Five teens identified among seven bodies found on property of convicted Oklahoma rapist - The Independent

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Seven people found dead on a convicted sex offender’s property in rural Oklahoma have now been identified, albeit not officially.

Authorities in Henryetta, a town 90 miles east of Oklahoma City, made the gruesome discovery on Monday morning after 39-year-old Jesse McFadden failed to show up in court to stand a jury trial on charges of soliciting sexual conduct with a minor and possession of child pornography.

On Monday evening, authorities said they believe McFadden, 14-year-old Ivy Webster and 15-year-old Brittany Brewer were among the deceased, ahead of official confirmation by a medical examiner.

On Tuesday, a relative of the other four victims revealed their identities. Janette Mayo, 59, told the Associated Press that the Okmulgee County Sheriff’s Office notified her about the deaths of her daughter, Holly Guess, 35, and her grandchildren, Rylee Elizabeth Allen, 17, Michael James Mayo, 15, and Tiffany Dore Guess, 13.

In a Facebook post, Ms Mayo said that her daughter was married to McFadden. Authorities have not confirmed a cause of death for the seven victims, but Ms Mayo said they were shot at various locations across McFadden’s property.

“My daughter loved her children and yes she married the man who killed them but she was fooled by his charm,” Ms Mayo wrote. “I hurt just like the other families but he took my world from me. My grandchildren and my daughter. I have a hole in my heart ...”

Ms Mayo described Ivy as a “sweet girl,” and said she didn’t have the chance to meet Brittany.

“I really didn’t know Brittany but she must have been a sweet girl for my Tiffany to care for her,” the grieving grandmother wrote. “My prayers are there for both of the other families. I just ask that people remember my family as well, and that they had names too.”

Judy White-Allen, the grandmother of victims Rylee and Michael, also confirmed their deaths to The Independent on Tuesday.

“All I can tell you is my kids are hurting,” she said. “My son lost his daughter and son. My other kids lost their niece and nephew. My other grand kids lost their cousins. Rylee and Michael have four other siblings that will never know them.

“Holly was a great mother. She had a big heart.”

Ms White-Allen added that she doesn’t have “all the details or information” on what happened.

Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation spokesperson Gerald Davidson said his agency will not officially release the identity of the victims until results from the medical examiner’s office are back.

An Amber alert was issued early on Monday after Ivy and Brittany failed to return to their homes on Sunday, as they had planned. The advisory was cancelled on Monday afternoon by the Oklahoma Highway Patrol.

The two teens were last seen at around 1.30am on Monday travelling with McFadden in a white Chevrolet pickup. McFadden, who was convicted of first-degree rape in 2003 and released in October 2020, was on the state’s sex offender registry

In an interview with told KOTV, Brittany’s father Nathan Brewer said she had visited McFadden’s home several times before, and that he was not aware he had been convicted of rape in the past.

“Brittany was an outgoing person. She was actually selected to be Miss Henryetta ... coming up in July for this Miss National Miss pageant in Tulsa. And now she ain’t gonna make it because she’s dead. She’s gone,” Mr Brewer said.

At a Monday night vigil, Mr Brewer told hundreds of people that the circumstances surrounding his daughter’s death “are just a parent’s worst nightmare, and I’m living it.” He said Brittany had aspired to be a teacher or a veterinarian.

Henryetta Public Schools also posted on Facebook and its website that it is grieving over the loss of several of its students.

At this time we are all grieving over the tragedy of the loss of several of our students,” the statement said. “Our hearts are hurting, and we have considered what would be best for our students in the coming days.”

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2023-05-02 20:40:54Z
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Khartoum hospitals being hit as Sudan fighting intensifies - The Guardian

Fierce street fighting, including the use of heavy weaponry and artillery fire, has consumed central Khartoum as worsening violence tests a deteriorating ceasefire.

Volleys of airstrikes and sounds of gunfire were audible in Khartoum’s twin city, Omdurman, overnight as clashes raged throughout the capital, and were particularly heavy in areas around major government and military infrastructure in the city centre.

Hospitals increasingly reported strikes on their premises, and an airstrike on an area outside East Nile hospital in north Khartoum killed at least three tea vendors as well as a child, leaving behind only a crater.

The Rapid Support Forces, a paramilitary group that has sought shelter in densely populated urban areas of the capital, blamed the Sudanese Armed Forces for violating the ceasefire with strikes on factories and medical facilities, including the East Nile hospital, where it said dozens of civilians were killed and injured.

The SAF, led by the country’s de facto leader, Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, claimed the RSF infiltrated the homes of soldiers and detained their families.

Both parties have said they are open to sending negotiators for talks in Saudi Arabia, with discussions limited initially to how to enforce a ceasefire amid fighting that has left more than 500 people dead. The true number of casualties is unknown as most hospitals are unable to function fully; a medical union described piles of bodies left in the streets as fighting continued around them.

On Tuesday, the two sides said they had agreed to a new seven-day ceasefire, even as more airstrikes and shooting shook the capital despite the supposed truce.

Despite pressure to quell the violence as the two groups fought for control of the capital, civilians remained caught in the crossfire. There was little suggestion that either the SAF or the RSF would allow anyone representing the Sudanese populace to attend negotiations.

Ahmed Al-Mufti, a longtime human rights advocate based in Omdurman, said: “I think these negotiations will be difficult. But there needs to be a ceasefire as citizens are suffering so much, they need a permanent ceasefire to get life back to normal.”

He believed that any peace negotiations should build on discussions that took place before the fighting began, concerning the transfer of power to a civilian government, and resolve any previous issues. Burhan and his RSF rival, Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, have shown an unwillingness to transfer power to civilian elements in Sudan’s political system, and collaborated on an October 2021 military coup.

The two warring military factions agreed to a new and longer seven-day ceasefire from Thursday, said South Sudan, which is mediating, even as more violence undercut their latest supposed truce. A partial and deteriorating ceasefire has been renewed multiple times since the fighting began.

As battles raged across the capital and the Darfur region, civil society increasingly stepped in to help people. A coalition of unions and civil society groups founded an umbrella group, the Civil Front to Stop the War and Restore Democracy, demanding an immediate end to the fighting, a return to the political process towards civilian rule, an end to military rule, and an overhaul of the security sector.

Hatim Elyas, who co-founded the Popular Initiative to Stop the War in Sudan, expressed his disappointment with how western governments and international organisations had responded to the outbreak of violence.

“We felt that the international community’s slow response to the crisis in Sudan is a worrying sign. They used to be supportive of the political transition and allocated resources for it, but no, they just left,” he said. “When they pulled out their diplomats, they sent a message to the people of Sudan. We are disappointed by their attitude, especially after their Hollywood-style evacuations of their citizens from Sudan.”

In the absence of a functioning government, Sudanese civil resistance committees – localised political groups integral to the 2019 uprising that ended the reign of the former dictator Omar al-Bashir – were helping trapped civilians by distributing vital goods.

Basil Omer, 34, a lab technician and member of one local resistance committee in the Manshiya neighbourhood of central Khartoum, explained how the team helped to locate and bury the dead.

“Today we were told about a body in an apartment in Al-Riyadh neighbourhood, people knew about it from the smell. Normally we take photos and try to take a DNA sample, because putting bodies at the morgue is impossible at the moment, they need to be buried quickly. So taking a photo helps their relatives to know about them in future,” he said.

Omer also described how he helped to transport water to his parents’ neighbourhood in Khartoum North. “We use big tankers to get drinking water from Halfaiya neighbourhood where they have wells, though their water isn’t as sweet as in our part of town,” he said. “We also try to find those who have solar electricity at homes to help each other to charge phones so they will be able to speak with their loved ones.”

Mufti said people in areas outside Khartoum had begun sharing their details and inviting displaced people to seek safety with them. “I think it’s most positive what’s happening. People are really afraid of the fighting and some are trying to flee, but it’s clear they can receive support from these people. It’s a very welcoming atmosphere, this will help citizens more than anything,” he said.

“I’m constantly receiving messages like this, saying ‘please come to our area and we’ll feed and accommodate you’. It’s wonderful, we haven’t seen anything like this before.”

He added: “The citizens really are the victims of this fighting. But there’s social support, even as they suffer more and more.”

Former diplomats admitted that Sudanese civilians were previously ignored amid the international community’s willingness to deal with the two generals who have now turned on one another.

Alexander Rondos, a former EU special representative for the Horn of Africa, told CNN: “We need to ask ourselves whether, early on, were we in too much of a hurry to find a solution which we thought was pragmatic, but actually tilted towards those who controlled all the money and the weapons – and that the civilians gradually got squeezed out. So that’s a lesson we’ve got to learn.”

The UK Foreign Office minister for development and Africa, Andrew Mitchell, told MPs that the humanitarian consequences for Sudan would be unconscionable if a long-term ceasefire was not agreed.

The British foreign secretary, James Cleverly, hailed the UK airlift of its nationals and others as the longest and largest of any western nation. A total of 2,300 people were evacuated by air, Cleverly told MPs.

Asked if all 24 Sudanese doctors normally resident in the UK and working for the NHS had been given safe passage back to Britain on RAF flights, he said 22 had. The Home Office had initially debarred them from the flights on the grounds that they were not UK nationals.

Late on Tuesday, the UK said British nationals who wanted to leave Sudan should go to Port Sudan, from where additional flights are expected to leave the country on Wednesday.

“British nationals still wishing to leave the country should go to the Coral hotel in Port Sudan by 10.00 Sudan time [on Wednesday],” the government said.

Additional reporting by Patrick Wintour

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2023-05-02 19:58:00Z
1969424807

Sudan crisis: Civilians facing catastrophe as 100,000 flee fighting - UN - BBC

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By Farouk Chothia in London & Imogen Foulkes in Geneva

BBC News

More than 100,000 people have fled Sudan since heavy fighting broke out between rival forces on 15 April, the UN has said.

Officials warned of a "full-blown catastrophe" if fighting does not end.

A further 334,000 people have been displaced within Sudan.

Fighting is continuing in the capital, Khartoum, between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), despite a ceasefire due to be in force.

Diplomatic efforts are being stepped up to try and get the warring parties to the negotiating table.

On Tuesday, South Sudan's foreign ministry said the army and RSF had agreed "in principle" to a new seven-day truce from 4 May, and had promised to send representatives to talks.

Its statement came a day after the UN special envoy to Sudan, Volker Perthes, told the AP news agency that the two sides had agreed to negotiate a "stable and reliable" ceasefire.

Saudi Arabia was a potential venue for the talks, he added.

If talks take place, it would be the first meeting between the two sides since the conflict started.

• Evacuation is almost over, says UK foreign secretary

More than 500 people have been killed and more than 4,000 have been wounded in the fighting, according to Sudan's health ministry.

A series of temporary ceasefires have failed to hold, with the military continuing to pound Khartoum with air strikes in a bid to weaken the RSF.

The paramilitary group said it shot down a MiG fighter jet over the city, but there is no independent confirmation of the claim.

Heaving fighting has also taken place in Darfur in western Sudan.

UN refugee agency spokeswoman Olga Sarrado told reporters in Geneva that the 100,000 total included people from Sudan, South Sudanese citizens returning home, and people who were already refugees within Sudan fleeing the fighting.

Refugees have also been fleeing over Sudan's border with Egypt in the north and Chad in the west.

Most European states have completed the evacuation of their nationals, but Russia said on Tuesday that it was sending four military planes to fly out more than 200 people - including its nationals and those from "friendly countries" - from Sudan.

In Khartoum, food, water and electricity are running out, but desperately needed aid supplies - shipped by the UN into Port Sudan - are being warehoused because of the violence. Meanwhile, widespread looting means there is no safe way to deliver them.

World Health Organization (WHO) regional director Ahmed al-Mandhari said that health facilities have come under attack in Khartoum, and some are being used as military bases.

"Up to now there were around 26 reported attacks on healthcare facilities. Some of these attacks resulted in the death of healthcare workers and civilians in these hospitals," he told the BBC.

"Also you know some of these hospitals are used as military bases and they have thrown the staff, they have thrown patients out of these healthcare facilities," he added.

On Monday, the UN's Humanitarian Coordinator in Sudan, Abdou Dieng, said that more than two weeks of devastating fighting risked turning the country's humanitarian crisis into a "full blown catastrophe".

"Even before the current crisis, one-third of Sudan's population, nearly 16 million people, already needed humanitarian aid. Some 3.7 million people were already internally displaced, mostly in Darfur," he said.

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2023-05-02 15:07:45Z
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Khartoum hospitals being hit as Sudan fighting intensifies - The Guardian

Fierce street fighting, including the use of heavy weaponry and artillery fire, has consumed central Khartoum as worsening violence tests a deteriorating ceasefire.

Volleys of airstrikes and sounds of gunfire were audible in Khartoum’s twin city, Omdurman, overnight as clashes raged throughout the capital, and were particularly heavy in areas around major government and military infrastructure in the city centre.

Hospitals increasingly reported strikes on their premises, and an airstrike on the area outside East Nile hospital in north Khartoum killed at least three tea vendors as well as a child, leaving behind only a crater.

The Rapid Support Forces, a paramilitary group that has sought shelter in densely populated urban areas of the capital, blamed the Sudanese Armed Forces for violating the ceasefire with strikes on factories and medical facilities, including the East Nile hospital, where they said dozens of civilians were killed and injured.

The SAF, led by the country’s de-facto leader, Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, claimed the RSF infiltrated the homes of soldiers and detained their families.

Both parties have said they are open to sending negotiators for talks in Saudi Arabia, with discussions limited initially to how to enforce a ceasefire amid fighting that has left more than 500 dead. The true number of casualties is unknown as most hospitals are unable to function fully, while a medical union described piles of bodies left in the streets as fighting continued around them.

Despite pressure to quell the violence as the two groups fought for control of the capital, civilians remained caught in the crossfire. There was little suggestion that either the SAF or the RSF would allow anyone representing the Sudanese populace to attend negotiations.

Ahmed Al-Mufti, a longtime human rights advocate based in Omdurman, said: “I think these negotiations will be difficult. But there needs to be a ceasefire as citizens are suffering so much, they need a permanent ceasefire to get life back to normal.”

The rights activist believed any peace negotiations should build on discussions that took place before the fighting began, concerning the transfer of power to a civilian government. Burhan and his RSF rival, Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, have shown an unwillingness to transfer power to civilian elements in Sudan’s political system, including collaborating on an October 2021 military coup.

The two warring military factions agreed to a new and longer seven-day ceasefire from Thursday, neighbour and mediator South Sudan said, even as more violence undercut their latest supposed truce. A a partial and deteriorating ceasefire has been renewed multiple times since the fighting began.

As battles raged across the capital and the Darfur region, civil society increasingly stepped in to help people. A coalition of unions and civil society groups founded an umbrella group, the Civil Front to Stop the War and Restore Democracy, demanding an immediate end to the fighting, a return to the political process towards civilian rule, an end to military rule, and security sector overhaul.

Hatim Elyas, who co-founded the Popular Initiative to Stop the War in Sudan, expressed his disappointment with how western governments and international organisations had responded to the outbreak of violence.

“We felt that the international community’s slow response to the crisis in Sudan is a worrying sign, he said. “They used to be supportive of the political transition and allocated resources for it, but no, they just left,” he said.

“When they pulled out their diplomats, they sent a message to the people of Sudan. We are disappointed by their attitude, especially after their Hollywood-style evacuations of their citizens from Sudan.”

In the absence of a functioning government, Sudanese civil resistance committees – localised political groups integral to the 2019 uprising that ended the reign of the former dictator Omar al-Bashir – were also helping trapped civilians by distributing vital goods.

Basil Omer, a 34-year-old lab technician and member of one local resistance committee in the Manshiya neighbourhood of central Khartoum, explained how their team helped to locate and bury the dead.

“Today we were told about a body in an apartment in Al-Riyadh neighbourhood, people new about it from the smell. Normally we take photos and try to take a DNA sample, because putting bodies at the morgue is impossible at the moment, they need to be buried quickly. So taking a photo helps their relatives to know about them in future.”

Omer described how he helps to transport water to his parents’ neighbourhood in Khartoum North. “We use big tankers to get drinking water from Halfaiya neighbourhood where they have wells, though their water isn’t as sweet as in our part of town,” he said.

He added: “We also try to find those who have solar electricity at homes to help each other to charge phones so they will be able to speak with their loved ones.”

Mufti said people in areas outside Khartoum had begun sharing their details and inviting displaced people to seek safety with them.

“I think it’s most positive what’s happening. People are really afraid of the fighting and some are trying to flee, but it’s clear they can receive support from these people. It’s a very welcoming atmosphere, this will help citizens more than anything.

“I’m constantly receiving messages like this, saying: ‘Please come to our area and we’ll feed and accommodate you’. It’s wonderful; we haven’t seen anything like this before.”

He added: “The citizens really are the victims of this fighting. But there’s social support, even as they suffer more and more.”

Former diplomats admitted that Sudanese civilians were previously ignored amid the international community’s willingness to deal with the two generals who have now turned on one another.

Alexander Rondos, a former EU special representative for the Horn of Africa, told CNN: “We need to ask ourselves whether, early on, were we in too much of a hurry to find a solution which we thought was pragmatic, but actually tilted towards those who controlled all the money and the weapons – and that the civilians gradually got squeezed out. So that’s a lesson we’ve got to learn.”

The UK Foreign Office minister for development and Africa, Andrew Mitchell, told MPs that the humanitarian consequences for Sudan would be unconscionable if a long-term ceasefire was not agreed.

The British foreign secretary, James Cleverly, hailed the UK airlift of its nationals and others as the longest and largest of any western nation. A total of 2,300 people were evacuated by air, Cleverly told MPs.

Asked if all 24 Sudanese doctors normally resident in the UK and working for the NHS had been given safe passage back to Britain on RAF flights, he said 22 had. The Home Office had initially debarred them from the flights on the grounds they were not UK nationals.

Additional reporting by Patrick Wintour

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2023-05-02 17:12:00Z
1969424807

Khartoum hospitals being hit as Sudan fighting intensifies - The Guardian

Fierce street fighting, including the use of heavy weaponry and artillery fire, has consumed centralKhartoum as worsening violence tests a deteriorating ceasefire.

Volleys of airstrikes and sounds of gunfire were audible in Khartoum’s twin city, Omdurman, overnight as clashes raged throughout the capital, and were particularly heavy in areas around major government and military infrastructure in the city centre.

Hospitals increasingly reported strikes on their premises, and an airstrike on the area outside East Nile hospital in north Khartoum killed at least three tea vendors as well as a child, leaving behind only a crater.

The Rapid Support Forces, a paramilitary group who have sought shelter in densely populated urban areas of the capital, blamed the Sudanese Armed Forces for violating the ceasefire with strikes on factories and medical facilities, including the East Nile hospital, where they said dozens of civilians were killed and injured.

The SAF, led by the country’s de-facto leader, Gen Abdel Fatah al-Burhan, claimed the RSF infiltrated the homes of soldiers and detained their families.

Both parties have said they are open to sending negotiators for talks in Saudi Arabia, with discussions limited initially to how to enforce a ceasefire amid fighting that has left more than 500 dead. The true number of casualties is unknown as most hospitals are unable to function fully, while a medical union described piles of bodies left in the streets as fighting continued around them.

Despite pressure to quell the violence as the two groups fought for control of the capital, civilians remained caught in the crossfire. There was little suggestion that either the SAF or the RSF would allow anyone representing the Sudanese populace to attend negotiations.

Ahmed Al-Mufti, a longtime human rights advocate based in Omdurman, said: “I think these negotiations will be difficult. But there needs to be a ceasefire as citizens are suffering so much, they need a permanent ceasefire to get life back to normal.”

Mufti said he believed any peace negotiations should build on discussions that took place before the fighting began, concerning the transfer of power to a civilian government. Burhan and his RSF rival, Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, have shown an unwillingness to transfer power to civilian elements in Sudan’s political system, including collaborating on an October 2021 military coup.

Mufti said: “The ceasefire should be discussed within the context of the political framework agreed before, and to build on what was previously agreed upon. Unless the discussion is based on what was agreed on before, and each party’s reservations – these were the reason for this conflict, that some political forces wanted to impose on the others, and it’s not democratic.”

As battles raged across the capital and the Darfur region, civil society increasingly stepped in to help people. A coalition of unions and civil society groups founded an umbrella group, the Civil Front to Stop the War and Restore Democracy, demanding an immediate end to the fighting, a return to the political process towards civilian rule, an end to military rule, and security sector overhaul.

Sudanese civil resistance committees – localised political groups integral to the 2019 uprising that ended the reign of the former dictator Omar al-Bashir – were helping trapped civilians by distributing vital goods.

Mufti said people in areas outside Khartoum had begun sharing their details and inviting displaced people to seek safety with them.

“I think it’s most positive what’s happening. People are really afraid of the fighting and some are trying to flee, but it’s clear they can receive support from these people. It’s a very welcoming atmosphere, this will help citizens more than anything.

“I’m constantly receiving messages like this, saying: ‘Please come to our area and we’ll feed and accommodate you’. It’s wonderful; we haven’t seen anything like this before.”

He added: “The citizens really are the victims of this fighting. But there’s social support, even as they suffer more and more.”

Former diplomats admitted that Sudanese civilians were previously ignored amid the international community’s willingness to deal with the two generals who have now turned on one another.

Alexander Rondos, the former EU special representative for the Horn of Africa, told CNN: “We need to ask ourselves whether, early on, were we in too much of a hurry to find a solution which we thought was pragmatic, but actually tilted towards those who controlled all the money and the weapons – and that the civilians gradually got squeezed out. So that’s a lesson we’ve got to learn.”

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2023-05-02 13:02:00Z
1969424807

Sudan crisis: Air strikes hit Khartoum despite truce - BBC

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Air strikes have pounded Sudan's capital, Khartoum, despite a truce aimed at allowing civilians to flee.

The army said it was attacking the city to flush out its paramilitary rivals, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

The fighting intensified even as the warring sides said they would extend the truce by another three days.

More than 500 deaths have been reported with the true number of casualties believed to be much higher. Millions remain trapped in Khartoum.

Army commander Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and RSF chief Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, better known as Hemedti, are vying for power - and disagree in particular about plans to include the RSF into the army.

The generals agreed a humanitarian truce after intensive diplomatic efforts by neighbouring countries, the US, UK and UN. It was extended, but did not hold.

However, it remains unclear on what they will do in the next stage of the deal arrived at with US and Saudi mediation, according to the army.

The country is now in a civil war, says Sudanese businessman and philanthropist Mo Ibrahim, and its conflict must not be allowed to spill over its borders and become regional.

"We don't want another Syria," he told the BBC, adding that it was difficult for either side to win outright.

• Why has fighting broken out in Sudan?
• Chaos at port as thousands rush to leave Sudan
• The two generals fighting over Sudan's future

BBC diplomatic correspondent Paul Adams, who is monitoring events from the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, says the fighting is concentrated mainly in the north of Khartoum, close to the confluence of the Blue and White Niles, but right across the city, people are huddled in their homes, wondering whether it is more dangerous to stay or leave.

The army will find it difficult to expel the RSF from Khartoum - for all the army's superior firepower, the paramilitaries are highly mobile and more suited to urban warfare, our correspondent adds.

Before the announcement of the extension on Sunday, the army said it had conducted operations against RSF troops north of the city centre.

Checkpoint 'gamble'

On Monday, the World Food Programme announced that it was resuming its operations in Sudan, reversing its decision to pull out two weeks ago, after three of its staff were killed when fighting erupted in Khartoum.

AFP via Getty Images

Hamid Khalafallah, from the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy, is one of those unable to flee.

"When there is very loud bombing and it gets closer, we take shelter in the house, try to all come to a central room, far from windows, far from walls, and so on, and just lie on the floor until it passes.

"When it's a bit further, we try to use the quiet hours that we get - a couple of hours a day - to just quickly go out and get what we need which is also very risky but we have to do it," he told BBC Newsday.

Mr Khalafallah said his neighbourhood was dotted with RSF checkpoints, with people risking their lives every time they had to negotiate their way past.

"It's basically a gamble. Sometimes they let you through, sometimes they don't. Sometimes they shoot at you, sometimes they steal your things and it's very random," he added.

Mr Khalafallah said he has not had a "single drop of water" at his home since fighting started on 15 April, and he was getting it from neighbours who had wells at their homes.

The first major aid flight, laden with medical supplies, has arrived in the country.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) says a plane landed at Port Sudan with eight tonnes of relief supplies, including health kits for hospitals.

"With hostilities still ongoing, ICRC teams will need guarantees of safe passage from the parties to the conflict to deliver this material to medical facilities in locations with active fighting, such as Khartoum," a statement said.

More than 70% of health facilities in the capital have been forced to close as a result of the fighting that erupted on 15 April.

Foreign countries have been evacuating their nationals amid the chaos.

The UK government announced on Sunday that it would organise a final evacuation flight on Monday - two days after it said it had ended its operation to bring British nationals out. The Foreign Office (FCDO) advised those wishing to leave to travel to the evacuation point in Port Sudan before 12:00 (10:00 GMT). So far, 2,122 people have been evacuated, the FCDO statement said.

A US-organised convoy has reached Port Sudan to evacuate more US citizens by ship to Jeddah in Saudi Arabia. It said hundreds of Americans had already left, in addition to the diplomats evacuated by air a week ago.

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• Sudan

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2023-05-01 11:37:54Z
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Leak of unknown gas kills 11 in India - Sky News

Eleven people have died after a gas leak in northern India.

The leak happened in an industrial area in the city of Ludhiana, Punjab state.

Rajinder Pal Kaur Chhina, a member of the legislative assembly in Ludhiana, said at least nine people had also been taken to hospital.

A team from the National Disaster Response Force has been sent to the site along with a team of experts to determine the cause and source of the leak, she added.

The densely populated area has been sealed off and residents have been evacuated.

"The incident happened near a milk shop and a doctor's clinic although we cannot say for sure where the leak began," Ms Chhina told Reuters.

"People who came to buy milk in the morning fell unconscious outside."

Three of the bodies had "turned blue", local resident Anjan Kumar said in an ANI news agency video on Twitter.

Ludhiana Deputy Commissioner, Surabhi Malik, told the Press Trust of India news agency it was possible the gas may have spread from manholes.

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"We are going to collect samples from manholes. It is quite likely that some chemical reacted with methane in manholes," she said.

Image: Pic: AP

The state's chief minister, Bhagwant Mann, said the leak came from a factory, tweeting: "All possible help is being provided."

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2023-04-30 15:22:09Z
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