Diplomatic Briefing
Your exclusive news aggregator handpicked daily!Archive for May 1, 2023
Newsline: Nigerian Embassy Staff In Sudan Accused of Extorting $250 From Students For Evacuation
An accusation has been made against some embassy staff in Khartoum. According to Sahara Reporters, two Nigerian students believed to be part of the final set of students stranded in Sudan owing to the ongoing war in the Northeast African country have lamented that they were extorted, in the name of evacuation. Some embassy staff in Khartoum first asked them to pay $150 ($75 each) for their evacuation, which they requested from their families in Nigeria. (https://www.gistmania.com/talk/topic,560908.0.html) On April 29, the Nigerian government provided additional six buses which were sent to the International University of Africa (IUA) in Sudan, where the Nigerian students studying in Khartoum were asked to assemble for evacuation. Meanwhile, some of the buses deployed to transport the stranded students to neighbouring Egypt, from where they would be airlifted to Nigeria, were reportedly hijacked by non-documented Nigerians residing in Sudan. SaharaReporters gathered that undocumented migrants, doing all sorts of menial jobs, stormed the university in large numbers, asking to also be evacuated. They reportedly became aggressive and went inside the buses, insisting that they should be evacuated before the students. Two affected Nigerian sisters told SaharaReporters that some embassy staff in Khartoum first asked them to pay $150 ($75 each) for their evacuation, which they requested from their families in Nigeria. They said on April 29, the staff demanded an additional $100 ($50 each) from both of them to facilitate their evacuation.
Newsline: Jordan to host foreign ministers’ talks on Syria’s return to Arab League
Jordan will host a meeting of Arab foreign ministers and Syria’s top diplomat on Monday to discuss Syria’s return to the Arab League as part of a broader political settlement of Syria’s more than decade-old conflict, officials said. The meeting, to be attended by Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad and his counterparts from Egypt, Iraq and Saudi Arabia, would discuss a Jordanian plan to achieve a political settlement of the conflict, Jordanian government officials said. (https://neuters.de/world/middle-east/jordan-host-talks-syrias-return-arab-league-2023-04-30/) The meeting comes two weeks after talks in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia between the Gulf Cooperation Council, as well as Egypt, Jordan and Iraq, failed to reach agreement on Syria’s possible return to the Arab fold. It is the first such meeting with a top Syrian official by a group of Arab states – most of whom endorsed the move to suspend Syria’s membership of the League in 2011. Arab states and those most affected by the conflict are trying to reach consensus on whether to invite Assad to the Arab League summit on May 19 in Riyadh, to discuss the pace of normalising ties with Assad and on what terms Syria could be allowed back. Officials said the Jordanian initiative calls on Damascus to engage with Arab governments collectively on a step-by-step road map to end the conflict.
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