CAIRO (AP) — New fighting rocked Sudan's capital on Thursday with airstrikes and drone attacks in and around Khartoum amid a worsening cholera outbreak, officials said.
Sudan’s military launched an operation in the early hours of Thursday aimed at taking control of areas in the capital that had been in the hands of its enemy, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. Sudanese media reported increased military movements and airstrikes in the districts of Khartoum and Omdurman, the heaviest in the capital area in months.
Mohamed Ibrahim, the health ministry's spokesperson in Khartoum, said in a statement that 4 civilians were killed and 14 others injured in the latest fighting in the Karrari district of the capital.
A military spokesman confirmed the operation was underway, but declined to comment further. The escalation comes as the head of Sudan’s military, Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan is expected to address the United Nations’ General Assembly on Thursday.
Jeremy Laurence, a spokesman for the U.N. human rights office in Geneva, said in a statement to The Associated Press Thursday that at least 78 civilians were killed due to artillery shelling and airstrikes since the beginning of September in the Khartoum area.
“Our immediate concern is for the welfare of civilians, and the likelihood of further displacement and damage to civilian infrastructure," he said.
For months, some of the worst fighting has been in the city of El Fasher, the capital of the North Darfur state. RSF forces have laid siege to the city since May. On Thursday, UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk said that artillery shelling on a market there had killed at least 20 civilians on Sep. 20 and 21.
Meanwhile, the death toll from Sudan’s cholera outbreak jumped by nearly 100 or nearly 20% in only two days, Sudan’s health ministry said Wednesday, in a worrying sign that the disease is spreading more rapidly. A total of 473 people have died from cholera since the country’s rainy season began two months ago, health officials said.
Sudan’s Federal Ministry of Health in a Wednesday update reported on Facebook 14,944 cholera cases across 10 states, with 386 new cases. It said six people died on Tuesday alone in six states.
The majority of cases were reported in Kassala, where UNICEF is collaborating with the ministry and the World Health Organization (WHO) to carry out a second round of the oral cholera vaccination campaign that kicked off last week.
UNICEF delivered 404,000 doses of the vaccine to Sudan on Sep. 9. More vaccination campaigns are expected to be rolled out in other affected states.
Cholera was officially declared an outbreak on August 12 by the health ministry after a new wave of cases was reported starting July 22. The disease is spreading in areas devastated by recent heavy rainfalls and floods, especially in eastern Sudan which sheltered millions of people displaced by the conflict between the Sudanese military and a rival paramilitary group, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
Cholera is a highly contagious disease that causes diarrhea, leading to severe dehydration and could be fatal if not immediately treated, according to WHO. It’s transmitted through the ingestion of contaminated food or water.
Over 900 areas in 11 states have been affected by cholera between June and September 24, with the northern state being the most impacted, according to the ministry.
UNICEF said in a statement last week that an estimated 3.4 million children under the age of five are at high risk of epidemic diseases.
The war in Sudan created environments prone to disease outbreaks, impacting millions of people already experiencing food insecurity and displacement. The country plunged into war in April 2023 after tensions increased between the military and the RSF.
———
AP chief correspondent in Geneva Jamey Keaten contributed to this report.
This grab from video shows smoke rising over Khartoum, Sudan on Thursday Sept. 26, 2024, after Sudan’s military started an operation to take areas of the capital from its rival, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. (AP Photo/Rashed Ahmed)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy huddled with U.S. leaders on Thursday to shore up American support for his country's fight against Russia as the war faces a partisan reckoning in this year's presidential election.
Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for president, has pledged to continue sending military assistance to Ukraine if she's elected. She'll have her own meeting with Zelenskyy after the Ukrainian leader sits down with President Joe Biden, who announced billions of dollars more in missiles, drones, ammunition and other supplies. The weapons include an additional Patriot missile defense battery and a new shipment of glide bombs that can be deployed from Western fighter jets, increasing their strike range.
“The United States will provide Ukraine with the support it needs to win this war,” Biden said in a statement, pledging to ensure that all approved funding is disbursed before he leaves office. He also said he would convene a meeting with other world leaders focused on Ukraine's defense during a visit to Germany next month.
Meanwhile, Zelenskyy's tumultuous relationship with former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, continued to deteriorate this week. Instead of meeting with Zelenskyy, Trump criticized him. As for U.S. support for Ukraine, Trump complained that “we continue to give billions of dollars to a man who refuses to make a deal" to end the war. His message dovetails with Russian propaganda that claims intransigence by Kyiv — not aggression from Moscow — has prolonged the bloodshed.
It's the most politically treacherous landscape that Zelenskyy has encountered in Washington since Russia invaded nearly three years ago. Ukrainian officials are anxious to maintain good relations with whomever becomes the next president of the United States, which is its biggest and most important provider of arms, money and other support.
But the effort risks slipping into the political blender of the presidential campaign, polarizing the discussion around a war that used to be a bipartisan cause célèbre in Washington. About two thirds of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents said the U.S. has a responsibility to help Ukraine, compared with one third of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, according to a Pew Research Center poll conducted in July.
Americans are also split on which presidential candidate would do a better job handling the war. An AP-NORC poll from August found that about one-third of Americans said they trusted Harris more, while a similar share said the same about Trump.
Zelenskyy is expected to present Biden with a plan to push the war toward an endgame that would involve a negotiated settlement with Russia. He's trying to secure leverage before Biden leaves office — including acquiescence to fire long-range Western weapons deeper into Russia — as a hedge against the possibility that American support erodes after the election.
On Thursday, Zelenskyy found some bipartisan support as he visited Capitol Hill, where he was greeted by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
Sen. Lindsay Graham, a South Carolina Republican, said Zelenskyy asked to use long-range weapons, such as British-supplied Storm Shadow missiles or U.S.-made ATACMS, for “maximum benefit to bring (Russian President Vladimir) Putin to the table” and increase Ukraine's negotiating position.
"If we don’t make that fundamental choice this week, I think the outcome for Ukraine is dire,” Graham said.
Administration officials have been skeptical of Zelenskyy's request, believing the weapons could have limited benefits but increase the risk of escalating the conflict. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, said senators gave Zelenskyy advice on how to persuade Biden to loosen restrictions.
Rep. Jim Himes, another Connecticut Democrat and the ranking member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said Zelenskyy wanted “more, faster.”
“He was politely frustrated," Himes said, and specifically requested more Patriot missile defenses as Russia escalates strikes on Ukraine's cities and energy grid before the winter.
Despite support from some Republicans on Capitol Hill, Zelenskyy faces a much more tense situation with Trump. The latest round of sniping started on Sunday, when The New Yorker published an interview with Zelenskyy in which he criticized JD Vance, Trump's running mate, as “too radical” for suggesting that Ukraine needs to give up some territory to end the war. Zelenskyy also dismissed Trump's boasts that he could quickly negotiate a solution, saying “my feeling is that Trump doesn’t really know how to stop the war even if he might think he knows how.”
On the same day, Zelenskyy toured a Pennsylvania factory producing munitions for the war. He was joined by Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro, a top surrogate for Harris, and Republicans criticized the visit as a political stunt in a political battleground state.
House Speaker Mike Johnson demanded that Zelenskyy fire the Ukrainian ambassador to the U.S., alleging that the tour was “designed to help Democrats and is clearly election interference.” The Louisiana Republican didn't attend any of lawmakers' meetings with Zelenskyy on Thursday.
Max Bergmann, director of the Europe, Russia and Eurasia program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said Zelenskyy is in a “no-win situation" where he “can’t even visit a U.S. weapons manufacturer to say thank you without being attacked.”
Zelenskyy's trip to Washington coincides with the annual meeting of the U.N. General Assembly in New York, where the Ukrainian leader spoke on Wednesday. Last week, Trump said he would “probably” meet with Zelenskyy while he was in the U.S., but a senior campaign official said there was never a meeting on the books.
The official, who requested anonymity to discuss private conversations, said Trump had told Zelenskyy back in July that it would probably be better not to sit down together until after the election. A Zelenskyy aide did not respond to questions about the potential meeting.
Trump was impeached during his first term over asking Zelenskyy for help investigating Biden, then a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, at a time when the Ukrainian leader was seeking support from Washington.
Now there are fears that Trump would cut off or add strings to U.S. military assistance if he returned to the White House. Trump has also spoken admiringly about Putin, and this week he praised Russia's record of winning wars.
Charles Kupchan, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said Trump is not wrong to want a negotiated end to the war. However, he said, Trump risks undermining Ukraine by enabling Putin to make more gains on the battlefield.
“Neither Ukraine nor Russia is going to win this war, and the sooner that the parties try to end this, the better," Kupchan said. "Where Trump goes off course, and where Biden and Harris have a much stronger argument, is that we get to that point not by throwing Ukraine under the bus but by giving them sufficient support so they can block further Russian aggression.”
Zelenskyy can expect a far different tone from Harris, who met with him in Munich just days before Russia invaded.
During her debate with Trump earlier this month, Harris expressed pride in U.S. support for Ukraine's “righteous defense."
“If Donald Trump were president, Putin would be sitting in Kyiv right now,” she said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, center, walks with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., left, and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., as he arrives for a briefing with lawmakers about the war effort against Russia, at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, center, gestures with his hand over his heart after a closed meeting with lawmakers in the House of Representatives about the war effort against Russia, at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, center, walks with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., left, and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., as he arrives for a briefing with lawmakers about the war effort against Russia, at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
President Joe Biden speaks at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris addresses the Economic Club of Pittsburgh on the Carnegie Mellon University campus in Pittsburgh, Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy arrives to address the 79th session of the United Nations General Assembly, Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2024, at the UN headquarters. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
Zelenskyy is visiting the White House as a partisan divide grows over Ukraine war
Zelenskyy is visiting the White House as a partisan divide grows over Ukraine war
