims of looting have told MEE that the Dagalo markets can now be found across the Khartoum metropolitan area, in Kordofan, Darfur and other parts of war-torn Sudan.

Looting has been widespread in Khartoum, which has long been the wealthiest part of Sudan and has, unusually in the country's history, been at the centre of fighting since the war began. Eyewitnesses in the capital and its twin cities Omdurman and Bahri say the looting is being committed by the RSF and criminal gangs.