Syria, Myanmar, Burkina Faso

Today's three stories you should know

Syria

Thousands of Kurds braved torrential rain in northeastern Syria to protest the expulsion of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) from the city of Aleppo after intense fighting with government forces. The five days of clashes killed at least 23 people, according to the health ministry, in violence that underlined the challenge President Ahmed al-Sharaa faces in uniting a fractured country after 14 years of civil war. The SDF, which is U.S.-backed and was instrumental in defeating ISIS in 2019, controls swathes of the northeast and has so far resisted efforts to integrate its forces into the military.

More from the New Arab here.

Myanmar

Myanmar has dismissed an international court case accusing it of genocide against its mostly Muslim Rohingya minority as “flawed and unfounded.” Judges at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) have begun three weeks of hearings in a case brought before The Hague by Gambia. In a statement published in a state newspaper, Myanmar’s military rulers, who retook power in a coup in 2021, said they were cooperating with the ICJ “in good faith.” A crackdown on Rohingya communities in 2017 sent hundreds of thousands of people fleeing from their homes, and about 1.7 million Rohingya now live in neighboring Bangladesh, where they are crammed into dilapidated refugee camps.

More from Al Jazeera here.

Burkina Faso

A former government minister has been assassinated at her home in Burkina Faso’s capital Ouagadougou, according to the city’s public prosecutor. Yolande Viviane Compaoré was an influential figure in the administration of President Blaise Compaoré, who was overthrown in 2014 before going into exile in Cote d’Ivoire. Officials said there was evidence she had been assaulted and murdered. Last week, the government said it foiled a complex plot to kill the country’s hugely popular military leader Capt. Ibrahim Traoré and other senior officials.

More from the African Press Agency here.