Mali, Afghanistan, Sudan

Today's three stories you should know

Mali

At least 12 truck drivers have been killed in Mali as an al-Qaeda-linked rebel group continues to enforce a blockade in an effort to cripple the economy. Fighters from Jama'at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) attacked a military-escorted convoy of at least 40 fuel trucks, Human Rights Watch said, adding that six drivers were still missing. JNIM is the most powerful armed group in the Sahel’s three-border region, often called the “triangle of insecurity,” where several militias are doing battle with the governments of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger. A military junta took power in Mali in May 2021, saying the coup was necessary to counter the armed groups, but it has so far failed to stem their progress.

More from HRW here.

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Afghanistan

The U.S. has said the level of international aid to Afghanistan needs to be reassessed despite the country going through one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, with more than 17 million people classified as acutely short of food, ‌including 4.7 ⁠million facing emergency levels of hunger. "In light of the Taliban's intransigence, we must ⁠carefully evaluate the utility of international assistance and engagement in Afghanistan,” U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz told a U.N. Security Council meeting. Afghanistan has long relied on foreign aid, but when the Taliban returned to power in 2021, Western nations cut off aid, plunging civilians into poverty and hunger.

More from Reuters here.

Sudan

The Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group deliberately starved the people of el-Fasher in Sudan’s Darfur region as it laid siege to the city for 18 months, a new report has found, backing up a U.N. assessment that acts of genocide were committed. Farming villages were razed to halt crop production, the report, produced by Yale’s Humanitarian Research Lab with NASA’s Harvest program, said. Researchers used satellite imagery and other data to identify 41 agricultural communities attacked by the United Arab Emirates-backed RSF during the first few months of the siege. Sudan’s war erupted in April 2023 when the RSF and its former allies in the military government fell out.

More from Middle East Eye here.