🧵on #Sudan Multiple friends/colleagues alerted me to intense clashes throughout Khartoum. Many are scared and some said their homes are shaking. My thoughts are with everyone there. In one sense, it is unimaginable what is happening. At the same time, this was predictable. 2/ In the end, the Sudanese army is not a cohesive force and violence often erupts ahead of an expected agreement that aims to dilute the power of belligerent and autocratic players. This has occurred in a number of crises and fragile states, not just #Sudan .

1/Short thread on #Sudan after waking up to worrying reports that the army and RSF could clash following a dispute over the latter's deployment near Merowe airport where Sudan and Egypt have military planes, according to news reports. 2/ Army Spox Nabil Abdullah said that the RSF deploed without coordinating with the military. He then warned that security could collapse unless differences are resolved.

Quick 🧵 on #Syria

US sanctions are hurting people across #Syria. And despite humanitarian exemptions, they have a chilling effect. True.

Also true: US sanctions are not the main reason for why Northwest Syria has hardly any capacity to respond to the quake nor receive aid. 2/By imposing the frame that the west is to blame mainly for the crisis in #Syria , we gaslight Syrians who have been suffering directly from Moscow, Damascus and Tehran. The former two have weaponized aid and systematically bombed hospitals and clinics in opposition areas.

1/ This is a small thread on the the Sudanese Bar Association's draft constitutional proposal, which leaves no role for the military in politics or the economy. #Sudan 2/ This proposal effectively puts an end to talks of a civilian-led transition, which diplomats were calling to restore since October 25 2021 -- the date of the coup.

1/My main issue with the CNN investigation on #Sudan is it reduces the October 25 coup to Russian involvement. This is a serious distortion that could negatively impact policy making. Egypt, the UAE, Saudis and Israel had an outsized influence and/or were complicit in the coup. 2/ That does not mean Russia is not a sizable player. But as journos and analysts, we can't impose a simple framing that treats countries as black boxes, whose fates are dictated by a single external player.

#Sudan , and the circumstances that caused the coup, are more complex.

Short 🧵following this quick explainer on the violence engulfing #Sudan 's Blue Nile.

I believe we should be careful from casually applying the term inter-communal violence since the root causes of conflicts in the peripheries is inherently political.

aljazeera.com/news/2022/7/19… To elaborate, the coup authorities are adhering to a traditional power structure in Sudan, where the peripheries are militarized to extract resources in order to enrich a new elite class ruling in Khartoum.

THREAD on #Sudan : U.S. officials and sources in Khartoum told Foreign Policy that Burhan and Hemeti were wary to hand over power for fear that they could face arrest for committing war crimes—particularly the massacre of nearly 130 civilians protesting Bashir’s rule in June 2019 If this is true, then this validates my reporting and the forecast of Nabil Adeeb, who heads the committee tasked with criminally investigating the massacre on June 3. He told me that the political implications of the probe could lead to mass unrest in the streets or....a coup.

This is a small thread pertaining to my investigation for @newhumanitarian . For the last three months I have been preoccupied with one question: What happens to migrants when they are intercepted by the #EU backed coast guard and returned to #Libya? I discovered that many are going 'missing by the hundreds' and ending up in a labyrinth of unofficial detention centers. In fact, more than half of the 6,200 migrants returned to Libya this year have gone unaccounted for, according to IOM.